So there’s a history between you two that I don’t have context for, and maybe I’m just seeing it from too limited an exposure. I’ll acknowledge that.

Yet I still think you’re missing the point. I agree, fgm is generally speaking worse in terms of quantity of harm done. However, at least when I’ve heard the argument, people aren’t making a direct equivalence in terms of harm done. They are saying that the practice of genital mutilation, regardless of gender, violates bodily autonomy in the same way.

This is kind of a shitty analogy so I apologize in advance, but we can think of it like speeding. If someone is going 60 in a 40 zone, that’s reckless endangerment and bad/condemnable. Going 100 in a 40 zone is worse for sure, but it’s ‘bad’ for the same reasons/in the same way. It’s still reckless endangerment, so it’s violating the same moral imperative. In the case of reckless driving it’s an obligation to behave in a way that doesn’t put other lives in an unreasonable amount of danger. In the case of genital mutilation it’s a violation of bodily autonomy and performance of non-medically productive procedures.

Now I know you could say “but sometimes male circumcision IS medically useful.” I know very well, my little brother was circumcised when he was 16 because he had too tight of foreskin. That’s not what we’re talking about here nor in context of the greater conversation, though. We’re talking about the standard practice of genital mutilation at birth, long before the patient has the wherewithal to give consent or even to realize there’s a problem that might need medical attention.

Again, admitting that I lack the context from your previous discussion, it seemed like you were confusing the point of arguments that compare the two. I’ve mostly heard it in the moral context, so that’s the angle I looked at the exchange from.