This article seems to confusingly mix together free speech issues with the issue of whether things are true/moral. A lot of things are completely legal to say, but obviously false (eg, 2 + 2 = 5) or abhorrent (eg, Kim Jong Un is a great leader). You can support free speech without agreeing with a particular viewpoint.
A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
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Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#732There’s a lot that’s already been said in this topic but I feel compelled to bring up the damage imposed by TERF talking points. The conversation goes something like this: “Transgender women possess an innate maleness that carries a non-zero threat to female spaces.” They believe that dictionary definitions of woman are prescriptive, declared at the chromosomes during birth, rather than descriptive, as in how one pre…
> to bring up the damage imposed by TERF talking points
Even to the extent that there is a debate to be had about trans identity and how gender/sex works, it's really hard to have that debate when one side is terrified that their rights are being taken away. For trans people, this debate has immediate consequences.
It's kind of frustrating to me that people don't see this. People are mad about not being able to have academic debates about trans identity as if it's unreasonable for the trans community to be prioritizing their own rights instead of the intellectual curiosity of university professors.
2020-2021 has seen one of the largest jumps in anti-trans legislation since... I don't even know when, since before I was born. So yeah, everyone who cares about this issue is on edge about TERFs, because TERFs don't want to have a friendly academic debate, they want to pass legislation blocking affirmative care, policing bathrooms and sports, and generally erasing trans people from society. I'm annoyed when I see people online acting like the trans community is the reason that these topics are politically fraught. They're politically fraught because TERFs and anti-trans politicians are using them as a front to take people's rights away.
If that problem got fixed, if trans people weren't under attack, if a lot of the questioning wasn't tied up in bigotry, then conversations online about gender wouldn't be so tense. It's wild to try and blame the trans community for prioritizing self-preservation.
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#733Can 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…
In Australia and most other developed countries now, this ideology is heavily promoted to children, encouraging them to believe they are trans. They are connected with websites that promote the ideology, and then connected with a trans specialist who helps prescribe puberty blockers without parental knowledge. If you are a parent who believes that children should be taught to love their own bodies as they grow rather…
Seems a bit overly dramatic. Lots of aggressive adjectives.
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#734Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Australia and most other developed countries now, this ideology is heavily promoted to children, encouraging them to believe they are trans. They are connected with websites that promote the ideology, and then connected with a trans specialist who helps prescribe puberty blockers without parental knowledge. If you are a parent who believes that children should be taught to love their own bodies as they grow rather…
> And there's a huge number of "trans" who later realise they were sold a lie and have to undergo further surgery to try and restore their original sex. There is no way this is a huge number. I'd be shocked if you could find a credible source on this. This sounds like conservative agitprop.
Studies have consistently shown that most trans children revert to their original gender identity post-puberty [0]:
>The exact rate of desistance varied by study, but overall, they concluded that about 80 percent trans kids eventually identified as their sex at birth. Some trans activists and academics, however, argue that these studies are flawed, the patients surveyed weren't really transgender, and that mass desistance doesn't exist.
>Indeed, some of the studies cited by Cantor had sample sizes as low as 16 people and were more than 40 years old, and one was an unpublished doctoral dissertation. But the most recent study, published in 2013 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, followed up with 127 adolescent patients at a gender identity clinic in Amsterdam and found that two-thirds ultimately identified as the gender they were assigned at birth.
This does not imply any percentage of patients who underwent surgery to "restore" their original sex. Orchiectomies, mastectomies, and histerectomies are irreversible in any case, not to mention bottom surgery.
[0] https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/06/28/25252342/the...
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#735Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that it spreads inside friend circles should be all it takes to defeat the idea that it is based on some fundamental internal gender dysphoria. It's more akin to a social meme. In not saying that applies to all cases, but definitely a good number of them among young people, especially girls.
Birds of a feather flock together.
I do not find that sufficient to explain away the phenomenon. It could account for part of it.
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#736Can 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…
Given the data we have now, you’re right— if humans were rational we’d be focusing topics that affect the masses. Using minority groups (BLM, LGBT, Immigration, etc.) as shields for larger agendas is an effective defense strategy.
> if humans were rational we’d be focusing topics that affect the masses
Are there any academic articles on ethics that you could cite to back up that assertion?
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#737Can 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…
What level of outrage? I notice a lot of outrage online from people whose identities I cannot verify. I have noticed zero outrage IRL from real people that I interact with. Small sample size but I think that judging outrage from online presence is inaccurate.
Yeah, there is a huge disconnect between online and IRL discussion of trans issues. Online you see all this seething outrage but IRL there are two camps — either you run in a ‘blue’ crowd and someone being trans is a non-issue. Nobody cares, they use your name and pronouns, let you live your life, celebrate legal victories, and commiserate losses, but when push comes to shove won’t actually do anything that requires effort and can’t be posted on insta. Then if you run in a ‘red’ crowd you’re quietly not accepted, you’ll be party to dinners where phrases like “gender ideology”, “the trans agenda”, “indoctrination”, “free speech” are brought up whenever articles hit the news. And if you come out you either are kicked out of your family, ghosted by your friend group, or just ignored and expected to never speak of it again. If you do being up that people aren’t using your name, pronouns, or being otherwise not treated like your gender you’re called “political” and it’s taken as an attack. And if you say, “no it’s because what your doing hurts me” it’s doubly taken as an attack because now you’re “playing the victim.”
Only when the two groups mix do you get this fired up hate because the mechanisms within the groups that lead to people not talking about it don’t work and the social graces that tamp out arguments aren’t present on the internet so it explodes.
I hate so much that my existence is the hot button political topic right now. Like it’s good I guess — seems like we need to get this out of our systems but ugh does it bring out the worst in everyone. This should have never been a party thing and it’s so stupid that it’s now a billion times more political because of it. Both sides are trying to out woke or out red pill each other while the actual lives of trans people fall by the wayside.
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#738Earlier 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?
I have that exact situation at work, twice in fact. One woman's nickname is Pookie. Some people are uncomfortable with using that term and they use her legal name. It doesn't bother her. Another man insisted on people calling him "PawPaw". Nobody was comfortable with that, especially the women he borderline harassed every day. He was fired for stealing food out of the break room before the name situation came to a he…
What is interesting is that you value rights... but not for trans people. You wrote many paragraphs about your God-given right to misgender people. Noticably missing is any talk about trans people being able to use public accomodations or have access to medical care or not face discrimination in terms of hiring, loans, services.
Like, "compel speech"? Really? You were going to use a pronoun anyways. It's just such a simple ask for the sake of politeness but you frame it as "compel speech"? This idea that it's such a burden is obviously contrived.
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#739Earlier 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…
> That is hard to say. Why? There are simply more disabled people than trans people and they are getting far less attention, right? How is that hard to say?
I think society has made good efforts to be more accessible to people with disabilities. I'm pretty sure all of the traffic lights in America beep when the walk signal is on - that exists to assist blind individuals even in communities without blind individuals - in addition there are a lot more buildings with wheelchair ramps than there are with unisex bathrooms.
Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
#740I worked for a company that hired 4 trans women (out of 7 people total) during a "diversity hiring" push, then touted the diversity of the hires. All of the trans women had been raised and had gone through university as white men, earning comp sci degrees, before transitioning in their mid- to late-twenties. While I do not debate that those individuals represent a type of diversity in the current company makeup, it a…
I think meaning of the term diversity is often twisted into a binary outcome. If a company is 65% white and 35% Chinese is that more diverse than a company that is 70% white, 10% Chinese, 10% Indian, and 10% Vietnamese?
Often, the above two examples would be flattened to just 35% or 30% Asian. But even my example is very reductive - China, for example, has many dozens of ethnic groups.
I think 'diversity' is a very hard thing to quantify, which makes it more difficult to measure the effectiveness of initiatives to increase diversity.
Can anyone point me towards better methods of measuring diversity? If society or a particular organization wishes to increase diversity, it seems important to be able to measure it with more nuance.