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

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#541

Post by RC_ITR » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:22 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…

Uyghurs are less than 0.1% of China's population, but their treatment is (rightfully) a huge issue globally.

Most people just aren't as utilitarian in the way that your comment implies they should be.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#542

Post by flavius29663 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #229

colechristensen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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've noticed this too, it's not only gender ideology but racial ideology and more. Seems to be form of ideological "pilot-induced oscillation"[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot-induced_oscillation "[Pilot-induced oscillati…

Speaking of racial ideology, I honestly don't understand how we're supposed to become less racists if we're drawing so much attention to race and putting it left, right and center of any policy discussion?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#543

Post by fastball » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #265

MyHypatia wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it is unreasonable for a female inmate to be uncomfortable sharing sleeping quarters with a person who has a penis (regardless of how that person identifies). The fear that cis-women have of rape is real. The fear that transgender women have of rape in a men's jail is real. I think the fairest thing to do is take both of these fears seriously and house intact trans-women in a space where they neither…

Why would trans women have any greater fear of rape (by men) than (smaller, weaker) men have?

I can't really speak to the psychology of rapists in prisons, but I imagine there are a good number of people that, if they're gonna rape someone with a penis anyway, it is more enjoyable to rape the person that is presenting as a woman.

Also because rape in prison is very much about power, and exerting power over people you dislike for one reason or another (in this case trans people because they are trans) especially.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#544

Post by chc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #498

chc wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polling suggests otherwise: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-women-supp... https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/548775-new-poll...

There are a lot of shades of trans support, If you asked the most extreme questions you would probably get different answers. It is one thing to ask people should be able can use a bathroom, and another to ask questions about personal sexlife and behavior. i.e. if you asked people if you consider transwomen equally with women at birth as sexual partners, I bet the numbers fall through the floor.

Well, sure. If you ask people whether they consider Black and Asian men equally as sex partners, the numbers would also fall through the floor. This doesn't mean Black or Asian men are less of men, or even that they're necessarily against either of those groups, it just means people have preferences in what their partners' bodies are like. My point is just that "trans women are women and trans men are men" is actually a common opinion, contrary to the claim in the comment I was replying to.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#545

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:25 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…

Disproportionate in relation to the rates of the same for blind people, per the parent commenters assertions.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#546

Post by fastball » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

freemint wrote: post #469

throwaway675309 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally if you only have to vocally identify as a woman without having to take any further steps (Hormone replacement, srs, etc) this seems exploitable.

While you are throwaway I am still gonna remind you of "assuming good faith" is one of core tenants of hn. Other things that are exploitable: driving vans/cars in cities as they can be driven into crowds. I agree that it is thinkable that some people might want to exploit these rules. However I haven't seen anything that suggest abuse will be rampant enough and not be able to be dealt using existing laws and shaming…

How would you see anything to suggest abuse will be rampant before the abuse is even viable?

There have already been people I would describe as attempting to abuse[1] the nascent systems that do exist.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/23/canadian-transge...

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#547

Post by dryrun » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

danielodievich wrote: post #138

One of my favorite sci-fi authors is Ian M. Banks (discussed here on HN with regularity). His Culture series describe a post-scarcity interstellar society of human(oid)s who among many, many things can change their own gender just by thinking about it. After suitable body alteration time, you can be a male, female, or even something in between (that happens to be important part of one of the characters in one of the…

This seems very interesting, however instinctively I would have thought otherwise, meaning a society would tend towards the most rewarding, to the extreme of resulting in a non viable civilization. If you can change at will, why pick up the losing side?

As much as I would like it to be different, I wouldn't trust the human race with this capability.

Will definitely read, thanks.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#548

Post by jfengel » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #323

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…

This is how the ruling class controls us peons. They have us fight each other vociferously over things like this or abortion or gay marriage, while they stay above it and do nothing except minor moral victories. The sad thing is that this works.

It wouldn't work if we didn't subject ourselves to it. The "ruling class" may be working to control us, but they don't have to work very hard. They don't even make the lies plausible. There are an awful lot of people willing to die on the hill of the most astonishing idiocies, just because it's their idiocy.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#549

Post by oramit » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

fiftyfifty wrote: post #270

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.

I have 3 kids in college right now, actually one just graduated with a computer science degree. All 3 of my kids have talked about how much gender ideology has creeped into the classroom at the college level, to the point where virtually every class including computer science, engineering and science courses, has to start off with addressing pronoun preferences. It is a political hot-topic for sure, and those often g…

Can you expand on what Gender Ideology in the classroom looks like for your kids? Is there more to this than addressing pronouns?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#550

Post by alach11 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #404

klyrs wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As I've said before: we agree on this point. Where we seem to disagree is on the question of whether government, employers or other institutional powers have the power to silence those who don't see it our way. If we do indeed disagree, then by definition you lean towards authoritarian politics. You are willing to go further than I in restricting freedom of expression to defend trans people. You may even be right, bu…

> Where we seem to disagree is on the question of whether government, employers or other institutional powers have the power to silence those who don't see it our way

Isn't it the default case that employers can set rules about how employees speak to each other? Do you see anything wrong with an employer saying "you must make a good-faith effort to call people by their preferred name and pronouns"?