February 6 is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation or FGM. So today, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and countries around the world will join the official recognition. Twenty-one years ago, African political leaders first declared FGM a global crisis. Eight years ago, President Obama issued a statement on this International Day of Zero Tolerance: “There’s no reason that young girls should suffer [FGM]. Just because this is a tradition in some places does not make it right.” 

President Obama’s moral clarity was important. When Congress outlawed FGM in 1996, they declared that harming a female in this way could not be legally defended as either “tradition” or “standard practice.” 

Today, a different form of “standard practice” threatens vulnerable girls, both within and outside the U.S. The combination of puberty blockers and surgical intervention goes by the misleading label of “gender-affirming care,” but it’s every bit as evil and harmful as FGM. Until it is stopped, this Day of Zero Tolerance will ring hollow.