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A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

economist.com

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Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#381

Post by psychlops »

drenvuk wrote: post #268

Can someone please tell me how important this topic based on the amount of news time and eyeballs it attracts relative to the number of people that it affects? The numbers I can find for US citizens is: 0.6% or 1,988,696 out 331,449,281 of people total for the entirety of the US in 2021. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite... In the UK where the featured article took place the latest poll I…

Here's a chart I love showing how the news distorts based on what people want to read (or what they are pushing) versus reality:

https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die...

I'm not sure how the world would be if proportional importance news were the norm, but it's certainly not the case today.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#382

Post by throwaway894345 »

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 agree and I'll add to that activists claiming to speak on behalf of a particular group are often not actually representing that group. I think there is currency in identity these days, to your earlier points, and some wish to spend others' currency for themselves.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#383

Post by millzlane »

plank_time wrote: post #330
caeril wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a large segment of the population that feels actively threatened by trans rights. The two primary components are: 1. Parents and sexual violence victims concerned about the non-falsifiability of trans-identification and the related concerns of sexual predators claiming an identity they don't actually have to gain access to private spaces of women and girls. 2. Feminists (TERFs) who believe being a woman is a…

TERF is a pejorative term, I wouldn’t use it unless you are trying to attack feminists.

In academic discourse, there is no consensus on whether or not TERF constitutes a slur.

But if we want to be accommodating to those who take offense with the term, we can use the term Gender Critical.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#384

Post by ska »

raffraffraff wrote: post #366
ska wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or at least not originally I've heard it was the other way around, i.e. it started off as a self identification for a niche group which people started to reject once it begun to be used pejoratively.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/im-cre...

Interesting, thanks! Although I supposed it doesn't really speak to whether it was initially embraced (by the identified niche group) before being rejected.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#385

Post by klyrs »

omginternets wrote: post #179
mike00632 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel the same way about nicknames? If you call someone by a nickname that they don't like and they let you know they prefer their own name then do you consider it too onerous to defer to them about it?

Do you think legislators and employers should get involved in decisions about nicknames? If so, that would make you some sort of authoritarian. And this is what the debate is really about: authoritarian vs libertarian political attitudes. I’m certainly ready to have that debate, but it would require the “woke left” [0] to abandon the moral high-ground. [0] There’s surely a better term to use, but I can’t think of it…

Freedom to choose one's gender is a libertarian value. Would you rather the government pick one for you?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#386

Post by mkr-hn »

btilly wrote: post #370
drenvuk wrote: post #268

Can someone please tell me how important this topic based on the amount of news time and eyeballs it attracts relative to the number of people that it affects? The numbers I can find for US citizens is: 0.6% or 1,988,696 out 331,449,281 of people total for the entirety of the US in 2021. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite... In the UK where the featured article took place the latest poll I…

That is hard to say. In a world full of discrimination against trans folks, who knows how many people who would prefer being trans have failed to be identified? But the topic is much bigger than that. You see, the ideology being pushed says that everyone who has gender dysphoria should be assumed to be trans. But a LOT of teenagers, particularly girls, go through a period of gender dysphoria when they hit puberty. Wh…

>> "and well-meaning attempts at gender reassignment surgery for them"

This isn't actually a thing. Certain factions who would prefer trans people cease to exist push this idea that kids are on this hot new meme of getting their bits flipped before reaching the age of consent, but it is simply not a thing. No top surgery, either.

It just isn't a thing. It's a wild fantasy. The only thing kids can go on are puberty blockers. These are well-tested and their effects known and understood through their use for other medical concerns.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#387

Post by shigawire »

istorical wrote: post #75
tetranomiga wrote: post #14

Gender politics is a cancer on the left, even though I agree with it, it takes up so much time and energy away from things that would benefit everybody including trans people, like universal healthcare, better employee protection laws and better, more available education. Such a small percentage of the population has been the center point of so much discussion and debate, and for what benefit? All I see it doing is g…

The same could be said for most wedge issues. In the US, gun rights and and abortion also become a focal point of US politics despite the existence of issues that deal with millions of preventable deaths (automobile safety, obesity epidemic, poverty), issues that deal with hundreds of thousands of displaced peoples and killed civilians (Afghanistan and Iraq war, war mongering over Syria, Libya, Iran, etc), and climat…

Difference is it is fairly clear cut to say that the state does not need to murder people already in custody.

It is harder to get a clear consensus on how to handle crime and imprisonment in general. It's a problem without a single good solution.

Whereas the solution to police brutality incidents like George Floyd should be pretty simple in comparison.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#388

Post by CapmCrackaWaka »

stickfigure wrote: post #353
HideousKojima wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I feel unsafe if there is a man in the bathroom." Why? Because men (biological males if we're being pedantic) are statistically overwhelmingly more likely to commit rape and other forms of sexual assault (and other violent crimes) and to be horny creepy perverted sex pests in general. Add to that the fact that men are much more physically strong than women (a ~5th percentile male is about as strong as a ~95th perce…

From a statistical perspective, black Americans are more likely to commit violent crimes than white. Yet we got rid of white/colored restrooms, and claiming "I'm afraid of blacks" is rightly considered racist and offensive.

The counter argument to this is that African Americans are more likely to commit crimes because they are, on average, more poor because of systemic racism, not because they are biologically predisposed to committing crimes.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#389

Post by notamy »

caeril wrote: post #361
deadite wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Interestingly enough, there's not much animosity toward trans-men. These ground exclusively concern themselves with trans-women. I second this. Maybe it's some echo chamber effect or a minority stirring shit up, but I've hardly heard anything over the years about transmen-as-men vs men-as-men. It seems like most of the focus is on transwomen-as-women vs women-as-women. Maybe we're not as vocal? Maybe we care less? I…

> I'm often confused as to why this topic comes up on HN Take a look around, I think you'll find transmen comprise a much larger proportion of this community (and tech communities in general) than the general population. There's also a lot of desire on HN to comment on political topics while pretending not to comment on political topics. Things like gender identity, women in tech, genetic differences, etc are all won…

> Things like gender identity, women in tech, genetic differences, etc are all wonderful smokescreens to allow us to post politically but maintain a solid veneer of simply having an intellectual discussion on a topic of general interest.

Especially when it comes to these topics, I imagine it's very easy for people who aren't affected by these issues to "debate" them *because* they aren't the ones directly affected by it.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#390

Post by inglor_cz »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #275
maybeOneDay wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience browsing HN almost daily, over the last year it has become something of an echo chamber for "anti woke" lines of thinking. I've seen little to no healthy discussion on the topic - by which I mean productive disagreement. It's usually just a top comment decrying twitter/etc and then a pile on of agreement.

I disagree with this only because I frequently get downvoted for comments that don't "fit the narrative." Could I be a little less brash in the way I word it? Sure, but I keep vulgarities at a minimum to at least come across as somewhat refined. People like me are very much liberal, left leaning, and dislike fascism. But as of now, it feels like freedom of speech is more of "freedom to speak about only certain things…

Oh, the silent downvoting, I noticed it once than more.

And on two occassions, it seemed as if somebody was so vindictive as to visit my comment history and downvote tens of older comments from threads that were a few days old. At least I cannot explain the unexpected loss of precisely 1 karma point from multiple comments in multiple threads at once.

I wonder how such people look into the mirror without feeling even a slight pang of doubt about themselves.

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