Ugg Am Now a Neanderthal

Much has changed since the innocent days of my youth. At the risk of sounding like my grandparents, I am old enough to remember when phones were connected through wires to the wall, and it took about three minutes to dial a number. God help you if you got one of the digits wrong and had to start over. And for long-distance calls, the dialing took longer than the actual call, since the per-minute long-distance rates were not cheap.

Yes, they were simpler times. The only remote my parents had for the television was me. The only social network we had was over the CB radio (10-4, good buddy!). A four-function calculator cost $200 and weighed 3 pounds. We actually had to go to a retail store for physical products like food and household supplies. There were things we could order via mail or telephone, but you always had to allow “6 to 8 weeks” for delivery. Friends were people we knew and hung out with – not strangers in a digital realm we’d never met. And as crazy as it sounds, in the days of my youth, there were only 2 genders. 

Can you believe that? Just two. Male and Female. That’s it. I honestly don’t know how we survived.

Today, gender selection offers a cornucopia of possibilities. People can be male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and more. In fact, MedicineNet reports there are now 72 recognized genders. I encourage you to peruse the list. It is mind-boggling. And ironically, “Male” and “Female” aren’t on it.

So today, unlike in my youth when people were shackled to ridiculous constraints largely based on science and biology, individuals can apparently be whatever they believe themselves to be. And to complicate things, they come with a profusion of personal pronouns that we are presumably morally, ethically, and (in Michigan at least) legally obliged to remember and use appropriately. 

So, with that backdrop in mind, I’ve recently made a critical decision about my own life.

Back in 2018, I wrote about the results of my DNA analysis using the service 23andme.com. I discovered that I had a significant amount of Neanderthal variants in my DNA. In fact, the website reported that I had more Neanderthal variants in my DNA than 95% of the people in their database. It was something immediately accepted and understood by those closest to me. The revelation for them just made sense for some reason.

The reality of my genetic makeup has weighed heavily on me over the last few years. As I have been rambling around in my Homo sapiens skin, denying my identity, I recognize that to be true to my real self, my actual me, I need to publicly make a change. 

From this day forward, I will now identify as a Neanderthal. My personal pronoun is Ugg.

Frankly, Ugg feel much better since making this decision. Ugg am being true to uggself for the first time. And best yet, Ugg no longer need to be concerned with understanding all those genders or their infernal pronouns. Neanderthals, after all, were, well, Neanderthals. They were not believed to possess the intellectual capacity needed to adapt to such radically changing times. Therefore, Ugg cannot be expected to fully grasp the nuances and public expectations behind the self-identifying movement.

And Ugg can back this up with the science behind DNA, although admittedly science doesn’t play much of a role in this these days.

Strong proponents of gender fluidity and self-identification must accept and honor this selection, lest they be labeled hypocrites. Ugg have made the choice and others must respect that. In Michigan at least, it is the law. At least that is the way Ugg understand the way this works.

Ugg know that this will be a controversial post. There will be people who believe it to be mocking the concept of those 72 genders. But Ugg believe that it should instead prompt an open debate and dialogue, since this decision represents a natural extension of the societal trends we are seeing. It is a free country. People may identify as they wish. But what is society’s obligation to participate in that decision? Is society free to make its own determination on the subject? Are others not free to have counter opinions? There is much that could be debated. But Ugg could be wrong. After all, Ugg am just a silly Neanderthal.