‘Cal Trans’: Is the State Revisiting its Eugenics Past?

In 1909, California put into place the Asexualization Act, legalizing the sterilization of prison inmates – particularly sex offenders – and the mentally ill.

In 1913, the Act was expanded to allow for the sterilization of people with hereditary insanity or chronic mania.  Interestingly, it also added the need for parental consent if the person was a minor.

Thereafter, the Act’s scope was expanded again, “effectively applying to anyone who we deemed abnormal” and ensured that there “was no legal mechanism for patients to challenge the sterilization order, no written notification required to be sent to the patient of family…”

The state eventually sterilized at least 20,000 people, 14,000 of them between 1921 and 1941 (with higher percentages of women and minorities than of other groups), with the last one occurring in 1963.

This program was imposed by the government as part of the very trendy at the time eugenics movement, which basically posited that letting “bad” people – those who had undesirable traits –  reproduce was bad for society in general.

In fact, California was a leader in both sterilizations and the eugenics movement in general – one-third of all sterilizations conducted in the United States during this time period were done in California and the state was home to the Human Betterment Foundation, one of the most influential (and well-funded) eugenics groups in the country.

The Human Betterment Foundation included the owner of the Los Angeles Times, the chair of CalTech, the president of Stanford, and many notable lawyers, professors, and doctors.  The roster of eugenics supporters was a “murderer’s row” of what are now called influencers and thoughts leaders, just as the boosters of transgenderism are today.

So, with the state government now supporting the latest trendy sterilization fad – transgenderism – is California repeating the same awful mistake it made 10 years ago?

To be clear, the state is not forcing people to become transgender. That, however, may not be able to be said for society, California society in particular, as the difference between societal coercion with government support and government edict has begun to blur.

Not everyone who medicalizes their supposed (in reality, pre-hysteria, it was quite rare) gender dysphoria will become sterile. However, even short of reproductive system operations which are actual and final sterilization procedures, it has become clear that puberty blockers certainly can and hormone treatments very likely will sterilize the patient.

As with eugenics, California is a leader in the nearly-instant medicalization of gender dysphoria. The state demands parents affirm whatever their children say at her risk of losing custody, the state has declared itself a youth trans sanctuary, the state will pay for such procedures, and private insurers by law now must also as well. 

It must be admitted that there is one striking difference between the Asexualization Act and current California transgenderism legislation – the Asexualization Act required parental consent for minor;  California’s current practices actively discourage, if not specifically bar, the need for parental consent.

From a societal point of view, trans is all the rage.  While this does not make it “forced” sterilization (or thereabouts) it can certainly be argued that a level of state-sponsored coercion is at play.

Public schools have become places that celebrate gender diversity, pushing the ideology on youth that may not yet be in a position to critically think about the ramifications.  These “educators” know that it is a serious psychological punishment for children to be isolated from their peers and kids go to great lengths to avoid that from happening, from just parroting the right thing to say or merely mouthing words or lying to get by without being ostracized (by the way, adults do this, too.).

Even if the child does not buy into the program, as it were, it has taught them serious life lessons. First, it’s okay to lie for societal self-preservation; second, never say anything you’re not sure everyone else will agree with, and, third, that it’s much easier to manipulate people than you think.

That these are the lessons being internalized by the youth of today is terrifying and can only benefit the current – and if they get their wish – permanent societal power structure.

Notably, this effort – at such a young age – is an integral part of the “learning” process and an important plank in the California Teachers Association policy positions.  

This aspect – specifically – happened before: “Eugenics was integrated into the curriculum of California’s public schools. Biology, sociology, and home management textbooks all contained the ‘evidence’ supporting the cause.  This, in addition to the propaganda from eugenics societies resulted in overall public support for the movement in California.” (credit – the first link in this article.)

The medical establishment is actively pushing the idea that if you happen to be a sad 15-year-old girl you actually might be a boy and that will fix everything.  And that fits perfectly with thee teens own socially-based self-diagnosis.

And since doctors now “affirm” whatever a 15-year-old says when it comes to gender issues – but not when it comes to anything else like the similarly social media-based outbreak of Tik Tok Tourette’s, and since it makes you cool and since your parents are not really thrilled with it (no matter what they say) and since it’s free and since its reversible (it’s really not) and since the government and teachers and social media influencers all say “go for it!” well, then, why not?

And since -as we all learned during the pandemic – doctors and experts and activists and governments, when working together, never make mistakes, or let any other consideration except the good of the patient factor in the course of any treatment, what could possibly be the problem?

Technically, people are not being forced into gender dysphoria – a la a stay at Patton State followed by a hysterectomy – but the confluence of forces pressuring people – many with underlying mental disorders – is unquestionably causing teens and young adults to at the very least consider the trans option – the only difference between that and California’s Asexualization Act is that that was a law, not a concerted cultural coercion.

Eugenics is based on the lie that you can dictate a better evolutionary path for humans. It is also inherently a violation of practically every medical and cultural ethical standard one can think of.

Transgenderism is based on the lies that person will kill themselves if they are not medicalized immediately and that it is wholly reversible.  It is also a violation of practically every medical and cultural ethical standard that has ever existed, primarily that one does not encourage, let alone allow, let alone participate in the absolutely unnecessary mutilation and sterilization of another human being.

Amazingly, some proponents of transgenderism say opposing the movement is akin to eugenics.

To quote:  “The current youth-focused anti-trans legislative push is about protecting society from undesirable people by suppressing and punishing those people as early as possible, ensuring that future generations aren’t contaminated by their ability to thrive. This should sound very similar to the goals of eugenics movements, which seek to encourage the right people to reproduce while discouraging the wrong sort of people from contaminating others with their inferior genes.”

Actually, that’s wrong.  A lot. It does not resemble it any way as very very few eugenics movements go out of their way to making sure “undesirable” people are able to reproduce.  It seems the author may have confused eugenics with genocide – they do have some of the same letters, after all –  but since either argument is absurd, false, and ideologically driven to create some theoretical equivalency, they would both be just plain rock paper stupid. Oh, and false.

In fact, anti-trans, as the author puts it, legislation is the exact opposite of eugenics. If the legislation were eugenical in nature it would actually encourage sterilization: “Who wants those crazy people to have kids?” would be the eugenics argument.

It should also be noted that the “attacks” on transgenderism do not all come from the rightward side of the political spectrum. Sheila Jeffries, the Australian lesbian feminist scholar and author of “Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism,” stated in her 2012 paper “The transgendering of children: Gender eugenics:”  

The emerging practice of transgendering children should be seen as a form of gender eugenics which has similarities with the practice of sexual surgeries carried out as a result of eugenics ideas in the early twentieth century. In the earlier period those suffering severe poverty, homosexuals, criminals, people with mental health problems and disabilities, and gypsies were sterilized. Presently, in Australia, children as young as 10 who are identified as suffering from ‘gender identity disorder’ are, with the connivance of the Family Court, placed on puberty delaying drugs. These drugs, if they are followed at age 16 with cross-sex hormones, sterilize the children. The similarities between earlier eugenics practices and the transgenderism of the present include the origin of the practices in the ideas of sex scientists, psychiatrists, biologists and endocrinologists, one of the target groups, lesbians and gays, support by ‘progressive’ sections of society, including some on the Left and some feminists.”

Her paper concluded: 

“In the twenty first century, decades after sexual surgeries on the unfit for eugenic, punishment and therapeutic reasons were mostly abandoned, a similar practice is increasingly being carried out on children who are considered to be innately “transgender” because they are disobeying culturally acceptable gender roles. The history of sexual surgeries needs to be connected with this contemporary practice in order to cast a more critical light on what is taking place today.”

Highlighting this very relationship was David Klinghoffer in Evolution News:

“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.”

As with covid, climate change, harm reduction, housing first, misinformation and the list goes on, the trans discussion is yet another horrifying example of how “science” can be politicized and manipulated to serve a specific agenda.

From a piece titled “Dogs Bark, Wolves Howl” on the general current trend of self (with a whole lot of encouragement in the form of free stuff and societal acceptance) infantilization:

They are doing it for themselves and to themselves in order to create a world in which they have no responsibilities yet still remain the center of attention.  If everything is everyone’s fault, then nothing is their fault.

So how did we get to the point that college students – who then graduate and inhabit and mutate the bowels of the bureaucracies of so many of the nation’s institutions, schools, government agencies, and corporations – mandate that they themselves be locked into a societal protective custody cell?  And why have a generation (or two) claimed permanent infant status – cry, sleep, get fed, get someone else to clear up after them (you know what I mean – not talking about leaving the lid off of the paint bucket), and, most importantly, be the automatic center of attention wherever they go?

The is more straightforward than the how and is pretty simple to understand – being an infant, a child, even a teenager (any form of juvenile) is – no matter the bad prom, the acne, the unrequited crush, the awkwardness, the hormones, the bedtimes, the eating of your vegetables –  just soooo much easier than being an adult.  The desire is understandable.

And what is more infantilizing than removing someone’s ability to reproduce?  Maybe allowing someone to do it to themselves.

In the end, it can only be wondered what else California – the national leader – will do in the near future. 

Test third-graders for gender dysphoria: Billy, is your favorite color pink? Bingo – off to the doctor you go!

Hand out puberty blockers – but not aspirin – at the nurse’s office?

Mandate that vape pens can be flavored if and only if they contain inhalable testosterone?

All of that seems a bit silly, but considering what was silly five years ago and is now law one can never be too pessimistic.

Of course the state marketers who would create the inevitable “get it (or them) cut off” public service announcements will know they can’t use the word eugenics so what could be the replacement?

Maybe “theygenics”?

In any event, the experts and thought leaders and activists and politicians who push the current permanently damaging but transitorily popular transgenderism fad will hopefully – a few years from – be treated as the pariahs they should be just as the eugenicists from the past are now.

As for the doctors?  Well, we’ll see…

And as for the victims?  We can only hope.