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

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#221

Post by LatteLazy » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #176

rootusrootus wrote: post #145

What a tough problem to solve. My current thought on the gender identity issue is that society should default to the absolute minimum amount of categorizing people by their gender. What you identify as only matters to the extent that we divide people. Nobody would care if you used the women's bathroom, if such a thing did not exist. And when it is absolutely necessary for a distinction to exist, then we can spend the…

> This would mean throwing out a lot of the more epheremeral complaints "I feel unsafe if there is a man in the bathroom." Why? Let's fix that part, then. Because there are going to be scary women too. Do you recognize that there are actual reasons that a woman might not want to go into a bathroom with 5 men in it?

Careful, it sounds like you might be banning 99% of a minority because 1% behaved badly. I know that's not what you intend.

:)

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#222

Post by freemint » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #200

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> house intact trans-women Why would a rapist stop wanting to rape regardless of the state of their genitals? Is sexual violation with a penis so much more horrific than other violations it deserves special consideration?

Its also about the possibility of being impregnated Just personalize the idea, your sister or female significant other was thrown in jail, and then housed with a male who is a trans woman who has sex with her with or without her consent and creates an ongoing consequence that is impossible if trans women were not there That would be the expectation you would start with to form a conclusion Sex in male prisons does no…

In good faith and not as whataboutism: Do you think being forced to impregnate someone against your will is similarly horrific although less burdensome for the first 9 months?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#223

Post by TaylorAlexander » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

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.

Certainly I am finding it very difficult to be heard. As a member of the trans community I’ve tried to be kind and helpful in my comments in this thread but I’m getting downvoted to hell.

I just really want people in this thread to learn about emotional labor and to consider what they’re asking of marginalized people when they want to “discuss” the validity of their needs.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#224

Post by HideousKojima » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

saxonww wrote: post #196

cheeseomlit wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really an apt comparison since there's nothing about a nickname that defies observable reality, a name is a social construct to begin with. Sex however is a biological construct in which the characteristics are directly and quantitatively observable.

The idea is that sex and gender are different though; gender _is_ a social construct. I think lack of agreement on this is a big part of the issue right now. Edit: as pointed out below, gender roles are something we've made up, but preferences and behavior themselves (which we're calling gender) are not. Still separate from sex.

Attempts to separate sex from gender are prescriptive, not descriptive. And the academic who first attempted to separate their meanings was a child molester with strong personal and ideological motivations for doing so:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Money

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#225

Post by mudil » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #150

The same has occurred in regards to race. For decades the ideological left preached, quite aggressively and consistently, that we must move to a post racial society, that race should not matter. This was the clear majority belief on the left as recently as the beginning of Obama's first term. My entire childhood was filled with that preached gospel: a person's character is what matters, do not pay attention to their…

May I also add that prior to the current wave, educators were of opinion that kids need to be protected, at any cost, even to the point that grading system discriminates against kids, it can make them feel inferior. Now they basically shove every kid into corner, either as an oppressor or a victim.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#226

Post by merhart » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

throwaway284534 wrote: post #36

There’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…

Just want to say thank you for taking the time to express your perspective on this, particularly as a heavily affected individual in these matters.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#227

Post by metalman » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

My personal experience of living and working,traveling with,family,friends,etc of all kinds of people including trans,gay,all the variants has left me with no conclusions whatsoever. On occasion someone would comment on another "that it takes all kinds to make the world go around" and I have never agreed,quite,my take is that there ARE all kinds and the world goes around anyway,and if you think that you are adjusted and are good with everyone then you dont get out much,cause if you are out there meeting new people in new situations well outside of your core group ,then you will find that there is no damn normal and a great deal that is just plain incomprehensible. Gender has become a team sport,and I have heard it said while with friends that so and so is "profesionaly gay" in that they have employment as a cultural sensitivity officer in a large organization and tend to become insuferable to all. I have also heard anicdotaly that F to M tranies often bail out of the "therapy" and come out with a new respect for men,in that having testosterone in thier system drives them to rage and anger and violence and they are astounded that men are not much much much worse that we are. Backlash you bet,and a good bit of it is comming from good honest people who are not strait and gendernormative. We need peace and prosperity for all,and pronouns will not supply that.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#228

Post by fagbag123 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:34 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.

> HN ... an echo chamber for "anti woke" lines of thinking

Nigger are you retarded

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#229

Post by umvi » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #192

fungiblecog wrote: post #92

I think the irony of the current battle around identity is that we have been making steady progress based on the idea that personal characteristics shouldn't matter. However this whole debate is reversing that by not only saying it matters a great deal but that other people should be forced to defer to others personal choices even when it directly affects them

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 oscillation] occurs when the pilot of an aircraft inadvertently commands an often increasing series of corrections in opposite directions, each an attempt to cover the aircraft's reaction to the previous input with an over correction in the opposite direction" (in this case the "pilot" is "society")

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#230

Post by TimTheTinker » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #181

fungiblecog wrote: post #92

I think the irony of the current battle around identity is that we have been making steady progress based on the idea that personal characteristics shouldn't matter. However this whole debate is reversing that by not only saying it matters a great deal but that other people should be forced to defer to others personal choices even when it directly affects them

This was ironically one of the things that was hardest about coming out as gay, for me. Nobody ever treated me the same way again. I was either uncomfortably praised or silently judged, with practically no in-between. Suffice to say, my sexuality is on a need-to-know basis, now.

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 did he/she say that to me?

To take it further, why phrase it "I am ..." instead of "I have ... desires"? If the latter sounds awkward, why is the former any less awkward?