Not sure if you can play it as an egalitarian species, but I kinda got fed up with the way pop growth works in the current build. So when I started up my current game I just set default species rights to undesirables and now whenever I conquer a new planet I just deport the native population, terraform the planet, scrap all buildings and disctricts on it, and then colonize it to develop the planet the way I see fit. I'm not a xenophobe when i do this and I've been having a great game. Now I just have over fifty worlds and more options for colonization and not sure if I can mentally handle managing all those different planets.