A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities • Hacker News Board

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#231

Post by kian » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #29

spiffotron wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slur is an insult, no one has to have died for something to be a slur, not sure where you got that idea from.

Right, but "slur" by itself is used as shorthand for "offensive slur" - typically racially-offensive slurs or homophobic slurs, and so on - I'm not aware of normal public discourse referring to everyday insults as "slurs" - whatever the original definition slur had it now has a connotation of insulting the target by way of comparing the target to an intentionally hurtful stereotype. (I could enumerate examples but no…

TERF both manages to connote something that should be stepped upon and is used to box in a person's opinions to a caricature so that a label can be applied (a stereotype, in other words), rather than listening to what they say. I'd say that between that, karen, anti-vaxxer, and anti-masker, a number of niche slurs have been popularized recently.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#232

Post by Udik » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #116

recursivedoubts wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to set up rhetorical either-or's and then browbeat the majority into silence: Either you support unlimited immigration or you are a racist. Either you are 100% on board with the entire vaccine schedule or you are an anti-vaxxer. Either you say that Covid was a natural occurrence or you are a conspiracy theorist (and probably a racist too). And so on. Say what one will, but it's effective. I think one reas…

> Either you say that Covid was a natural occurrence or you are a conspiracy theorist (and probably a racist too). Interesting how media coverage completely changed. Under the previous administration it was considered racist to even mention the theory and it's proponents were considered racists or conspiracy theorists. Why such a sudden change? China certainly didn't change its position on the issue...

> Why such a sudden change?

Trump is gone. Since he was the main proponent of the idea, and he was despised by half of the nation, they had to despise the idea too, even if it was quite fitting in the context of the anti-China rhetoric of the last few years. Now Trump is gone and the other half of the US is free to pick up his ideas.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#233

Post by jollybean » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

metalliqaz wrote: post #139

foolinaround wrote: post #38

while this article focusses on the gender ideology issues, IMHO the censorship in universites is on a wider range of issues, with the common denominator being the viewpoints espoused in far-left circles (not passing judgement here on whether they are right or wrong) Enforced group-think is going to be the death of these universities.

"Enforced group-think is going to be the death of these universities." How?

By expunging, shaming, expelling, disinviting, cancelling, eschewing, not offering positions, denying grants, avoiding publication, demoting those that don't meet the requirements of a radical orthodoxy.

Noam Chomsky of all people (!), and a bunch of other staunchly centre-left luminaries had to take out a full page ad in Harper's to make the point. [2]

How far would an ugly trend have to exhibit itself in order for these fairly respectable and otherwise mild mannered people to not only 1) notice but 2) act and then 3) make a big show out of it in a worldwide signal?

They tried to cancel Stephen Pinker [2] for postulating that the problem of Law Enforcement in the USA is a generally overbearing justice system, not necessarily specific to one race, although conceding that's a problem. For that utterly reasonable statement, they tried to remove his Chair and participation a bunch of groups. He was fine, but 'they came for him' and were he to have been less prominent, 'they' would have won.

It's intellectual cowardice and social bullying by angry people. My belief is that it's not even ideological at the end of the day, rather, it's the petty expression of power by those who've never had it before and who were transgressed themselves at some earlier point in their lives.

[1] https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/506314-jk-...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/steven-pinker-harvard....

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#234

Post by tomp » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

saxonww wrote: post #196

cheeseomlit wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really an apt comparison since there's nothing about a nickname that defies observable reality, a name is a social construct to begin with. Sex however is a biological construct in which the characteristics are directly and quantitatively observable.

The idea is that sex and gender are different though; gender _is_ a social construct. I think lack of agreement on this is a big part of the issue right now. Edit: as pointed out below, gender roles are something we've made up, but preferences and behavior themselves (which we're calling gender) are not. Still separate from sex.

But "gender" is a made-up concept with no clear (non-self-referential) definition, seemingly made up specifically to cause confusion and conflict.

It's as if there were two concepts, "race" and "grace", and you could be "biologically" white but "identify" as black, or "height" and "gheight", and you could be "factually" 180cm tall but "identify" as 165cm.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#235

Post by karpierz » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #192

fungiblecog wrote: post #92

I think the irony of the current battle around identity is that we have been making steady progress based on the idea that personal characteristics shouldn't matter. However this whole debate is reversing that by not only saying it matters a great deal but that other people should be forced to defer to others personal choices even when it directly affects them

You can notice this in a few fields of popular ideologies these days, that is overcorrecting for a problem to the point of becoming exactly the thing one was originally fighting against. I am of the somewhat progressive-unpopular opinion that some people have an unhealthy interest in how they label themselves and how others perceive them, and in the attempts to be supportive the popular opinion is doing more harm tha…

I don't think it's an issue of people being interested in how they label themselves so much as society being interested in labels for people. If you come out as gay, suddenly there are a load of assumptions placed on you about how you speak, dress, act, what your hobbies are, etc. People adopt identities in these cases because society has preconceived notions of the identity, not because the individual themselves has decided that they want to make a big deal out of their identity.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#236

Post by mike00632 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

beervirus wrote: post #58

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve associated the term slur in the common understanding with an actual history of marginalization, and I think the claim is totally unnecessary politicking in the reporting.

A slur is any term that’s “a disparaging remark or slight” according to dictionary.com. It’s hard to argue they’re not using the term TERF as disparaging.

The problem is that you are saying "TERF" is a slur by using a wide definition but then using the narrow definition to claim it's a travisty to be called a "TERF". The point is that "TERF" is not on the same level as the n-word, f-word or the t-word which you are likening it to when you insist it's a slur. It's simply not harmful to call someone a "TERF" like it is to use slurs against the groups that TERFs are marginalizing.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#237

Post by saxonww » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #224

saxonww wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that sex and gender are different though; gender _is_ a social construct. I think lack of agreement on this is a big part of the issue right now. Edit: as pointed out below, gender roles are something we've made up, but preferences and behavior themselves (which we're calling gender) are not. Still separate from sex.

Attempts to separate sex from gender are prescriptive, not descriptive. And the academic who first attempted to separate their meanings was a child molester with strong personal and ideological motivations for doing so: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Money

This has no bearing on whether the idea is right or not, and shame on you for trying to shut down conversation by comparing adherents to child molesters.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#238

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #93

Moodles wrote: post #21

> The arguments the two sides put forward, in other words, are complex and debatable. But many trans activists think that any disagreement is tantamount to hate speech and try to suppress it. This is 100% my personal experience also. Even on HN last week someone said I should try to be a "better human" and compared my suggestion that maybe someone might oppose transgender women in women's spaces for reasons other tha…

I’d like to see some introspection here. Can you imagine why they would respond so strongly? I’ll tell you. The trans experience is one that is in many ways beautiful and joyous but is sadly also fraught with trauma. Trans people experience a lot of pain that stays with them. Much of that pain has to do with people who refuse to accept who they truly are. Or people will “just want to have a discussion” where they try…

People who have had trauma have my empathy, but I really don't think there's a tenable path forward besides dispassionate debate. How do we work through a conflict without dispassionate debate? If trans people insist that the only parties to the debate are trans people or those who already agree with them (ignoring that trans people aren't the homogeneous entity that activists make them out to be), then how are they going to gain acceptance in society more broadly? By fiat?

Yeah, it sucks that individuals in the majority don't have the same emotional skin in the game as in the minority, but progress of any kind requires that we can talk through stuff. For those of us with trauma (i.e., my trauma isn't "trans trauma"), we should excuse ourselves when the debates hit too close to home too often. We explicitly cannot use our trauma to discredit others (e.g., to conflate their criticism with 'hate') is not going to garner sympathy even if a lot of people who are already "allies" upvote our post on social media or wherever.

And indeed, if it's not in the best interest of the legitimately traumatized to use their trauma to silence others, who in their right mind would allow their "allies" to use their trauma to bludgeon others? What rational person would let someone else spend their credibility in contradiction with their own best interests? If the traumatized person overreaches, it might be overlooked on account of the trauma, but what excuses can we make for the mere "allies"?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#239

Post by arminiusreturns » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

metalliqaz wrote: post #139

foolinaround wrote: post #38

while this article focusses on the gender ideology issues, IMHO the censorship in universites is on a wider range of issues, with the common denominator being the viewpoints espoused in far-left circles (not passing judgement here on whether they are right or wrong) Enforced group-think is going to be the death of these universities.

"Enforced group-think is going to be the death of these universities." How?

Mostly because it is a rejection of first principles thinking, which is a key tool in the toolbelt of critical thinking, supposedly part of any university's mandate.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#240

Post by freemint » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #215

rootusrootus wrote: post #145

What a tough problem to solve. My current thought on the gender identity issue is that society should default to the absolute minimum amount of categorizing people by their gender. What you identify as only matters to the extent that we divide people. Nobody would care if you used the women's bathroom, if such a thing did not exist. And when it is absolutely necessary for a distinction to exist, then we can spend the…

I agree except that I don't think we understand which ways of dividing ourselves are really biologically (including psychologically) important and which are just cultural and can be changed with the right environment. Culture often encodes biological needs that we don't really understand.

I would rephrase it as: "Culture often encodes biological needs that we are not sure we did understand because nothing like that was written down and today we have a very good idea of our biological needs and can probably design more consistent or at least more utilitarian rules of culture"

Do you think you could agree with that?