This study sought to understand the role that health providers play in the medicalization of female genital cutting (FGC) among the Abagusii community, whose members live primarily in the Kisii, Gucha, and Nyamira districts of Nyanza Province in western Kenya, and among whom the practice continues to be almost universal. In recent years, trained health providers have been replacing traditional practitioners in undertaking FGC. This not only perpetuates the practice, but also violates medical ethics, disregards Ministry of Health policy, and contravenes the Kenyan Children’s Act of 2001. Interviews with service providers and their clients revealed an overwhelming belief that FGC fulfils a traditional cultural obligation among the Abagusii, and that it limits a woman’s sexual desire and confers respect on girls. Interviewees felt that it would be difficult for a girl to get married if she had not been cut; thus FGC also enables the girl’s family to negotiate a better bride price. Girls are now being circumcised at earlier ages, in the belief that younger girls are better able to survive the experience and are easier to convince. The majority of respondents reported that less tissue is cut nowadays and that the procedure is less painful, with local anaesthesia and infection prevention commonly used, and the procedure is often performed within health facilities. Pricking or nicking of the clitoris is a new procedure, carried out mostly by health professionals, and is seen as a symbolic or “psychological” cut.