Cutting of genitalia in boys and girls is a debated human rights topic. In the current paper, I first reviewed survey studies on the reasons why parents choose to have such procedures performed on their children. I then examined the nomenclature that medical researchers use to describe these procedures in published articles. The review revealed that medical and non-medical reasons are cited by parents as motivating factors for having their child’s genitals cut, irrespective of sex, with non-medical reasons prominent. The examination of nomenclature revealed that researchers use different terminology when referring to cutting of genitalia depending on the sex of the individual cut. Researchers who publish on the cutting of male genitalia use the words ‘mutilation’ and ‘circumcision’ about 1% and 99% of the time, respectively. In contrast, researchers use the word ‘mutilation’ 62% of the time when referring to cutting of female genitalia. Because both male circumcision and female genital mutilation involve significant alteration of youth genitalia, and social and culture reasons (e.g. religion, tradition, family) are prominent in parents’ decisions for both procedures, the results suggest a gender bias in medical ethics regarding bodily integrity, which manifests itself in different nomenclature used by medical researchers, practitioners, and officials when discussing the procedures. This probable gender bias, in which non-voluntary alteration of genitalia is viewed as unethical when performed on girls but not boys, is consistent with the idea that female victims of violence receive more empathy than male victims of violence (i.e. ‘male gender empathy gap’).Footnote44Footnote–Footnote46,Footnote57Footnote–Footnote59 Unequal application of medical ethics and empathy to boys and men is also consistent with evidence of bias against boys’ and men’s issues within national and international institutions.Footnote48Footnote–Footnote50 More exhaustive discussions and debates on the ethics of ‘male circumcision’ and ‘female genital mutilation’ can be found elsewhere.Footnote23Footnote–Footnote25