Wow, Soraya. This was really beautiful.

Makes me recall how lucky I am to have my grandma still in my life. In many ways, she reminds me of your grandmother.

Love this. I totally feel it.

My ancestry traces back, in just a few short generations, to polygamist Mormons. In fact I'm related to a very well-known one, and it was easy enough to find out that he was my great-great-great-grandfather. But I am missing some kind of crucial information that will tell me which of his five wives I'm related to.

Not knowing the identity of my great-great-great-grandmother has haunted me for years. According to the tradition of polygamist Mormons, I should consider all of his wives my ancestors. But they're not. This whole thing is just pissing me off.

Lovely writing. So vivid and emotional.

"Other times, having albinism puts me in a rare if not non-existent class: I am a native South Asian Muslim with “white privilege.” One might not think that this applies in a predominantly non-Caucasian country like India, but my daily life is sprinkled with incidents where, shoulder-to-shoulder with my family, friends, and peers, I am afforded a higher status simply because of my appearance. "

Wow. I would not have guessed that. That was quite a revelation to me. I wonder... does this trace back to colonialism? Does anybody know where the origins of this widespread white privilege lie?

Mehak, I am so, so looking forward to your novel. Please finish it soon! I'm so eager to read it.

Really awesome interview. I'm looking forward to reading Neurotribes.

Man, I despise Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy so very, very much. I was glad to see them (subtly and genteelly) called out in this interview.

The book sounds incredibly fascinating and like something I can really learn from. I have a friend whose daughter has Rett syndrome, which is not autism but shares much in common with profound autism. I also have several cousins who are on the spectrum. I'd like to understand them all better, especially the unique challenges they face.

Oh shit, that is the most hardcore thing ever. In your face, seminary!!

I hope to hell Jaya doesn't ACTUALLY feel less-than for her choice not to reproduce. I hope it was just hyperbole for the sake of humor. I know it's probably just the ghost of my Mormonism haunting me (WooOOOooOOoooo! *spooky ghost hands*) but I feel there are women a-plenty who actually do feel like lesser beings because they can't have babies or really don't want to.

(Thanks so, SO much, Mormon upbringing. The rich and never-ending wellspring of all my anxieties and rages.)

I could tell you don't want to have children from your reactions. :) (Good choice, by the way, from my perspective!)

I'm sorry to come across so touchy--I've just had it up to my eyeballs with people telling me and other women who don't reproduce, for whatever reason (or who might be somewhere in the process of reproduction but have to consider an abortion) that they are worthless and/or nothing. I've been denied badly-needed social aid at some dark-ass times in my life because I didn't have children (how did I know it was because I didn't have children? 'Cause other women I knew who *had* children but made significantly more money than I did, tens of thousands more, got heaps and heaps of those same aids that I was denied: healthcare, tuition, housing assistance, food. There is nothing that says "You're worthless and nothing because you don't have children" louder or clearer than being forced into homelessness because there is no aid available to you while your SIL who makes $40K a year gets to go to college for free and gets to take advantage of low-income housing and food stamps because she has a kid.)

Plus, I was raised in a culture (Mormonism) that told me from the cradle that as a female, I was literally worthless, in this life and the next, unless I had babies.

So... your very specific reactions, and my very specific reactions. :)

I love your articles on The Toast! Keep up the awesome work.

Word up. All the way up. Love my IUD so much.

"You are a warrior and I am worthless. You are staring pain and hormones and care of another human life straight in the face and I am changing out of heels into flats because I have a teensy blister. You are magic and I am nothing."

Um... thanks for deriding women like me who don't want to have children?

Can we please, PLEASE stop categorizing women who choose not to have children, or who CAN'T have children, as "worthless"? This happens far too often in society and I'm really over it. Women are worth more than their wombs. I do believe that's one of the many points we've all been slugging to make the rest of the world see since the inception of the suffrage movement.