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

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#351

Post by ska » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #318

caeril wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Feminists (TERFs) One note: Nobody self-identifies as a TERF. Or at least not originally (I'm sure in Internet ire people do it ironically by now.) It's mostly a label used to crush nuanced conversation.

> Or at least not originally

I've heard it was the other way around, i.e. it started off as a self identification for a niche group which people started to reject once it begun to be used pejoratively.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#352

Post by mike00632 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #317

mike00632 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that this is not about how personally difficult it is for you to respect someone else's preferences. It's actually very easy and we do it all the time for other things, like nicknames. If you're so against trans people having similar status as you then you shouldn't claim that it's because trans people are causing you a burden.

>If you're so against trans people having similar status as you then you shouldn't claim that it's because trans people are causing you a burden. Yes, I understand. But, much of the opposition you're seeing isn't because people are "against trans people". It's because they're opposed solving the problem of intolerance through authoritarian methods.

Aren't you being the "authoritarian" by insisting on calling people by the wrong nicknames (gender), promoting laws that outlaw nickname (gender) preference and going as far as violence if that person continues to disagree with your name (gender)?

The proposed protections for trans people are in response to real acts of violence that are not in line with laws like the 14th Amendment which promotes equality for all people.

And let's remember that these laws to protect trans people are only being proposed. Many laws on the books are against trans people. What you're reacting to is social pressure to treat trans people with respect, not authoritarian legal pressure. If anyone is feeling authoritarian legal pressure it's trans people.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#353

Post by stickfigure » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #205

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…

>"I feel unsafe if there is a man in the bathroom." Why? Because men (biological males if we're being pedantic) are statistically overwhelmingly more likely to commit rape and other forms of sexual assault (and other violent crimes) and to be horny creepy perverted sex pests in general. Add to that the fact that men are much more physically strong than women (a ~5th percentile male is about as strong as a ~95th perce…

From a statistical perspective, black Americans are more likely to commit violent crimes than white. Yet we got rid of white/colored restrooms, and claiming "I'm afraid of blacks" is rightly considered racist and offensive.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#354

Post by klyrs » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

handmodel wrote: post #133

mike00632 wrote: post #124

Earlier 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 don't think that is what commenter is saying. I, personally, of course defer to nicknames and pronouns. I think it is more similar to race-blind versus race-conscious policies - along with gender-blind versus gernder-concious. Is it better to assume that men and women are pretty much the same in academia and each are capable of the same thing? Or is it better to assume that men and women are intrinsically better at…

> Is it better to assume that men and women are pretty much the same in academia and each are capable of the same thing? Or is it better to assume that men and women are intrinsically better at different things with certain characteristics.

This is something I think a lot of people misunderstand about [id]-consciousness. Is it better to assume that you as an individual have biases that align/oppose with overarching biases in our society, or is it better to assume that you alone, or society at large, are bias-free? Can we address inequality by treating everybody the same in this moment and ignoring the historical context they exist in, or do observed biases need to be compensated for in some manner?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#355

Post by dvt » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #316

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…

> 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 are passionate about it, companies change their logos, everyone posts about it on social media, but let's not perpetuate these myths.

[1] https://www.them.us/story/44-trans-people-killed-2020-worst-...

[2] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#356

Post by delecti » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #224

saxonww wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Various societies throughout history have recognized gender identities as distinct from biological differences for about as long as there have been societies. That the modern English terms for those two categories emerged from academia is pretty irrelevant.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#357

Post by kofejnik » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

mike00632 wrote: post #264

jotux wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be the opposite of that scenario? As in, someone has a given name at birth but they prefer a nickname and some people find using the nickname too onerous and use their given name instead?

Yeah, my legal name is "Michael". If I asked you to call me "Mike" is that really such a pain for you?

If I asked you to call me "Your Majesty" and bow your head every time (only slightly, tho), would it really be such a pain to you?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#358

Post by inglor_cz » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

lotu wrote: post #256

kwanbix wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% Agree. At least in my home country, this is mostly fueled by the left (I consider myself center). Lots of them just "work" of doing nothing but protesting, so once they get something they wanted, they have to move to the next thing. For example, they start by making changes to the language so, instead of being "los" (male) or "las" (female) they started to say "les" (does not exists in spanish) as they say it is…

Language is defined by the people who speak it, not by some authority. If people are using “les” than it is part of Spanish.

Some languages actually do have a central authority. IDK about Spanish, but my native language (Czech) definitely has an official standard.

Anyone can, of course, use any weird construction they want, it is just not correct Czech.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#359

Post by dgb23 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

twirligigue wrote: post #108

There seems to be a new background assumption that one's identity can be chosen, whereas I think in reality it's inherited.

It’s not really a choice, rather than an often very difficult process of discovery, if they manage to accept it at all. A good friend of mine struggled for years with their self acceptance and I only realized that in restrospect. But coming out liberated them and an avalanche of happiness, productivity and positivity happened.

It’s a real struggle, and by belittling or ignoring it we can only make it worse. It’s time to listen, respect and embrace.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#360

Post by nepeckman » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

One thing I find very troubling about articles like this is the tendency to frame hot political topics as essentially academic, while they are in fact very practical. Across the US and England, trans people are being denied access to health care, medically necessary operations, and effective therapeutic treatment. But this article doesn't discuss those issues, it only discusses the ramifications of this political reality.