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Eugenics Movement Presents Remarkable Historical Parallels with “Gender-Affirming Care”

Photo source: Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Wesley Smith and Jay Richards had a great conversation for the Humanize podcast on “What Every Parent Should Know About Gender Ideology and Gender-Affirming Care.” Identifying a remarkable historical echo, Dr. Richards says something I hadn’t thought about. Today’s strange trans ideology with its cruel medical interventions, including surgical mutilation, to affirm subjective gender identity bears a strong resemblance to the eugenics movement. The latter is now recognized as a malevolent and abusive force; but like evolution-based pseudoscientific racism, it was hailed in its day as the best and most responsible science, cheered on by the mainstream media, public school teachers, and the government. All that is true of our contemporary transgender ideology. 

There’s more. Endorsed by prestige academic opinion, eugenics focused on surgical sterilization for the “unfit.” Similarly endorsed by prestige opinion, transgender ideology welcomes the surgical removal of genitalia, and even provides “eunuch” as a new possible trans identify. In the case of eugenics, sterilization was coerced, not a matter personal preference. But as Richard also observes, pushing trans theory on vulnerable young children, molding their brains before they’ve reached the age of consent, is hardly giving them a free choice in how they think of gender. In a final parallel, it was religious people who were foremost in opposing the eugenicists and the pseudoscientific racists. John West makes this clear in his documentary Human Zoos (see it below). Today as well, many traditional religious perspectives resist the advances of trans activism. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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age of consentbiologybrainschildreneugenicseunuchevolutionfaithgenitaliagovernmentHumanizeJay RichardsJohn Westmediamedicinemutilationpublic school teachersRacismsterilizationsurgerytransgenderismWesley Smith