Just Hoping for a Healthy Baby? That’s Genocide, Bigot.
A leaked memo from the frontline of reproductive orthodoxy, where toe-counting is white supremacy and intent is violence.
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From Occupied Academia: An Ongoing Dispatch
Welcome to From Occupied Academia — a series of field reports from deep inside ideologically captured territory.
We're having a little fun (because if we didn't, …. do we really need to explain?) by documenting the most absurd, ideological, and reality-detached moments coming out of captured corners of academia, psychology, parenting, performing arts, politics, and the helping professions. Think of this as satire-meets-surveillance — a kind of tongue-in-cheek resistance journalism from behind the woke firewall.
Each dispatch is styled like a report from occupied territory. Because… well, it kinda is.
Whether it's a counselor re-educating a client mid-crisis, a university redefining "truth" as a colonial construct, or a textbook suggesting objectivity is violence, you'll find it here — highlighted, decoded, and occasionally wept over.
We’re not here to mock students or even most faculty (well.. maybe a few faculty). We're targeting the system: the dogmas, the bureaucracies, and the unthinking orthodoxies that took over places meant to pursue knowledge and serve the public good.
If you’ve ever read a university memo and wondered if it was parody, you're in the right place.
Let’s take a walk through the rubble — and laugh, just a little, as we chart a course out.
Today’s offering was inspired by this old article from the Washington Post, which has popped back up in the news cycle because apparently, people are still doing this. Lordy.
MINUTES: Parent Collective for Inclusive Birth Justice (PCIBJ)
Date: July 20, 2025
Location: Zoom (in-person meetings remain suspended due to potential microaggressions in hallway interactions)
Facilitator: River (they/feather)
Note-taker: Sage-Moondrop (xe/xyr, currently lactating in resistance)
Agenda Item 1: Birth Announcement Crisis & Emergency Accountability Circle
At 9:02 am, the group convened to address an incident of harmful reproductive speech that occurred in our Slack channel on Tuesday.
🔥 Incident Summary:
Megan R., currently 7.5 months pregnant, shared the following birth hope in #random-joys:
“Just praying for a healthy baby with all their fingers and toes!”
This message caused immediate distress among multiple group members. Comments flooded in within seconds, with reactions including:
“This is deeply ableist.”
“So if your child has six toes, they’re less worthy?”
“Encouraging eugenics under the guise of ‘health’ is STILL genocide, Megan.”
“You need to sit with the violence of that sentence.”
“Fetishizing symmetry = white supremacy.”
Megan attempted to apologize, stating:
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just… I don’t know. I was just nervous and excited and wanted to share.”
This further escalated the situation, as intent is not impact.
Action Taken:
At 9:17 am, a Crisis Inclusion Protocol (CIP) was activated.
Megan was placed on temporary compassionate silence.
An emergency Restorative Accountability Pod was formed (volunteers: Justice-Jade, Pax, Auntie Kiki, and RageBaby42).
A petition was circulated to rename the #random-joys channel to #body-normativity-deprogramming.
A virtual candlelight vigil was held on Clubhouse for all disabled babies erased by Megan’s implied toe supremacism.
Statement from the Collective (as posted to Instagram):
“We believe all bodies are whole. When someone hopes for a ‘healthy baby,’ they perpetuate a worldview that erases disabled existence and centers Eurocentric ideals of function.
Reproductive speech must always be anti-ableist, anti-colonial, and divested from Western anatomy myths.
Babies with 9 fingers are not broken. Babies with no fingers are not warnings. They are the revolution.”
Moving Forward – New Guidelines for Expecting Parents:
All pregnancy announcements and hopes must be submitted to the Language Justice Working Group for approval. Approved phrases include:
“I’m gestating a being of unknowable potential.”
“I look forward to welcoming whatever form of personhood arrives.”
“I hope they choose liberation.”
“I’m carrying the future—and I accept all manifestations of resistance in bodily form.”
Use of phrases such as "normal birth," "healthy," "ten fingers," or "boy or girl" will result in immediate referral to Birth Equity Reeducation Circles (offered Thursdays at 6pm, and Saturdays in ASL).
Closing Reflection:
River (they/feather) offered a moment of communal stillness, during which all members muted themselves and stared gently at a photo of a three-legged stool (symbolizing balance, disability justice, and early childhood Montessori).
In Solidarity and Selective Empathy,
Sage-Moondrop (xe/xyr)
Note-taker, Lactator, Womb Justice Ally, and 2024 Zoloft Scholarship Recipient
Housekeeping
I have finished a rough draft for my Halloween horror story offering. Since I’m getting an early start, I expect I will finish this year. I also have a reading planned with a group of friends, so accountability is built in. I am excited about this one, and I hope I have the time to add the vivid details that should really bring it to life.
Other than that, after some real house cleaning, I’m getting back to working on some whitepapers and finding my way to get my work out to a larger audience. I don’t really know what I’m doing there, but I’m hoping to figure that out. Both to amplify my chances of success at getting legislation passed and to secure the funds I need to continue passed 1 Jan 2026. I’ll be writing more on that come September.
For now, I hope you all enjoy the remainder of your summer. I can feel the coming of fall like a coiled spring.
On the Bookshelf
I’ve listened to text-to-speech on Your Consent is Not Required. I haven’t gotten as far as I would like, but I’ve made progress. It’s tough because what this book documents is appalling, and if we can’t counter some of these measures relatively quickly, the abuse stands to get even worse before it gets better.
Accreditation on the Edge: Challenging Quality Assurance in Higher Education by Susan D. Phillips
The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan
The Licensing Racket: How We Decide Who Is Allowed to Work, and Why It Goes Wrong by Rebecca Haw Allensworth
Moral Calculations: Game Theory, Logic and Human Frailty by Laszlo Mero
The New Know-nothings: The Political Foes of the Scientific Study of Human Nature by Morton Hunt
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard by Marc Brettler, Carol Newsom, Pheme Perkins
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman
We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of the New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi
“Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”: Resistance to Change in Higher Education by Brian Rosenberg
Your Consent Is Not Required by Rob Wipond. ←— READ THIS BOOK!
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About
Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a Clinical Mental Health Counseling master’s degree at the University of Tennessee. What I encountered, however, was a program deeply entrenched in Critical Theories ideology. During my time there, I experienced significant resistance, particularly for my Buddhist practice, which was labeled as invalidating to other identities. After careful reflection, I chose to leave the program, believing the curriculum being taught would ultimately harm clients and lead to unethical practices in the field.
Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to investigating, writing, and speaking out about the troubling direction of psychology, higher education, and other institutions that seem to have lost their way. When I’m not working on these issues, you’ll find me in the garden, creating art, walking my dog, or guiding my kids toward adulthood.
You can also find my work at Minding the Campus
Anyone who uses the term ableist should be shot. No damn exceptions 😆🤣😎🤨
I'll expand a little:
The WAPO article only serves to remind me that there are fringe people willing to respond to any normie comment in over the top pearl clutching a la "what about the non-binary, homeless, wheelchair bound, people of color" focusing on the finest micro-slice of victims.
The satirical memo only serves to remind me that there are fringe people willing to rage about the pearl clutchers.
A pox on both your houses.