"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." Twain / "I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of these contradictions out for myself." Montaigne / "I write because I have found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts." Nietzsche / "Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding." Arendt / "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." Asimov.
Some people are arguing that the removal of mask mandates in hospitals is a form of eugenics. Tamara Taggart, President of Down Syndrome BC, said on "This is Vancolour,"
"This is eugenics, like 100%. So now we don't care about people. . . . All those people are expensive. I mean, it's a harsh thing to say, but it is true. . . . My kid with a disability, he's expensive in the grand scheme of things. A disabled person in the hospital? They're expensive. So why else would we remove masks? Elderly people at long-term care facilities? They're expensive!"
"Our family has learned more about ableism and eugenics throughout this pandemic than we should have. We have witnessed both individuals and institutions shrug as COVID more heavily affects marginalized communities. . . . Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Good Morning America that 'the overwhelming number of deaths of vaccinated individuals, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four co-morbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with and yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron.' This is eugenic. . . . Public health directions are subtly promoting the same thought: It is fine to allow a virus to spread through the population, largely unchecked and unchallenged, because the assumption is that is will only kill certain demographics of people."
And I also used that term originally in the title of a recent post, "At What Point is Inaction a Form of Eugenics??," showing the similarity between our dismissiveness of the disabled and elderly and children now and the experience of gay men with AIDS in the 80s.
But then I changed it. It's not quite eugenics as we think of it now. It's potentially genocidal.
I don't actually care that much about overpopulation, not nearly as much as I care about re-regulating industry with climate a top priority and changing economic policy to decrease inequities, but there's such a frustrating argument I've seen a few times on social media and ranted about it before, but now I've seen a YouTuber with a philosophy background, Abigail Thorn, make the same argument, so I'm compelled to have yet another look at it, just to make sure I'm not missing something. It's this:
"Overpopulation is a myth." And the supporting points? "It's just a fact." The unspoken premise in the video at the link above, which is most frustrating, is this: The suggestion that overpopulation is a problem can lead to a horrifying solution; therefore, there is no problem.
Back in November, 11,000 scientists declared that we need to stabilize or gradually reduce the global population. Since then, I've bumped into a few people, online and in real life, who become absolutely irate at the suggestion that climate change is in any way affected by the growing population on our finite planet. There was an upsurge in vocal opposition to any discussion of population after Jane Goodall recently commented on it at Davos:
"All these [environmental] things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if there was the size of population that there was 500 years ago.”
"Overpopulation is a myth that leads to genocide. If you’re Irish you should know this. The famine was allowed to happen because the Brits thought Ireland was overpopulated. It was seen as a good thing that a million people died, because there were already too many wretched Irish . . . We humans have become so incredibly efficient at producing food. We could feed everyone in the world if we tried. The issue is capitalism. The reason people are starving. The reason people are homeless, choking in toxic city air, unable to drink clean water. IT’S CAPITALISM. It’s so fucking sickening to see this overpopulation bullshit come back up again and again. China had the OCP for years and now they have a wildly unbalanced population. Studies overwhelmingly show that education and economic development cause population to plateau naturally."
I understand gender identity and sexual orientation both as potentially fluid. It's not the case that they can be made to change, so we still need to ban straightenating camps and the like, but that they can sometimes evolve over time. Or, if they're rigid, then it might be the case that our self-awareness evolves over time. Either way...
Sexual orientation isn't a choice. Absolutely. And once we feel safe enough that enough people acknowledge that, we can look at the fluidity of orientation. Sometimes it seems to shift. A person might strongly identify as gay and then meet that one person of the opposite sex that turns their head. It happens. It still doesn't make it a choice. But it is possible for things to move slightly over time. It's always a bit of a gamble to be dogmatic about who we are as stable, immutable beings. I don't think that's as contentious an idea as it once was. So, can we acknowledge that gender identity might also have the potential for fluidity?
I was recently introduced to the notion of gender identity being on a range from high to low intensity, which I find useful as a concept.
Mine is very low, but I understand the importance of identity being recognized by others. I'm an environmentalist, and that part of my identity has a much stronger intensity, which was revealed to me when someone questioned it, as in, "The fact that you don't own a car is meaningless since you've rented cars and have been a passenger in cars. You're obviously not a real environmentalist." That bothered me far more than someone questioning my gender or orientation.
So, it's vital for people to be able to present themselves as they see themselves, however that is. I could get into a whole can of worms about self-identifying as a writer or actor or expert of some field, but that's a story for another day. Being an environmentalist isn't a direct analogy, merely a means to develop empathy. It can be difficult to understand the importance of something we don't feel ourselves. It makes it no less important if we don't understand the experience; strong feelings around gender identity is not just a trend or a means to feel special. We find ways to elicit a similar emotion in ourselves in order to provoke our compassion when it's hard to understand experiences directly.
But. If gender identity is also potentially fluid over time (I don't mean gender fluid as an identity here), then there's a small chance that someone wanting surgery could have some regrets later on. In fact, it seems for some people that banking on surgery actually changing their lives for the better can lead to profound disappointment. Yet children with gender dysphoria can get hormone blockers at 11 or 12, and surgery at 16.
It feels like something we're not supposed to talk about. It's like talking about people who regret having had an abortion. If we acknowledge it, then it could make abortions harder to access, so we don't talk about it too openly even though it's a very real thing. Although it can be a difficult process, with no guarantees, I feel strongly that both should remain a legal, accessible option. For sexual reassignment surgery, regret seems relatively rare. (I can't find any numbers that I feel confident about - that aren't mired in hyperbolic language.) The few who might grieve their old self shouldn't affect the possibility of help for the many.
This is where I turn a corner into different territory. It's the case that people can get gender reassignment surgery at 16 after consistently indicating they have gender dysphoria. This surgery dramatically affects later childbearing possibilities: Although sperm and eggs can be frozen for later use, it's necessary to have further medical interventions to have children. And some people do regret the decision to have the surgery.
BUT. Young adults who feel strongly that they never want to have children can't get surgically sterilized. They too might regret the decision, and if they do, they too could freeze sperm or eggs for later use just in case. It would require further medical intervention later on, but we accept that risk with gender dysphoria. Or, as one young adult told me, "If I have the surgery now, and later on I want kids, then it forces me to adopt. And if it's difficult to adopt an infant here, I'll have to adopt an older child or a child from another country. If I really want a child, I can care for a child that already exists and doesn't have anyone else to care for it."
When children or teenagers say they identify as a different gender than indicated on their birth certificate, we don't question it. We're fully supportive. But when teenagers or young adults in their early 20s say they never want kids, we universally say, "You will when you're older." Is it the case that 16-year-olds are old enough to know who they are, or isn't it?
Or is this a false analogy? It could be the case that it's more likely for people to be sure about their gender than to be sure about their lifestyle. Yet there are teens who really want kids, and we don't warn them that hey might not when they're older, or that they'll be sorry if they have some (even though they certainly might). We want them to wait for financial and maturity reasons, not because we think they could change their minds. We all really lean in the one direction. Teenagers who fit our cultural and evolutionary norms of development are accepted as knowing their preferred future identity as a parent. Teens who don't fit, clearly don't know their own minds. Funny that.
It's hard for us breeders to understand, but we must accept that experience. It might shift over time; it is possible, but we can't make people live today planning their lives on the off-chance that they'll feel dramatically different decades from now.
Here's the thing. We have a serious population problem, as Suzuki explains here:
If we need to curb our population growth, and there are some teenagers and young adults who want to take permanent action to avoid having children, why in the world do we prevent them? Why make them wait until they're well into their 30s? They can get sexual reassignment surgery or an abortion at 16 (not that the two are in any way related), but have to wait two more decades to get a 20-minute, low risk procedure: a tubal ligation or vasectomy. If we care about the future of our species, then we should want to reduce our population. So, we should actually offer a cash incentive to teenagers willing to be sterilized!
This article details some stories of frustration, as does this one, and this one, and this one. We have the choice to get pregnant, to terminate a pregnancy, and to temporarily avoid a pregnancy, but doctors aren't comfortable with a simple permanent solution until we're almost unable to procreate. Get comfortable, already!
