mholmberg

Unwell to Begin With

Science EN ↓ 4 episodes

Biology and the environmental movement have a eugenics problem. Eugenics has also been gaining ground in public policy and discourse in many parts of the world lately, with scientists, policymakers, physicians, wellness influencers, and techbros alike increasingly posing it as a solution to intensifying socio-ecological crises. But what do disabled people and others in the crosshairs of this ideology — those of us who are ”unwell to begin with,” according to this logic — have to say about nature and the not-so-natural disasters reverberating across our communities? What lessons do crip knowled...

Author

mholmberg

Episodes

Episode 4: Trans studies speaks back to invasion biology, with Drs. Anita Simha and Banu Subramaniam 24.04.2026 56:03

“…the idea that there was some... kind of Edenic world before that we need to return to, and that, to me, is so caught up with immigration politics and the xenophobic politics. And so when you- and historians have shown this- when you are fighting xenophobia of humans, you also do that with animals and plants.” “…queer and trans people, you know, very naturally, have a lot to say about cis and het...

Episode 3: Silicon Valley's TESCREAL eugenics cult with Dr. Émile Torres 26.10.2025 1:02:48

“Many people find these ideologies to be so risible and silly that they wonder why anyone would spend time talking about them. And… the best response I have is that the reason we should talk about these and take… precious time out of our day to understand them, is precisely because there are billions and billions of dollars backing this movement.” In this episode, host Mollie Holmberg (she/her) ta...

Episode 2: "Life is built on a rickety stool" with Dr. Haley Branch 26.08.2025 1:02:03

“When people think about evolutionary biology, they think of ‘survival of the fittest.’ It is the first thing that comes to people's minds, and it is a gross misconception of evolution, and it's consistently been weaponized against people, and that's specifically Black people, people of color, Indigenous folks and disabled people specifically… It was coined by a eugenicist. I will not say their na...

Episode 1: Autistic Knowledge Ecologies with Dr. Audra Mitchell 02.06.2025 57:01

"These shared resonances which are often infantilized and dismissed as 'special interests' or 'infodumping' are actually intensities of knowledge and knowledge creation that we can sort of... refract off each other in ways that I think promote really interesting formations of knowledge." Welcome to Unwell to Begin With, a podcast about the eugenics problem in biology and the environmental movement...