BREAKING: Several Minneapolis Women Shave Their Balls to Protest ICE in Their City

MINNEAPOLIS — In what organizers are calling “the most committed act of somatic solidarity since the Great Tampon Ear Plug Shortage of 2023,” a small but extremely online contingent of Minneapolis women gathered outside City Hall Saturday morning to publicly shave their testicles in protest of ICE operations in the Twin Cities.

“We felt it was important to put our bodies on the line,” explained 29-year-old Juniper Sage Willowbrook, founder of the newly formed group Balls Out for Brown Folks (BOBF). “I mean, I don’t actually have testicles, but the principle is the same. It’s about showing up for the most marginalized, you know? Even if I have to borrow the anatomy.”

The demonstration, which lasted approximately 17 minutes before the first participant required medical attention for razor burn, featured a variety of techniques ranging from traditional wet-shave to the more avant-garde “dry buzz with positive affirmations.” Several participants livestreamed the event on TikTok under the hashtag #ShaveThePatriarchy, where it quickly amassed 400,000 views and 47 separate community guideline strikes.

Local ICE spokesperson Marisol Vargas issued a brief statement: “We are currently reviewing whether this constitutes a new form of obstruction of justice or simply performance art funded by a Soros-linked GoFundMe. Either way, we remain unmoved.”

City Councilmember and self-described “abolitionist cat mom” Aisha Rahman praised the action as “a powerful deconstruction of cis-heteropatriarchal border enforcement aesthetics,” adding that she would be proposing a resolution to rename the city’s federal building “The No-Balls-Allowed Immigration Processing Center.”

Critics, meanwhile, questioned the efficacy of the protest. “I’m not sure how depilating imaginary scrotums stops deportation flights,” said one visibly confused bystander, “but I guess it’s more effective than the time they glued themselves to the light rail tracks and then complained about the 2 a.m. train schedule.”

Undeterred, the BOBF collective has already announced its next action: “Operation Free the Follicles,” in which participants plan to grow out their armpit hair until ICE agents voluntarily leave the city or until someone finally tells them the Minneapolis City Council already voted 11–1 to declare the city a sanctuary in 2017.

At press time, Juniper Sage Willowbrook was last seen purchasing a fresh pack of five-blade razors and muttering something about “the next level of intersectional epidermal resistance.”