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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

#971

Post by neartheplain »

pseudalopex wrote: post #844
neartheplain wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 desis…

The study they cited included both gender non conforming and gender dysphoric children. Non conforming doesn't mean trans.

They cited a wide body of studies, including studies which included only trans kids. All studies produced consistent results. For those who didn't read the full article, here's the preamble to the 80% figure quoted above:

>There have, however, been almost a dozen studies of looking at the rate of "desistance," among trans-identified kids—which, in this context, refers to cases in which trans kids eventually identify as their sex at birth. Canadian sex researcher James Cantor summarized those studies' findings in a blog post: "Despite the differences in country, culture, decade, and follow-up length and method, all the studies have come to a remarkably similar conclusion: Only very few trans-kids still want to transition by the time they are adults. Instead, they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks." 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.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#972

Post by mvkel »

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…

Does it matter, or make the cause any less noble?

A minority group, by definition, has no power. It needs the majority to speak for them. So regardless of how small a number they represent, scaling the conversation up is required.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#973

Post by Tainnor »

nec4b wrote: post #926
dmje wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. The airtime on this topic is insane. People's email signatures filled with their pronouns. The anger. The division. I get it's an emotive conversation but then so are gay rights, gender rights, race rights, democratic rights, inequality, and about a gazillion other topics. That's not belittling trans as an issue, but it's so incredibly noisy. IMO the wider question here is nothing to do with tran…

"I'm as left wing as they come, but being left wing means being able to have open, honest and sometimes uncomfortable debates. Being left wing is not, and never has been, about shutting down conversation, de-platforming, dogma, chilling effects. These are the things of the hard right, and the sooner people on the left start realising it and start being empowered to be vocal in defence of the freedom of ideas, the bet…

I hope you're aware that "left wing" doesn't mean "socialist" or "communist" and that plenty of liberal democracies have had social democratic parties in power for some period or another without there being any breakdown in tolerance to opposing viewpoints.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#974

Post by dmje »

raxxorrax wrote: post #936
nec4b wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm as left wing as they come, but being left wing means being able to have open, honest and sometimes uncomfortable debates. Being left wing is not, and never has been, about shutting down conversation, de-platforming, dogma, chilling effects. These are the things of the hard right, and the sooner people on the left start realising it and start being empowered to be vocal in defence of the freedom of ideas, the bet…

Problem is that people on the left support de-platforming. Perhaps it is wrong and business leaders are really responsible for this, but combating hate speech is popular in those circles. You can guess how hate gets define by zeitgeist.

You're right. And they shouldn't. Being liberal is about being able to take on opposing views.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#975

Post by otde »

f154hfds wrote: post #964
otde wrote: post #440

On other subjects on HN (software, mostly), I find curious, questioning people, who will, for the most part, engage very seriously with the subject matter. I think this is because users here engage with software -- the creation, maintenance, collaboration, the joy and misery of it all -- frequently and with a passion for nuance. When high-visibility articles on trans people show up, it's almost inevitably when our tr…

How is the sports concern illegitimate? It seems it's already a major issue today, as we speak. We're past the point of hypothetical worst-case scenarios in that respect.

Being trans is one of many possible attributes a person can possess (tall, short, skinny, fat, and so on)! There are lots of ways a person's body can be built that may give them an advantage or disadvantage over another person.

Strength and speed are not the sole metrics by which Olympic medals are awarded, either. Some people are taller than other people, some people are shorter, some are trans and some aren't. None of that categorically excludes trans women from womanhood, so I don't see why that would preclude them from entering into women's events. It comes back to a fundamental distrust of trans women as containing some vaguely cited percentage of lying cisgender men.

For a bad-faith actor to take advantage of the current system, they'd have to transition medically and socially, wait for years (in Laurel Hubbard, the potential first trans Olympian's case, at least five -- she quit in 2001, transitioned in 2012, then began competing in 2017), and then stay that way for as long as it would require to convince people that you've fully transitioned (could be decades or the rest of their life, depending on how they'd want their legacy to live on). The incentive structure is just completely out of whack. You'd have to fight tooth and nail for something you don't actually identify with, and live with the physical and psychological effects for years or possibly decades, plus living with the general harassment people would give you for perceiving you as trans and for trying to compete in the Olympics, and then what? You think with how stringent the IOC tries to be with doping that they wouldn't figure that one out? You think the backlash wouldn't be absolutely enormous?

What about this is "worst" case, anyway? We might get our first trans person who's even allowed to compete this year. It's a totally disproportionate response.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#976

Post by dmje »

Tainnor wrote: post #973
nec4b wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm as left wing as they come, but being left wing means being able to have open, honest and sometimes uncomfortable debates. Being left wing is not, and never has been, about shutting down conversation, de-platforming, dogma, chilling effects. These are the things of the hard right, and the sooner people on the left start realising it and start being empowered to be vocal in defence of the freedom of ideas, the bet…

I hope you're aware that "left wing" doesn't mean "socialist" or "communist" and that plenty of liberal democracies have had social democratic parties in power for some period or another without there being any breakdown in tolerance to opposing viewpoints.

Came to say just that but you got there first and did it better than I would have

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#977

Post by neartheplain »

freemint wrote: post #870
neartheplain wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the numbers: In 2019, the most recent year for which the FBI has data, the total US homicide rate was 4.3 deaths per 100,000 people [0] (possible underestimate; incident reporting is voluntary, and 25% of police departments don't submit expanded homicide data). Human Rights Campaign recorded the deaths of 25 transgender and gender non-conforming people in 2019 [1]. There are an estimated 1 million people who…

Don't role your own aggregate statistics when the thing you try to derive by mashing together things created for different purposes is measured or estimated by people. I don't role my own encryption for public use either.

If higher-quality statistics are available, I'd certainly be curious to see them.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#978

Post by perl4ever »

NoblePublius wrote: post #472
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…

100% of people have gender.

Empirically false.

I have a government pension, and when I log in to the online self service, it says my gender is "unknown".

I have been informed it can not be changed.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#979

Post by teatree »

throwaway284534 wrote: post #960
teatree wrote: post #924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies if this question is too stupid, I mean no disrespect, just trying to understand things better. If gender is a complete social construct and 'man' and 'woman' are something that is traits observed within an ongoing and temporal culture lens, then why not create another of your own? Most problems that I see in this debate are due to one group wanting to widen the scope of a existing understanding, the other w…

It’s a fair question. I can’t speak for all trans women, but the impression I get is that many trans people would prefer to think of their transition as a medical issue to be managed back into the gender binary. You’ll probably get varying answers depending on just how far someone is in their transition. This doesn’t come up often but I think cis folks aren’t aware that many trans folk “graduate” out of the community…

Thanks :)

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#980

Post by perl4ever »

kyle_martin1 wrote: post #721
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…

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.

This is more nuanced than you think.

If you choose one variable that describes people, and assume for simplicity it's approximately bell shaped, then sure, most people are in the middle, which is "average" or "normal", and if we want to help the most people, it seems logical to focus on them.

But if you start adding independent variables, it becomes increasingly unlikely that any given person is in the middle on all of them. Even with three, let alone dozens.

So you, or any other randomly chosen person, are probably very like "the masses" in some respects, but given, say, ten dimensions, nobody is average.

Which is why disregarding minorities in general isn't a viable way to run a society.

(I got this idea from an item on HN, which I think was more or less this: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...)

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