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

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#411

Post by watwut » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

MyHypatia wrote: post #340

watwut wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans people are way more likely to be raped then non trans. And cis women do get attacked by trans men. Like, if your concern is prison rape, it is quite odd to start with lowest probability events and ignore high probability events.

My comment was in response to the parent comment referring to cis-women's concerns as "TERF talking points". I am saying that cis-women's concerns shouldn't be invalidated, and that we can figure out a path forward that acknowledges the threat that trans-women may face in men's prisons and also acknowledge the threat that cis-women may face being cell mates with a person who has a penis. Basically, I think that sexua…

I am cis woman. I happened to look at prisom rape and sexual violence statistics a while ago.

The trans men in jail abusing cis women is real thing. They are housed together now. The trans women being raped or abused is incredibly frequent thing - includig by guards. (Male on male rape is a joke, basically. Transwomen in prison are assumed to enjoy sexual abuse basically.)

But despite the former being literally about cis women safety too, it just dont interest people. There are many ways to make prisons safer and making it so trans women or gender non conforming men are a bit safer is topic only for radical trans activists and no one else.

If there is heated discussion about issue that dont currently exist which ignores issues that do cureently exist, it is ok to call it talking point.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#412

Post by ben_w » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #349

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…

>2. Feminists (TERFs) who believe being a woman is a fundamental, biological identity and cannot be coopted by males. I'd wager that most people believe this. Not just feminists.

Unless I have wildly misunderstood you, I believe you would lose that wager: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Pu...

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#413

Post by Tomte » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #386

btilly wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bl…

We've just had a barely unsuccessful attempt (the social democrats were in favor, but didn't want to end their coalition with the christian democrats) of legislation in Germany which included allowing gender reassignment surgery without parental consent from the age of 14.

After psychological counselling, not just on a child's whim, but still.

We've had exactly your point in the public discourse: "that's FUD, no surgery for minors is planned", but the wording in the draft law was clear, and proponents were unwilling to get rid of it, even though it would have made the law's passage much, much more likely.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#414

Post by zo1 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

maybeOneDay wrote: post #183

throwaway894345 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I like that we discuss controversial topics here if only because it's the only online forum I'm aware of where this stuff can be discussed with any degree of productive dialogue or without a constant barrage of bad faith (which isn't to say there aren't bad faith commenters here, but the signal/noise ratio is much higher here).

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.

It's entirely plausible that most were thinking that but didn't say anything for fear of backlash. If so then the mere act of them speaking what's really on their mind is, what I would argue as, "healthy discussion".

Either way, I've been finding a lot of what's being said here today as interesting and mentally engaging on some level.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#415

Post by bendbro » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #99

oofabz wrote: post #98

I don't think gender ideology is an appropriate topic for HN. There is little to be gained and much to be lost from discussing it here. Little to be gained because it has nothing to do with software development, and because gender issues are thoroughly covered elsewhere. Much to be lost because gender issues are so divisive that we risk alienating members of our community.

HN is for topics that gratify intellectual curiosity, not "software development". Please see the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . You're certainly right that this is an inflammatory topic with strong political and ideological overlap, and as the guidelines explain, we don't want flamewar here, and we don't want ideological or political battle. The site exists for intellectual curios…

Insightful, thanks. Great moderating!

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#416

Post by anoncake » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #218

I think we should accommodate trans people as much as we can, up to and including letting them be legally be considered the sex of their belief as long as they have transitioned to some degree, by taking hormones or surgery. However, I disagree with getting rid of biological sex. It’s absurd. Even down to the genetic level there is a biological definition of male and female and to say there isn’t is anti-science. We…

> I think we should accommodate trans people as much as we can, up to and including letting them be legally be considered the sex of their belief as long as they have transitioned to some degree, by taking hormones or surgery.

Why do you think it's any of your business what other people do with their body?

> To put it in perspective, Serena Williams, one of the greatest if not the greatest tennis athlete of all time. She and Venus Williams were destroyed in her prime by the 200th ranked tennis player.

Looks like she is only the 201th greatest tennis player.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#417

Post by btilly » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #386

btilly wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bl…

Whether or not that is a thing depends on where you are.

The most common type of surgery is breast. In the USA, double mastectomies on children are legal, and have been performed on patients as young as 13. As for gender dysphoria itself, according to some surveys the frequency of teenage biological girls diagnosed with the disorder has risen by a factor of 40 in recent years.

For sources on both of those facts, as well as more background on this topic, I recommend https://www.webmd.com/children/news/20210427/transition-ther....

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#418

Post by paulv » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #402

millzlane wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Trans-exclusionary radical feminist” sounds pretty pejorative, most especially the “radical” part.

"Radical feminism" is a branch of feminism. It is not used as a pejorative in the acronym.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#419

Post by matthewmacleod » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

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…

I think there will be rather a lot of us who are quite animated by this issue—one that doesn’t directly affect us—because of our own past experiences.

As a gay man growing up in the 90s, I very acutely remember some of the public discourse around gay rights while I was a teenager. In the UK, that specifically included a coordinated campaign against mentions of homosexuality in education, with some pretty stark attempts to smear gay men in particular as dangerous predators and paedophiles intent on sneaking their agenda into schools so that they could abuse children.

If I’m honest with you, I wouldn’t be particularly animated about trans rights myself (beyond being generally supportive) if it weren’t for the fact that I see exactly the same techniques and accusations levelled against the trans community—specifically trans women—as were used against people like myself 20 years ago.

So I’ve personally gone from generally supportive-if-disinterested, to being absolutely fucking furious that this is being allowed to happen again. I’ve observed absolute outright lies about a minority group being repeated by people in positions of influence, and while it might not affect that many people directly I am so absolutely disgusted by it that I fully intend on being extremely vocal about it.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#420

Post by Karrot_Kream » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #355

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't mean to downplay what is happening because it is happening but do you not think the amount of outrage this topic generates surpasses the level of impact we can have assuming we fix it? It just feels like we're being distracted. But downplaying it is exactly what you are doing, literally. To answer your main question, though: the very small community that we are talking about is disproportionately being subj…

> disproportionately being subjected to murder, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and widespread discrimination. This is provably untrue. Not that it isn't a tragedy, but in 2020, 44 trans people were killed[1] in the US. This is a rounding error even when looking at "merely" just hate crime statistics (for example, in 2019, the FBI reported ~7000 criminal offenses[2] in the "hate crime" category). I get it, people ar…

> This is provably untrue.

Both of you are correct, you're just looking at probabilities conditioned in the opposite way. You're looking at P(trans | killed), which is low. The parent post is looking at P(killed | trans), which is quite high. Understandably, if you are trans P(killed | trans) is a lot more relevant to you than P(trans | killed).