(“Common Walls” - Sunfish Grove) 0:00

Lauren Toy 0:09

Welcome back to the last episode of Playing Godcast. We hope you know who we are by now, but if you need a reminder, we are your hosts, Lauren Toy and

Rhea Singh 0:22

Rhea Singh,

Lauren Toy 0:22

In the last episode, we discussed where eugenics is present in society today. If you missed it or need a reminder, you can find that episode on our website, playinggodcast.ca.

Rhea Singh 0:37

In this episode, we're going to be reflecting on everything we've learned so far. We hope you find this episode insightful. Here on Playing Godcast.

(“Common Walls” - Sunfish Grove) 0:47

Lauren Toy 1:01

Hi, everyone, welcome back. Today's the day, our last episode

Rhea Singh 1:08

I know. But to conclude the series, we came up with a couple of reflection questions. Lauren, would you like to pick one out from the pile?

Lauren Toy 1:16

I would love to. Okay, did we have any prior knowledge about eugenics?

Rhea Singh 1:22

Good question.

Lauren Toy 1:23

Do you want to go first?

Rhea Singh 1:24

Yeah. So, for me, I had actually heard about eugenics back in grade 11 social studies, where we touched on the Sexual Sterilization laws in Canada and specifically how they were connected to residential schools. But it was really surface-level, and I didn't realize how deep or widespread it was. What about you?

Lauren Toy 1:46

So I actually grew up in Ontario or Toronto, actually, and I only moved to BC for university, and I feel like Ontario or Toronto is very different from British Columbia, obviously not the whole province, because I haven't been around all of it, but between Toronto and Vancouver, since being here, I've definitely noticed a difference in the culture, and I feel like Toronto is very fast paced, and Everything is Go, go, go, and we're always looking ahead and at the future. And it feels like British Columbia moves a lot slower, and there's more time for reflection and looking back and learning. Like, an example would be Remembrance Day and Truth and Reconciliation Day are not statutory holidays in Ontario. So I knew briefly about eugenics and what it was, mostly in terms of the Holocaust, but I had never learned about Canada's history with eugenics before this course, and I think part of the reason for that is Ontario never had eugenic policy like BC, so it's not taught in school. Obviously, I learned about the residential schools, but not about sterilization policies or anything beyond that. And when I think about it, it's really unfortunate, because it's made me realize that my education didn't include something that I believe should be taught throughout Canada.

Rhea Singh 3:24

That's such a good point. And this definitely shows how different provinces handle history and education. And it's like you said, British Columbia had its own sterilization law, and it's something that we can't really ignore here, but in other places, it almost disappears from the narrative. And it's kind of sad how geography decides how much truth we're exposed to. And it makes me wonder how many other parts of Canadian history we just never got to hear about.

Lauren Toy 3:56

Yeah, it's, it's kind of in the same way that I don't know what goes on in Alberta or Saskatchewan, because they don't apply to me, because I'm from the East, but we see the sterilization laws in the two Western provinces. And I actually found that pretty surprising, because I think you could argue that Toronto is the largest city in Canada, and it almost seems like Ontario should have been the leader in all of this. But I also think this brings attention to how ignorant we can be about different issues because they aren't right there in front of us to see, or they don't directly apply to us.

Rhea Singh 4:36

Right? And this ties into our next question, which is, how did learning about eugenics in depth change our understanding of Canadian history?

Lauren Toy 4:45

Honestly, the more I learn about Canada, the more disappointed I am. And it seems like the more I learn about Canadian history, the worse it gets.

Rhea Singh 4:57

Yeah, I totally feel that it's. It’s honestly really eye-opening, because I feel like we grew up with this image of Canada as this peaceful, accepting place, but once you learn about policies like eugenics or residential schools, it really changes that narrative.

Lauren Toy 5:17

Yeah, I agree, and one of the things that I learned growing up in school is that Canada likes to pride itself and differentiate itself from the United States by saying Canada is a mosaic of cultures and the US is a melting pot. But I feel like if you were to look back on Canadian history, it's not very mosaic-like.

Rhea Singh 5:39

Right, and that's a really interesting way to put it, and it just makes me wonder, like, how much more of Canadian history is there to learn about? Is there to uncover? And where am I going to see this? Maybe in future health science courses or even future electives.

Lauren Toy 5:56

I agree. I think future courses would definitely be something to look into, and our next question is, how did this learning experience affect how we view scientific authority and trust in institutions?

Rhea Singh 6:10

Well, we definitely need to learn about these concepts ourselves and not fall blindly into scientific authority. We need to establish our own opinions.

Lauren Toy 6:20

I agree. I think just because something is an authority doesn't mean that they're always right. And I also think that part of being in a position of power and having that authority means being open to scrutiny.

Rhea Singh 6:35

Totally.

Lauren Toy 6:36

And I think when you're in a position of authority. You have to make sure that what you're doing and putting forth isn't harming people. And going back to our previous episodes, the Canadian government has the authority to make policies and is supposed to be doing what's best for the Canadian population. But if we look at the policies that they've had, they were incredibly harmful to certain groups that has had lasting impacts.

Rhea Singh 7:06

For sure, we see this in indigenous populations today, and also being an authority is leading people. You have to be ethical. You can't mislead or misinform people.

Lauren Toy 7:20

That's a really good point. I think we should definitely be very careful with blindly trusting scientific authority, because we've seen how science has been weaponized and used as a cover for racism, classism, ableism, and more. And even in the other Health Science courses I've taken, I believe it was either Health Sciences 204, which was Perspectives on Human Health and the Environment, or Health Sciences 230, which was Evaluating Epidemiological Research. We touched on this idea a little bit. And I believe the term that was used was "hired white coats," where doctors and scientists would be paid to support misleading or harmful ideas and claims that ultimately misled the general population. So I think it's really important that we examine these things ourselves and not just take words at face value. And speaking about forming our own opinions. Our next question is a little bit more personal. How did learning about eugenics make us feel on a personal level, as students, as women and as members of minority communities?

Rhea Singh 8:34

That's a good question. Personally, it was really heavy to learn about, and as a woman of colour, I couldn't stop thinking about how easily people like us would have been targeted.

Lauren Toy 8:46

It was, it was really uncomfortable to learn about, and honestly, it it made me sick. Rhea and I spent hours researching this topic in a little dusty study room in the Student Union Building, and the more that we learned and read, the harder it was to continue, because of how personal it was, not only to us as women, but also as members of minority communities who throughout our lives, have seen and experienced racism and oppression.

Rhea Singh 9:20

I also can't help but think about how these policies were in place during my parents' generations, and it puts into perspective that this actually wasn't that long ago. We like to think of these events as rooted deep in history, when in actuality, it was only about 50 or so years ago.

Lauren Toy 9:39

Yeah, not to, like, expose how old my parents are or anything, but my dad would have been a pre-teen to teen, and my mom would have been like, 10 or 11. So you're definitely right it it wasn't that long ago.

Rhea Singh 9:52

Right!

Lauren Toy 9:53

And another thing for me, personally, that makes this topic really hard to think about is that I personally struggle with mental health, and I have been hospitalized, or, I guess you could say, institutionalized. So if I were to be living in British Columbia at that time, these policies were in effect, I would have likely been sterilized, and in particular, when I think about the Buck v. Bell case and what happened to Carrie Buck, I see similarities between our stories. I was just over a year younger than she was, and everything that happened to her and her decision and the decisions that were made about her sterilization doesn't seem so out of the realm of what could have happened to me. And like I said before, if I really think about it, it's sickening, because I know what it's like to have something imposed on you that you don't want or you don't get a choice in. And I can speak from personal experience, losing that bodily autonomy is incredibly violating and dehumanizing,

Rhea Singh 10:59

right, and I can't even imagine how scary that must be for you to think about that.

Lauren Toy 11:04

It's.... It's really hard for me to even comprehend, because how can you take something away that's a human right, and be okay with that, and not even like, be okay with it, but think that it's like, good, that you're improving the human race.

Rhea Singh 11:21

Right! And especially in terms of things like our reproduction as girls, being a mom, and, you know, having children is such a big part of womanhood for so many women, and so taking that away and some women being sterilized because they weren't good enough or not deserving enough to have children and families like it's, it's really hard to think about that.

Lauren Toy 11:50

Yeah, I agree, especially when we think about how old these individuals were. They're so young. Carrie Buck was 18 years old. I mean, she's, she was younger than we are right now, and Leilani Muir was 14. And these are just two examples of the many cases there are.

Rhea Singh 12:09

And I think this is why it's so disturbing. And it just, it really makes us feel uncomfortable, because we can relate. And it's, it's personal for us.

Lauren Toy 12:19

I also think that, because it's so personal for us as students majoring in Health Sciences, we have to think about these things. We, I mean, we're looking at careers in health and research and the well-being of people and populations, so we need to know these things and take them into account about how we go conduct our research and how we influence things such as health policy.

Rhea Singh 12:46

And even though learning about these cases on a personal level was really disturbing, learning about it on a student level, now I'm not glad to learn about it happening, but I can say that it was really educational and important to learn about, and gave us a new perspective on how we go about our science.

Lauren Toy 13:06

Yeah, and where we want to take science in the future. And this moves into our last question: what did we find challenging about doing this project?

Rhea Singh 13:18

I'm going to be really transparent. I think that there's so much history in both Canadian eugenics and US eugenics that it was really hard to narrow down what we specifically wanted to focus on, and what cases we wanted to focus on, and what we wanted to share and educate ourselves on at the same time.

Lauren Toy 13:39

I think what was really challenging for me was trying to stay neutral and almost see the other side. I think for us, because we are part of these minority populations that were targeted, we have inherent bias, and it's hard to think about how anyone could do this, because I would never think about doing this to someone else, but it is part of Canadian history, and it did happen.

Rhea Singh 14:07

Totally. And in episodes like this Episode and Episode Four, where we got to share our opinions, I can definitely say it was easier for us to come up with what we wanted to say, but in the episodes when we were sharing the history and going into specific case studies, it was difficult, but like Lauren said, we have to look at it from both sides and try our best to provide information that isn't biased, so we get the full picture of what happened from both a positive and negative perspective.

Lauren Toy 14:40

Yeah, and now that we've reflected on this project, I guess what we're taking away and our main message is that eugenics hasn't gone away, it's just evolved.

Rhea Singh 14:52

And so, therefore, it's our job to recognize the way that these ideas show up today and to be conscious of how our actions can reflect these beliefs today, potentially in a less obvious way, so that it doesn't revert back to the past.

Lauren Toy 15:08

Exactly like I mean, you know, everyone says we, we're supposed to learn from history so we don't repeat it.

Rhea Singh 15:14

Exactly.

Lauren Toy 15:16

I think another challenge for us is trying to understand how this could have come about and still be present today, especially with what we learn in class about the distribution of variation, both genotypic and phenotypic.

Rhea Singh 15:33

Right! And Dr Lechner mentions in almost every lecture that we are simultaneously the same, but also uniquely different in our own ways, and eugenics completely disregards that. Because eugenicists thought that certain things were heritable and attributed to certain populations.

Lauren Toy 15:51

That's a really good point. It makes it hard to grasp how some people think they can rank others based on things that they most likely share, and none of us is in a position to play God. So there really is no need for all this judgment.

Rhea Singh 16:09

Exactly, and we know about all this now, and all the information is available. And I think part of the reason why eugenics is around today is people being ignorant of the evidence that we have, and we have a responsibility to inform and continue conversing about eugenics so that people understand how dangerous these ideologies are.

Lauren Toy 16:33

Thank you for listening to the fifth episode of Playing Godcast. If you'd like to reflect on the information we've shared, you can go to playinggodcast.ca and check out our Q and A page, where we have some questions relating to the content we've discussed. Our website also has additional resources to learn more about eugenics and the cases that we've looked at.

Rhea Singh 16:58

We've also included a link to the Native Women's Association of Canada, which is a National Indigenous Organization that aims to advocate against forced sterilization and battles against violated rights by educating and providing access to safe sexual and reproductive health services.

Lauren Toy 17:18

There you'll find more information about forced sterilization and a donation link if you'd like to support their mission.

(“Them Highs and Lows” - Birds of Figment) 17:24

Rhea Singh 17:30

Before we sign off, we just want to say a final thank you to everyone who has listened, learned and reflected with us throughout this series. Your time and curiosity mean a lot, and we hope that these conversations inspire you to continue exploring, learning and engaging with these important ideas beyond this podcast.

Lauren Toy 17:52

Thank you for listening to our series, Playing Godcast. This experience has been incredibly valuable for the both of us, and we hope you have found it as insightful as we have. And remember, like genes, ideas evolve, but it's up to us to decide which ones survive.

(“Them Highs and Lows” - Birds of Figment) 18:34