David Wilton, ARC Legal Strategist

David Wilton

    David Wilton's interest in genital integrity began in his teens, but did not become full blown activism until 2006 when he attended that year's International Symposium on Circumcision and Human Rights in Seattle, Washington. The same year, it became apparent that the HIV/AIDS industry was anticipating desperate measures, notably circumcision, in prevention technologies. He began the blog Male Circumcision and HIV after studying the issue and concluding that the studies in support were inadequately designed and interpreted, the ethics were left un-examined, and the world outside the US and Africa was largely complacent towards the inevitable human rights problems and deleterious practical effects of mass circumcision campaigns.

    Through the years, David continued his engagement with the issue at the 2008 International Symposium on Circumcision and Human Rights at the University of Keele (UK), and later with a presentation at the 2010 International Symposium on Circumcision and Human Rights in Berkeley on the issue of developing a sustainable blogging model. He's organized a strong presence at the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco every year since 2009 under the sponsorship of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child. He was invited to help staff the NOCIRC booth at the 2010 AAP conference in San Francisco. The following year he ventured internationally to help with outreach efforts on behalf of Intact America at the 2011 International AIDS Conference in Rome, Italy. He's leveraged a strong interest in photography to document the Bay Area Intactivists-organized and MGMBill.org-sponsored presence at Pride San Francisco every year since 2009 and has made the resulting photos and video available for activists and others online.

    David's day job involves helping society's least sympathetic and most reviled as a criminal defense attorney. Since being licensed in both Texas and California, he's worked as an Assistant District Attorney for the 34th Judicial District of Texas and as a Deputy Public Defender in Stanislaus County, California (Modesto) before opening his own office in 2002 in San Francisco. Before entering law school, David worked as an English teacher in Mexico and the US after completing teaching credentials in the UK in 1993 and 1995. His other interests include international relations, journalism and foreign languages.