24 Alice Dreger Quotes for You to Enjoy

Alice Dreger

American Scientist

Being Doctors Gay Me People You

Related authors: Ben Carson Carl Sagan E. O. Wilson George Washington Carver Isaac Asimov Margaret Mead Neil deGrasse Tyson W. Edwards Deming

After I dropped out of college at the age of 19, I became a mortgage broker, and when I went back to school I thought about going into real estate law. Alice Dreger

Age Law School Real Estate Thought College Back Back To School Out Broker About Dropped Mortgage Became Real Going Estate After

Doctors are human animals. They want to be loved, they are tribal, they instinctually favor stories over scientific evidence, they make mistakes, and even small gifts make them susceptible to being biased. If we took doctors seriously as human animals, we might hurt them - and they might hurt us - a lot less. Alice Dreger

Hurt Seriously Tribal Animals Doctors Mistakes Took Evidence Favor Gifts Small Over Biased Make Scientific Scientific Evidence Lot Susceptible Human Being Want Stories Loved Them Might Us Less Even

Using medicine in the service of cosmesis is generally bad for patients, bad for doctors, and bad for democracy. The only exceptions are when we know the intervention will actually reduce suffering, as with a primary cleft lip repair. Alice Dreger

Service Democracy Suffering Will Doctors Medicine Intervention Bad Only Exceptions Generally Primary Know Reduce Repair Lip Patients Using Actually

If we are going to have to worry all the time that we might offend some students' sensibilities, we are not going to be able to teach in a way that actually matters. We're not going to be able to teach about sex, gender, race, religion, or violence. Alice Dreger

Time Religion Sex Gender Matters Worry Way Able Some About Students Offend Going Sensibilities Race Might Teach Actually Violence

Want to be a well-paid bioethicist, with one, two, or even three university appointments? Just get yourself a two-piece navy polyester suit and follow these three simple rules: (1) Never name names. (2) Screw principles; just follow procedures. (3) Bury the money. Alice Dreger

Yourself Money Simple Three Rules Follow Never Name Names Principles Get Just Want Procedures Screw Polyester Bury Navy Even Two Appointments University Suit

My mother has told so many times the unbelievable story of how, as a toddler, I would demand raw onions and eat them like apples, I think that, at this juncture, it is a story that just has to be believed. Alice Dreger

Mother Think Would Eat Unbelievable Onions Raw Demand Like How Juncture Times Just Story Them Toddler Many Believed Apples

I could make a martyrly claim to having been the victim of childhood enslavement when I report that I started regularly cooking with my mother at a hot stove when I was five. But the truth is I wanted to cook. Cooking meant being near food. Alice Dreger

Truth Food Truth Is Cooking Mother Stove Victim Enslavement Claim Having Could Hot Make Been Five Report Childhood Being Wanted Meant Cook Regularly Near Started

You know what Oprah taught me? Unless you count as changing your life having a neighborhood dad say to you every morning at the school bus stop, 'You sure don't look as good as you did on 'Oprah!', being on 'Oprah' doesn't change your life. Alice Dreger

Life Good Morning Me You Change School Every Changing Unless Say Neighborhood Having Count Know Look Sure Oprah Did Stop Taught Being Bus Your Dad

Being a parent of a boy who wants to wear sparkles and grow his hair long - especially when you don't know where it's all going to go - it's hard stuff. I'm not being politically incorrect in acknowledging that, am I? Alice Dreger

When all is said and done, science actually takes hard work and a willingness to sometimes find out that your most cherished hypothesis is wrong. Alice Dreger

Work Hard Work Science Sometimes Out Willingness Find Hypothesis Takes Wrong Most Said Cherished Done Your Hard Actually

A democratic medical establishment does not alter people's bodies to fit regressive social norms; it advocates for patients by demanding the social body get its act together. Alice Dreger

Together People Demanding Democratic Alter Advocate Does Fit Norms Get Patients Establishment Social Bodies Body Act Medical

Ok, here goes: I'm going to see how many people I can offend by suggesting that maybe many little gay boys, like many little girls, are made up of sugar and spice and everything nice. Alice Dreger

Gay People Made Girl Nice Sugar Everything OK Spice See Like Boy How How Many People Offend Up Goes Going Maybe Little Little Girls Many Here Suggesting

Conjoined twins simply may not need sex-romance partners as much as the rest of us do. Throughout time and space, they have described their condition as something like being attached to a soul mate. Alice Dreger

To be perfectly honest, I follow football the way I follow television. I read about it. Alice Dreger

Way Television Follow About Football Perfectly Read Honest

I don't have the panic I used to have, meeting people who are androgynous, but when you meet someone whose identity is unclear, that throws your own identity into flux because the way we treat each other is very gendered. Alice Dreger

If we have a situation where a man is particularly graceful in a sport that rewards grace - say, for example, figure skating - why is it that we don't say to the man, 'Well, you're too feminine to compete?'... I don't understand why we don't find it offensive also to say to a women who's very strong, 'You're too masculine to compete.' Alice Dreger

You Man Women Grace Strong Example Situation Too Say Find Masculine For Example Particularly Also Sport Well Understand Feminine Very Offensive Graceful Rewards Where Skating Figure Figure Skating Why Compete

Doctors and scientists, being part of that two-sex culture, have done everything they can to try to force people who are in-between into one of the two clear types. Intersex people themselves have also generally wanted to fit into one of the two clear categories; most are not interested in being in a 'third' type. Alice Dreger

Culture People Try Doctors Type Types Everything Generally Part Clear Categories Most Also Force Scientists Fit Done Being Wanted In-Between Not Interested Interested Themselves Who Two Third

I think it is fine to have sports divided into men's and women's, just as it is fine to say a fifteen-year-old is incapable of consenting to sex. But we should recognize these are social distinctions based on biology, and not categories foisted upon us by nature. Alice Dreger

When I talk about intersex, people ask me, 'But what about the locker room?' Yes, what about the locker room? If so many people feel trepidation around it, why don't we fix the locker room? There are ways to signal to children that they are not the problem, and normalization technologies are not the way. Alice Dreger

Instead of constantly enhancing the norm - forever upping the ante of the 'normal' with new technologies - we should work on enhancing the concept of normal by broadening appreciation of anatomical variation. Alice Dreger

Work Appreciation Broadening Constantly Variation Instead New Concept Norm Normal Forever New Technologies Should Enhancing Technologies

The funny thing is, when I ask people with dark skin if they would change their color, they tell me no, and when I ask women if they would rather be men, they tell me no, and I get the same response when I ask people with unusual anatomies if they would take a magic pill to erase their unusual features. Alice Dreger

Funny Me Change Women People Dark Men Skin Funny Thing Response Tell Would Magic Rather Features Color Take Unusual Pill Erase Get Same Ask Thing

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