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

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#551

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

plank_time wrote: post #379

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. See as they make up a smaller minority than most minority people in the US, I personally think that helping poor and working class people first would uplift them a lot quicker than letting trans…

I don’t think there’s an if/else clause. Allowing trans women to legally be claimed as women is really just an adjustment in a database, as well as just treating people the way they want to be treated. It doesn’t cost anything to be respectful to people regardless of who they are.

The comment stated:

>up to and including letting them be legally be considered the sex of their belief as long as they have transitioned to some degree

What you're suggesting is something simple. What the parent was suggesting was 1% of the population multiplied by $40k+ in surgeries and drugs leading up to $120million for funding people transitioning meanwhile telling lower class people who work at crappy general labor jobs "yeah just pull yourself up by your bootstraps."

Universally we can agree, helping all of the working class helps out all minorities seeing as most minorities are...working class.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#552

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

btilly wrote: post #417

mkr-hn wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "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 w…

Please note that that's an opinion article, not an academic source.

It's borderline misleading to say that mastectomies "happen", and then link it with an unrelated number for diagnoses of gender dysphoria.

It's also misleading to represent the growth of a tiny number relatively. A few dozen cases grew to a few hundred. That's completely normal and what happens with any novel diagnosis that was barely accepted even just 10 years ago.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#553

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

millzlane wrote: post #383

plank_time wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

All you have to do is look at how the term is used in the wild to determine if its a slur. Anyone who can claim it isn't is being disingenuous.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#554

Post by jfengel » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #462

TimTheTinker wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird to me that sexuality and identity are so intertwined. Why should someone "come out" as anything? (I know a lot of people "come out" as various things in a mere bid for attention... I'll leave that issue aside.) If I knew someone casually for a while who never talked about his/her sexuality, but one day they said "I never said this before, but I'm a heterosexual", I'd certainly feel awkward about it. Why di…

It's only weird to you because you are almost certainly straight, cis and male. Let me explain. All of society is structured around your identity. Like the fish, you can't even see the water because you have always been in it. I'm unlikely to help you see the water, but let me at least try. If you meet a friend, he might comment he saw a movie with his new girlfriend. He shows you a photo on his phone and you say she…

Thank you, that was very nicely said.

It's distressing the degree to which people want to blame others for their identities while regarding their own as some kind of fundamental default of nature. It's only "identity politics" when it's somebody else's identity.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#555

Post by layoutIfNeeded » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:29 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...

You're onto something... Keep lurking!

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#556

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:29 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…

[deleted]

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#557

Post by btilly » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #537

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…

This is a wonderfully nuanced thread on the subject from a trans woman in her thirties: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1385411504669790208.html Edit: I just noticed the original poster already converted this into a longform post, so the "reader app" version isn't really necessary https://liminalwarmth.com/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-m...

Thank you for posting it. Some definite food for thought.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#558

Post by spamizbad » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

caeril wrote: post #302

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…

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…

> Interestingly enough, there's not much animosity toward trans-men.

While it's true there's little animosity directed at them, there is a lot of stuff Shrier's view that "gender ideology" is seducing lesbian women into thinking they're not actually women. Which, honestly, as someone who lived through lots of the dumb gay panic in the 80s and 90s sounds exactly like what people thought about homosexuals (eg: gay people can seduce/recruit straight people and turn them gay). So trans men get treated like dupes or victims of some social phenomena, rather than treated like actual human beings with agency of their own.

In fact, pretty much every anti-trans viewpoint I see, even from otherwise highbrow publicans like the Economist, are really just rehashes of what we heard about gays in the 80s and 90s, before we realized they were, in fact, not a threat to society.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#559

Post by dang » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

Moodles wrote: post #481

dang wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. Can you please not do that? It's against the rules here because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for. We ban accounts that do this, regardless of what their ideology happens to be. See [1] for more explanation. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the in…

Is this rate limiting on commenting ever going to be lifted or is it permanent?

We're happy to take off rate limits if people give us some reason to believe that they sincerely intend to follow the site guidelines in the future.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#560

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #417

mkr-hn wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "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 w…

The article cited nothing for the former claim. An unspecified survey for the latter.

It seemed to imply the 40x increase was in rapid onset gender dysphoria. But ROGD isn't a recognized diagnosis even now. Never mind 2006. A single researcher published a single paper proposing it in 2018. They relied on the assumption teenagers tell their parents everything. And they selected for parents who refused to accept their children coming out as trans.[1]

The article also claimed 100% of a small study population proceeding to transition after puberty blockers contradicts the claim puberty blockers give children more time to decide before transitioning. But doctors don't hand out puberty blockers randomly of course.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnc_KvWkiHw&t=3324s