El-Sayed’s Circumcision Quip Was Too Clever by Half

By Noah Rothman

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

 

You know that a Democrat has done or said something indefensibly asinine when the political press covers the reaction to it with more vigor than the precipitating event. So far, that is what we’ve witnessed in the hours since Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed asked Fox News Channel host Jesse Watters if his penis is intact.

 

The exchange, via Mediaite:

 

“Sex change for minors. Do you support that?” Watters asked at one point.

 

“I just think the government shouldn’t tell you what kind of healthcare you should have,” El-Sayed replied.

 

Watters then pressed him with a more graphic formulation: “So you think it’s OK for a parent to slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off?”

 

El-Sayed fired back: “Do you really want to have this conversation? Are you circumcised?”

 

“Yeah, but I mean that’s a personal question, doctor,” a visibly surprised Watters responded.

 

Watters argued that circumcision is “different than castration,” prompting El-Sayed to reply: “I’m just saying that yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling.”

 

The coverage of these remarks diverted quickly away from them, focusing instead on how the candidate’s political opponents were supposedly fit to be tied over El-Sayed’s failed attempt at cleverness. But the reaction to this story, however entertaining it may be, is not the real story here.

 

Surely, El-Sayed’s revealed confusion over the practice of circumcision and how it is distinct from genital mutilation will do nothing to dispel the allegations of antisemitism swirling around his campaign. More damaging to him, perhaps, is the candidate’s flat-footedness on the controversial issue of youth gender transition therapies and the harm they do.

 

The minimally curious should by now have grappled with the medical literature that finds young people suffering from gender dysphoria do not, on balance, experience positive mental health outcomes as a result of surgical or pharmaceutical interventions. Indeed, their conditions often worsen. El-Sayed and others should be expected to have surveyed the landscape in Europe, where the public health apparatus expresses increasing uncertainty about the value of those interventions.

 

They should recognize, at the very least, the political peril associated with their incuriosity, especially if they’re running for office. It’s not too much to expect candidates to familiarize themselves with the public’s anxieties toward biological males playing in women’s sports or the increasing episodes of violence attributed to gender dysphoric personalities.

 

If El-Sayed had acquainted himself with even the basic contours of the issue, he probably wouldn’t have struck the condescending posture he adopted on Monday night. Instead, he smirked his way through an exhibition of profound ignorance — a display that was not masked by the candidate’s obviously practiced and admittedly expert Barack Obama impression — that conveyed only his contempt for the concerns shared by a majority of Americans, including a plurality of Democrats.

 

“You should want to move on,” said El-Sayed, closing out the interview with the confidence of someone who hadn’t just fumbled the ball on the one-yard line. But anyone who watched the exchange would conclude that it was El-Sayed who was desperate to change the subject.