Optimism is growing that a new Bill in Connecticut will lead to the introduction of a statewide ban against female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C). Thousands of women and girls across the state have undergone or are at risk of this harmful practice. Despite this, Connecticut remains one of just nine U.S. states that still lack state-level legal protections—something advocates hope this legislation will finally change.
Survivors and others from impacted communities, alongside women’s rights advocates and civil society organizations - including the U.S. Network to End FGM/C, Sahiyo, Equality Now, and the Connecticut General Assembly’s Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity, and Opportunity - have long called for state legislation against FGM/C in Connecticut, citing how a law would help those at risk and their families resist cultural and social pressures to continue the practice.
Connecticut legislators have made five unsuccessful attempts to pass a law addressing FGM/C. Proposed bills in 2018, 2020, and 2021 aimed at criminalizing FGM/C or studying its prevalence did not progress beyond the committee stage, while in 2019, a Bill was rejected by the State Senate. In 2024, a drafted Bill failed to even be introduced.
FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION/ CUTTING IN THE UNITED STATES
FGM/C is internationally recognized as a serious human rights violation involving partial or total removal or damage to healthy female genitalia for non-medical reasons. The procedure can lead to numerous immediate and long-term health issues, including severe bleeding which can result in death, chronic infections, psychological trauma, sexual dysfunction, and infertility. FGM/C can also cause childbirth complications and higher maternal and infant mortality rates.
At least 577,000 women and girls in 2019 were estimated to have undergone or be at risk of FGM/C in the U.S., according to the AHA Foundation. While there is some awareness about the practice occurring in some diaspora communities, there is far less recognition of it happening in other communities, including Christian communities in the U.S.
CONNECTICUT’S BILL TO PROHIBIT FGM/C AT THE STATE LEVEL
Connecticut now has the opportunity to ban FGM/C with the 2025 Bill, which has advanced to the second stage of the legislative process for committee review and hearing. If passed, Connecticut will become the 42nd state to criminalize the practice.
While the Bill’s exact language is still pending, previous versions of proposed anti-FGM/C legislation in Connecticut contained best practice provisions such as cross-departmental partnerships to develop and implement prevention and response activities, and education programs to raise awareness about FGM/C’s harms.
Advocates are calling for the Bill to mandate the development of specialized training for healthcare providers, enhanced collaboration between the state and non-governmental organizations, the right for survivors to pursue civil action cases for damages, and delay the start of the statute of limitations until survivors turn 18.
“We are closely monitoring the Bill as it moves through the legislative process and are hopeful that its language will reflect best practice provisions, including creating a civil right of action for survivors,” said Anastasia Law from Equality Now.
“Good legislation in other states incorporates a range of provisions, including robust education and awareness-raising programs, revoking medical licenses from healthcare practitioners who perform FGM/C, mandatory requirements to report FMG/C, and sanctions for “vacation cutting”, which is the practice of arranging for a person to be transported out of the state to undergo FGM/C,” she added.
While parties await the final language to be revealed, the introduction of the Bill marks a crucial step in the right direction.
NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE STATE-LEVEL PROTECTIONS AGAINST FGM/C
Performing FGM/C in the U.S. or taking a girl out of the country for the purpose of being cut is already a federal crime. However, legislation outlawing FGM/C at the state level is crucial because state agencies and officials have far greater capacity than federal authorities to directly assist women and girls.
State laws govern local police, healthcare, social services, criminal justice, and schools. This makes local governments best placed to raise awareness about FGM/C at a community level, provide direct support to survivors and those at risk, and investigate and prosecute cases.
An interactive map by Equality Now and the U.S. End FGM/C Network shares FGM/C legal provisions and gaps in every state. Washington D.C. is the most recent district to pass legislation outlawing the practice, leaving just nine states without state-level legal protection against FGM/C - Connecticut, Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and New Mexico.
In 2023, Equality Now, the U.S. End FGM/C Network, and partners made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, highlighting the U.S.’s failure to protect women and girls within its borders from FGM/C and other human rights violations. The Committee recommended to the U.S. government that its federal legislation - the Stop FGM Act of 2022 (also known as Strengthening the Opposition to Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2020) - should be effectively implemented and states should be encouraged to pass legislation prohibiting all forms of FGM/C.
If passed, Connecticut will join the growing number of states taking a stand against FGM/C and affirming the right of every woman and girl to live free from this form of harm.
Connecticut lawmakers consider new bill to ban female genital mutilation/cutting was originally published by the Associated Press and is shared with permission. Mel Bailey joined Equality Now in 2022 as the Communications Officer for North America at Equality Now.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.