Intersex and the Pro-Birth Movement

US Vice President J.D. Vance has been on a mission to increase birth rates in the United States for years now. At a gathering in 2020, he told a gathered crowd of supporters, “Our people aren’t having enough children to replace themselves. That should bother us.” Even more famously during the campaign last year, he called childless women “childless cat ladies” and derided them as having less value than women who do have children.

Others in and out of the party have become vocal about this pronatalism movement, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that stepmoms are not “real moms,” and Harrison Butker, placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, giving a commencement speech in which he told the women in the crowd, “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

President Trump seems to have taken up the banner of his vice president in this regard. From the beginning of his current term, he’s pushed agendas that benefit families. He and Vance and (while he was still involved with government) Musk loudly decried declining birth rates in the United States.

What about us?

Conveniently left out of this conversation are those of us that CANNOT have children. This includes most intersex people.

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When I was younger, I often envisioned myself as a father. In fact, in my last relationship before meeting my wife, that woman and I even had names chosen. We often talked about our life as parents.

But that was never to be. One part of my particular tapestry of intersex variations is that I dry ejaculate. That is, nothing comes out when I orgasm. Testosterone and motility and all that doesn’t matter when the sperm just cannot find a way out of the body.

I realize that intersex people are far from the only ones who cannot have children, no matter how much we may want to. And we’re being left out of this conversation. We’re being hurt by these remarks, which remind us that we’re different. We’re lacking. We’re deficient in this one regard.

I’ve made peace with my inability to procreate. While my wife and I did discuss other options for us, those weren’t right for us. The ins and outs and whys are between she and I. And that’s the thing: the decision to have children should always be between the parents. No one else. No politician or government agency or professional athlete should have a say in whether other people should have children.

They also don’t get to have an opinion on the matter. It’s just not any of their business.

What am I supposed to do?

What’s my takeaway here? I think it’s simply this: When you hear anyone getting into this pro-birth or pronatalism conversation, remind them that there are people who cannot have children, and that these very conversations can be hurtful to us.

But also, the world is overpopulated with humans. We’re terrible parasites. We can stand to decline in numbers for a while.