The Natal Conference

The Natal Conference, which costs up to $10,000 to attend, features multiple matchmaking strategy sessions and onsite ministers so attendees can get married. The event is being held at a hotel operated by the University of Texas at Austin.

According to its website, the sold-out conference has “no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren.” However, the event features speakers like Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec and Crémieux, an online pseudonym linked to Jordan Lasker, who discusses falling birthrates and promotes eugenics.

Matchmaking and Marriage

An email obtained by WIRED promoting a preconference mixer reveals that matchmaking may play a significant role at the conference and in the pronatalist movement more widely. Attendees are instructed to register to learn the exact venue and are required to submit their social media handles for vetting.

Single registrants are directed to fill out a survey that asks their desired number of children, “religious, spiritual, cultural, lifestyle” values, and whether they would be open to a “Q&A with a NatalCon speaker to introduce yourself to the room.” The email concludes by noting that there will be “some ministers attending if anyone decides to take the leap at the conference!”

Criticism and Controversy

The pronatalist movement has been criticized as being racist and classist, with some startups catering to adherents by even offering to screen embryos used for in vitro fertilization for IQ. Natal Conference organizer Kevin Dolan has previously stated that eugenics—the belief that white people are genetically superior—and the pronatalist movement are “very much aligned.”