> For example, HECA used to have the gene name ‘headcase homolog (Drosophila),’ named after the equivalent gene in fruit fly, but we changed it to ‘hdc homolog, cell cycle regulator’ to avoid potential offense.”
As the sentence before the one you quoted explains, this is not done for politics. It is done because clinicians have to be taken seriously by the parents of the child having a mutation in that gene. Saying "your child has a headcase mutation" ends up causing defensive reactions instead of discussing treatment. Maybe that is an irrational reaction on the parents' part, but not everyone is super rational the first moment they learn their child has an illness.
As Thomas Mann said, everything is politics. I would add that has always been the case.
You can get frustrated about that fact, or you can use it as an opportunity for learning about how and why that is so, and gain a deeper understanding of the tightly linked systems of power relationships all around you.
Ugh... everything is politics now.