Reject The Country Club Eugenicism of RFK, Jr.

Originally published on Substack on 04/03/2026

Apr 03, 2026

April is Autism Awareness Month, and I’m genuinely concerned to find out what ableist gems we have to look forward to this time around. Last April, HHS’s dubious-to-put-it-mildly “autism report” was released, along with some truly demeaning and appalling rhetoric [2] from one of the most insidious members of the Trump administration anthropomorphicized pile of rawhide scraps Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. deployed stereotyped caricatures of the autistic experience, framing it as a “tragedy” that “destroys lives” to have an autistic child or be autistic. He also continued his long tradition of vaccine skepticism (read: fundamentally rejected verified, peer reviewed research with replicable findings). [3] Without offering even the flimsy, often empirically disproven substantiation used by more subtle eugenicists, this walking HGH injection blamed “environmental factors,” which was less dogwhistle and more catcall. RFK Jr., on the other hand, appears to be an out-and-proud proponent of eugenics; he does not hide his disdain for neurodivergent people, and is, to coin a term, an evangelical ableist.

His following is built largely on prostelytizing against the existence and dignity of the autistic community. In his relatively short statement, he trotted out his most common grift-slop almost immediately: the empirically disproven claim that vaccines somehow make someone autistic, an ableist belief based on a single study linking autism to the MMR vaccine. This study of only twelve kids had some very convenient “findings” which were later determined to be provably fraudulent, [1] after which it was retracted by The Lancet, the journal in which it was originally published. It is worth noting that the researcher had a financial interest in finding a link to autism in his study, namely his patent on a rival vaccine and a massive payment made to him by a group of families seeking monetary damages for their child’s autism diagnoses. Funny how most of the personalities involved in conspiracism have a financial incentive to demean and dehumanize neurodivergent people wholesale, but can’t do so without lies and stereotyped caricatures.

The way he speaks about autistics as a monolith betrays the digust he’s disguising as pity, which would still be demeaning in its own way even if it was sincere. What he is really doing is far more sinister than pitying parents of autistic kids with high support needs in the face of indequate public health infrastructure, no — He’s trying to sow fear in new and would-be parents that their child might have ASD. Here’s what RFK, Jr. sees when he sees a child with autism:

“…these are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

If you read between the lines, in light of his long history of antagonism toward the neurodivergent community and healthcare conspiracism, should be understood as an attempt to make the last thing a parent would want for their kid is for them to be autistic. Let me translate that for you, so the subtext of RFK’s word choice is crystal clear and we can see this ‘roided up freak for who he is:

“Bosses can’t exploit them for labor, they won’t participate fully in society, you won’t have anything in common with them, they communicate differently from you, they’re genetically inferior and won’t continue your genetic line — They’re a gross burden.

It’s one or two degrees off from him actively and explicitly framing us as subhuman in a very literal sense, and he wants that to be the takeaway from his time in office — if you’re a wealthy socialite, a member of the professional managerial class, or are useful enough to capitalists that you can afford to take care of yourself, you’re superior and “healthy”; if you’re not or have any support needs that get in the way of “healthy people” (read: mostly upper-middle class and above WASPs and anyone with property or a position of influence) enjoying their lives unhindered by responsibility to the rest of society, you’re not a full human being that deserves agency, dignity, respect, and human rights — a crock of shit, utterly and completely, but one that gives people who feel uncomfortable around people with disabilities a vehicle for that discomfort. Now they aren’t “prejudiced,” they’re “concerned about public health.”

Even after decades of attempts to prove a link between vaccination and autism, the original study that mainstreamed these claims has never been replicated. In simple terms, it is a fraud. [3] RFK Jr. either knows this or is so far down a radically disproven rabbit hole that he is thoroughly unfit to hold his position in government (no shocker there). My belief is that he is intentionally deploying red meat to his MAHA base in an attempt mainstream eugenics in the Trump regime. They continue to peddle false claims that autism is somehow caused by environmental factors — despite countless attempts to do so failing spectacularly — and not something intrinsic to autistic individuals. Much to MAHA’s chagrin, neurodivergence is a fundamental part of the human experience; denying this does the necessary work of the eugenicist by separating “autistics” from “human beings.” Accepting any sort of supremacist framing will serve the interests of ethnic supremacism, ableism, and, more broadly, the rise of modern fascism.

In a simpler time, these remarks would have led to some form of censure and possibly his removal from office. Instead, we have to not only mask enough to get along under the conditions we are accustomed and equipped to handle, albeit to varying degrees depending on the individual and the circumstances they are in. Now we are put in a position where policymakers are discussing our existence as tragic — I see only one practical path forward, which is also the prosocial and morally defensible response: reject the framing entirely. Rather than prove them wrong by trying to mask even more, enjoy public spaces less, and stay silent so as to avoid attracting their ire, get involved in radical movements for social and political change. I for one am done conforming to ideas of how to move through life held by people who see me as broken or less-deserving because I experience life in a way that they can’t relate to and won’t accept.

Solidarity,

-Dee

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Footnotes

1. Fiona Godlee, “Retraction: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children,” BMJ 342 (February 2011), https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452. (Note: Although the URL contains “c7452” which corresponds to the 2011 retraction notice, the original study was retracted in 2010. The BMJ article is the official retraction notice.)

2. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Secretary Kennedy on Autism,” C-SPAN, video clip, accessed April 2, 2026, https://www.c-span.org/clip/news-conference/secretary-kennedy-on-autism/5160723.

3. Paulina Fialkova, “Fact-Checking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Statements on Autism,” PBS NewsHour, March 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-statements-on-autism. (Note: I inferred the date as March 2025 based on the context of the “recent” event in your text, but you should verify the exact publication date on the page if possible.)

4. Autism Society of America, “Challenging Misleading Narratives and Urging Collaboration in the Executive Order ‘Make America Healthy Again’,” press release, accessed April 2, 2026, https://autismsociety.org/challenging-misleading-narratives-and-urging-collaboration-in-the-executive-order-make-america-healthy-again/.