7 ms·

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 beca

by oofabz 5y ago

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.

dang 5y ago
HN is for topics that gratify intellectual curiosity, not "software development". Please see the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You're certainly right that this is an inflammatory topic with strong political and ideological overlap, and as the guidelines explain, we don't want flamewar here, and we don't want ideological or political battle. The site exists for intellectual curiosity, and those things aren't compatible. There's a great deal of established moderation practice around this, if anyone wants to read past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... That doesn't automatically make a story like this off topic for HN. It depends on whether there's enough new information in a story to support a substantive discussion. In this case, the topic is not just "gender ideology", it's ongoing developments at universities and in the discourse at large. All of these are significant and interesting phenomena. For that reason I turned the flags off on this submission. That's also established moderation practice (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22flags%22%20off%20turn&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). It requires a judgment call, of course, and we don't always make the right calls—but not making any would be an even worse call. Of course it's commenters' responsibility to stick to the side guidelines if posting in such a thread. That means curious, thoughtful conversation and respect toward other commenters (and other people generally). Flamewar, flamebait, snark, name-calling, personal attacks and so on are not ok. People sometimes think that just because a topic is inflammatory it means they get carte blanche to spew what they will (e.g. "if you don't want me to post like this then you shouldn't allow this thread in the first place"). I call that argument "the topic made me do it", and not only is it false, the opposite is true: commenters here are under a greater obligation in cases like this, as the site guidelines make clear: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
- bachmeier 5y ago
  > HN is for topics that gratify intellectual curiosity I think that's the problem with a topic like this on HN. There will be little learning going on, with many statements made with certainty by individuals that have never studied any of these concepts in any detail. The level of dismissal in the comments is itself a reason to pull the plug.
  - dang 5y ago
    That's certainly a big problem, but HN can't be a site for intellectual curiosity and at the same time exclude every story with political or ideological overlap. People sometimes imagine that that would be better, but only in the context of a specific story or thread they don't like. If you try to imagine it as a general policy it breaks down altogether. Nor would this community accept such severe restrictions on the range of topics. I don't think we have any choice but to patiently work together at having more thoughtful conversation. I've written extensively about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. If anyone has a question that hasn't been answered there, I'd like to know what it is, and if you know a better way for HN to relate to political topics while fulfilling its mandate of curiosity, I'd really like to know what it is. Just please familiarize yourself with the past material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've answered many times already why it won't work.
    - f38zf5vdt 5y ago
      It feels like why subreddits or /pol/ exist: to segregate that to a place where people are most interested.
      - dang 5y ago
        HN is a non-siloed site, meaning we don't have subreddits, or any of the other ways that large communities segregate themselves. Here we're all in one big room together, like it or not. It's always been that way and I think it's part of its DNA. This has advantages and disadvantages, as with all such design choices, but it's good to be conscious of what one's design actually is, since otherwise one might end up fucking with the DNA, which doesn't seem like a great idea. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=silo%20by%3Adang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=silo%20by%3Adang&dateRange=all... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
casion 5y ago
Hacker news is not about software development. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html n.b. "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
f38zf5vdt 5y ago
For a while I'd really enjoyed HackerNews for the lack of politics. It was great not to hear about Trump during the Trump presidency, but since then and COVID times I find more and more highly politicized editorials being propelled to the top of the front page. I'm pretty close to no longer visiting here.
- hotz 5y ago
  You're not alone.
- dang 5y ago
  This is normal fluctuation. People have been saying such things since the early years of HN—see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. There was a great deal of Trump discussion here, too. Such perceptions are prone to sample bias.
- zuminator 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you couldn't simply skip the topics that you don't like, and completely avoid them, regardless of whether the reason for your lack of interest is politics or just that you never owned a ZX Spectrum or whatever.
  - arkaniad 5y ago
    True, but a counterpoint: One may not like the topic but it may be best to be aware of what the conversation is should one find oneself someday blindsided by some political decision with negative consequences informed by these discussions. Supporting evidence: I've gotta keep tabs on which places I shouldn't travel to in my own country where I was born and raised because people keep trying to make it illegal to use the bathroom safely [1] after getting scared by conversations such as the ones I've seen in this thread. [1] - https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legislative-tracking635951130.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legis...
- bosswipe 5y ago
  I agree. There also seems to be more right-wing outrage-of-the-day bubbling up here.
simonh 5y ago
I think HN is an excellent forum for this topic. It’s not just about development here, it’s also about the business of building tech companies. It’s not an accident HN was built on the side of Y-Combinator. Also if we can’t have a productive and civil discussion about it here, where can we? Sure we get trolls and wing nuts here, but fortunately there are enough adults that even divisive issues can get discussed productively. Not always, not on every topic, but it happens.
throwaway894345 5y ago
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).
- maybeOneDay 5y ago
  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.
  - zo1 5y ago
    It's entirely plausible that most were thinking that but didn't say anything for fear of backlash. If so then the mere act of them speaking what's really on their mind is, what I would argue as, "healthy discussion". Either way, I've been finding a lot of what's being said here today as interesting and mentally engaging on some level.
  - fagbag123 5y ago
    > HN ... an echo chamber for "anti woke" lines of thinking Nigger are you retarded
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    I would disagree. I think that there is a strong pro free speech group, most of who are also literally woke, but who also want to keep the overton window broad. There are, of course, some pretty reptitive comment threads, but you can collapse those and generally find more interesting discussion somewhere (don't forget there are often multiple pages of comments.)
  - weakfish 5y ago
    I'm in the same boat. Its a bit tiresome and I feel it's getting worse (?) Fwiw, current college student. My school isn't particularly "woke" beyond having a LGBT support center, but that strikes me as common decency rather than wokeness.
pc86 5y ago
> What to Submit [0] > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. Yes, gender ideology is pretty political (should it be?). But learning about it can obviously gratify one's intellectual curiosity if they're approaching it in good faith. So I don't think you're necessarily able to just make a blanket statement like "this isn't appropriate." As for having much to lose, if you feel alienated by a good faith intellectual discussion -- regardless of topic -- that's your problem. This sort of thing is discussed daily in liberal arts programs across the US and in most of the world. You have to be able to discuss and learn about topics, even divisive ones, without losing your shit. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: And it looks like in the period of time it took me to type this half a dozen other people said the same thing.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
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.
- dang 5y ago
  Yes, that's not good. I will take a closer look. Thanks for remaining kind and helpful, even when it's not easy.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    Wow thanks I appreciate it. It had been an upsetting experience and this helped.
- supernintendo 5y ago
  Trans people are a hot button issue these days but it feels like we don’t really have a seat at the table in that debate. The healthiest thing you can do for yourself is just live your life, surround yourself with people who make you feel safe, valued and loved, and stop trying to convince random strangers online that you’re worth something. I take a lot of inspiration from the ball room / drag culture - how it creates families for LGBTQ folks where none exist and uses expression as a form of activism. It’s not my place to change anyone’s mind; all I can do is live my life and hopefully others will grow as a result of observing me.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    Well, the thing is I want to like Hacker News. And usually I do. But whenever issues around marginalized groups come up, out come the people who just can’t understand what all the fuss is about. When I entered this discussion, the top comment on the article was talking about how trans people freak out when you just bring up the issue of one trans women in sports and try to “have a discussion”. And it’s just like… I cannot leave that as the top comment and not say something. I mean, I could leave it, but I have to decide which is more upsetting - saying nothing or trying to engage and being shot down. We deserve better than that as the top comment on a thread about us. Really glad dang stepped in and remoderated some comments.
fiftyfifty 5y ago
I have 3 kids in college right now, actually one just graduated with a computer science degree. All 3 of my kids have talked about how much gender ideology has creeped into the classroom at the college level, to the point where virtually every class including computer science, engineering and science courses, has to start off with addressing pronoun preferences. It is a political hot-topic for sure, and those often go horribly in online forums but to say that it's not related to software development and startup culture is a bit disingenuous. It is effecting higher education in a big way, and it is creeping into corporate culture.
- oramit 5y ago
  Can you expand on what Gender Ideology in the classroom looks like for your kids? Is there more to this than addressing pronouns?
- eropple 5y ago
  > has to start off with addressing pronoun preferences To which I can only respond: "so?". There are a decent number of folks in my circles who are gender-nonconforming. I'll bet, sans decades-plus of social pressure, there are more in your kids' classes. What's the problem with asking? And why does asking make you characterize the effect upon higher education as "big"? How is it "bigger" than a prof or a TA asking if I want to be called Edward, Ed, or Ted?
ping_pong 5y ago
If you don't want to read the topic, ignore it and move on. I'm not interested in Django but I don't try to stifle conversations on it. Why are there so many gatekeeping people around that want to prevent discussions on topics that they aren't interested in?
mdoms 5y ago
I don't believe anyone here was holding off discussing any particular topic until we got the go-ahead from oofbaz. You don't get to decide what we discuss. If you don't want to discuss it you can close the tab and move on.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't be a jerk on HN. It only makes things worse and you can make your substantive points without it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nyczomg 5y ago
"it has nothing to do with software development," So the next time one of my co-workers suggests we should do more to be inclusive when our software asks a user if they are male/female, I should tell them that gender has nothing to do with software development?
oramit 5y ago
I agree that this isn't the most productive HN thread ever, with a lot of comments repeating tired talking points or going for quick jabs instead of reasonable discussion. However, I would prefer to keep this topic open because it signals to me that there is still so much work to be done to educate people. Trans people are a tiny minority that is only now coming into the public consciousness. We're going to have to work through a lot of ignorant discussions and bad faith actors to get to a healthier place.
mkr-hn 5y ago
These discussions used to be a lot worse. I think occasionally having people butt heads a little with good moderation has helped relax people a bit on the subject. This is the most productive thread I've seen on the issue on HN.

by oofabz 5y ago

dang 5y ago

HN is for topics that gratify intellectual curiosity, not "software development". Please see the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You're certainly right that this is an inflammatory topic with strong political and ideological overlap, and as the guidelines explain, we don't want flamewar here, and we don't want ideological or political battle. The site exists for intellectual curiosity, and those things aren't compatible. There's a great deal of established moderation practice around this, if anyone wants to read past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... That doesn't automatically make a story like this off topic for HN. It depends on whether there's enough new information in a story to support a substantive discussion. In this case, the topic is not just "gender ideology", it's ongoing developments at universities and in the discourse at large. All of these are significant and interesting phenomena. For that reason I turned the flags off on this submission. That's also established moderation practice (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22flags%22%20off%20turn&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). It requires a judgment call, of course, and we don't always make the right calls—but not making any would be an even worse call. Of course it's commenters' responsibility to stick to the side guidelines if posting in such a thread. That means curious, thoughtful conversation and respect toward other commenters (and other people generally). Flamewar, flamebait, snark, name-calling, personal attacks and so on are not ok. People sometimes think that just because a topic is inflammatory it means they get carte blanche to spew what they will (e.g. "if you don't want me to post like this then you shouldn't allow this thread in the first place"). I call that argument "the topic made me do it", and not only is it false, the opposite is true: commenters here are under a greater obligation in cases like this, as the site guidelines make clear: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

bachmeier 5y ago
> HN is for topics that gratify intellectual curiosity I think that's the problem with a topic like this on HN. There will be little learning going on, with many statements made with certainty by individuals that have never studied any of these concepts in any detail. The level of dismissal in the comments is itself a reason to pull the plug.
- dang 5y ago
  That's certainly a big problem, but HN can't be a site for intellectual curiosity and at the same time exclude every story with political or ideological overlap. People sometimes imagine that that would be better, but only in the context of a specific story or thread they don't like. If you try to imagine it as a general policy it breaks down altogether. Nor would this community accept such severe restrictions on the range of topics. I don't think we have any choice but to patiently work together at having more thoughtful conversation. I've written extensively about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. If anyone has a question that hasn't been answered there, I'd like to know what it is, and if you know a better way for HN to relate to political topics while fulfilling its mandate of curiosity, I'd really like to know what it is. Just please familiarize yourself with the past material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've answered many times already why it won't work.
  - f38zf5vdt 5y ago
    It feels like why subreddits or /pol/ exist: to segregate that to a place where people are most interested.
    - dang 5y ago
      HN is a non-siloed site, meaning we don't have subreddits, or any of the other ways that large communities segregate themselves. Here we're all in one big room together, like it or not. It's always been that way and I think it's part of its DNA. This has advantages and disadvantages, as with all such design choices, but it's good to be conscious of what one's design actually is, since otherwise one might end up fucking with the DNA, which doesn't seem like a great idea. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=silo%20by%3Adang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=silo%20by%3Adang&dateRange=all... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098

casion 5y ago

Hacker news is not about software development. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html n.b. "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

f38zf5vdt 5y ago

For a while I'd really enjoyed HackerNews for the lack of politics. It was great not to hear about Trump during the Trump presidency, but since then and COVID times I find more and more highly politicized editorials being propelled to the top of the front page. I'm pretty close to no longer visiting here.

hotz 5y ago
You're not alone.
dang 5y ago
This is normal fluctuation. People have been saying such things since the early years of HN—see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. There was a great deal of Trump discussion here, too. Such perceptions are prone to sample bias.
zuminator 5y ago
I'm not sure why you couldn't simply skip the topics that you don't like, and completely avoid them, regardless of whether the reason for your lack of interest is politics or just that you never owned a ZX Spectrum or whatever.
- arkaniad 5y ago
  True, but a counterpoint: One may not like the topic but it may be best to be aware of what the conversation is should one find oneself someday blindsided by some political decision with negative consequences informed by these discussions. Supporting evidence: I've gotta keep tabs on which places I shouldn't travel to in my own country where I was born and raised because people keep trying to make it illegal to use the bathroom safely [1] after getting scared by conversations such as the ones I've seen in this thread. [1] - https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legislative-tracking635951130.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legis...
bosswipe 5y ago
I agree. There also seems to be more right-wing outrage-of-the-day bubbling up here.

simonh 5y ago

I think HN is an excellent forum for this topic. It’s not just about development here, it’s also about the business of building tech companies. It’s not an accident HN was built on the side of Y-Combinator. Also if we can’t have a productive and civil discussion about it here, where can we? Sure we get trolls and wing nuts here, but fortunately there are enough adults that even divisive issues can get discussed productively. Not always, not on every topic, but it happens.

throwaway894345 5y ago

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).

maybeOneDay 5y ago
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.
- zo1 5y ago
  It's entirely plausible that most were thinking that but didn't say anything for fear of backlash. If so then the mere act of them speaking what's really on their mind is, what I would argue as, "healthy discussion". Either way, I've been finding a lot of what's being said here today as interesting and mentally engaging on some level.
- fagbag123 5y ago
  > HN ... an echo chamber for "anti woke" lines of thinking Nigger are you retarded
- shkkmo 5y ago
  I would disagree. I think that there is a strong pro free speech group, most of who are also literally woke, but who also want to keep the overton window broad. There are, of course, some pretty reptitive comment threads, but you can collapse those and generally find more interesting discussion somewhere (don't forget there are often multiple pages of comments.)
- weakfish 5y ago
  I'm in the same boat. Its a bit tiresome and I feel it's getting worse (?) Fwiw, current college student. My school isn't particularly "woke" beyond having a LGBT support center, but that strikes me as common decency rather than wokeness.

pc86 5y ago

> What to Submit [0] > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. Yes, gender ideology is pretty political (should it be?). But learning about it can obviously gratify one's intellectual curiosity if they're approaching it in good faith. So I don't think you're necessarily able to just make a blanket statement like "this isn't appropriate." As for having much to lose, if you feel alienated by a good faith intellectual discussion -- regardless of topic -- that's your problem. This sort of thing is discussed daily in liberal arts programs across the US and in most of the world. You have to be able to discuss and learn about topics, even divisive ones, without losing your shit. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: And it looks like in the period of time it took me to type this half a dozen other people said the same thing.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

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.

dang 5y ago
Yes, that's not good. I will take a closer look. Thanks for remaining kind and helpful, even when it's not easy.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Wow thanks I appreciate it. It had been an upsetting experience and this helped.
supernintendo 5y ago
Trans people are a hot button issue these days but it feels like we don’t really have a seat at the table in that debate. The healthiest thing you can do for yourself is just live your life, surround yourself with people who make you feel safe, valued and loved, and stop trying to convince random strangers online that you’re worth something. I take a lot of inspiration from the ball room / drag culture - how it creates families for LGBTQ folks where none exist and uses expression as a form of activism. It’s not my place to change anyone’s mind; all I can do is live my life and hopefully others will grow as a result of observing me.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Well, the thing is I want to like Hacker News. And usually I do. But whenever issues around marginalized groups come up, out come the people who just can’t understand what all the fuss is about. When I entered this discussion, the top comment on the article was talking about how trans people freak out when you just bring up the issue of one trans women in sports and try to “have a discussion”. And it’s just like… I cannot leave that as the top comment and not say something. I mean, I could leave it, but I have to decide which is more upsetting - saying nothing or trying to engage and being shot down. We deserve better than that as the top comment on a thread about us. Really glad dang stepped in and remoderated some comments.

fiftyfifty 5y ago

I have 3 kids in college right now, actually one just graduated with a computer science degree. All 3 of my kids have talked about how much gender ideology has creeped into the classroom at the college level, to the point where virtually every class including computer science, engineering and science courses, has to start off with addressing pronoun preferences. It is a political hot-topic for sure, and those often go horribly in online forums but to say that it's not related to software development and startup culture is a bit disingenuous. It is effecting higher education in a big way, and it is creeping into corporate culture.

oramit 5y ago
Can you expand on what Gender Ideology in the classroom looks like for your kids? Is there more to this than addressing pronouns?
eropple 5y ago
> has to start off with addressing pronoun preferences To which I can only respond: "so?". There are a decent number of folks in my circles who are gender-nonconforming. I'll bet, sans decades-plus of social pressure, there are more in your kids' classes. What's the problem with asking? And why does asking make you characterize the effect upon higher education as "big"? How is it "bigger" than a prof or a TA asking if I want to be called Edward, Ed, or Ted?

ping_pong 5y ago

If you don't want to read the topic, ignore it and move on. I'm not interested in Django but I don't try to stifle conversations on it. Why are there so many gatekeeping people around that want to prevent discussions on topics that they aren't interested in?

mdoms 5y ago

I don't believe anyone here was holding off discussing any particular topic until we got the go-ahead from oofbaz. You don't get to decide what we discuss. If you don't want to discuss it you can close the tab and move on.

dang 5y ago
Please don't be a jerk on HN. It only makes things worse and you can make your substantive points without it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nyczomg 5y ago

"it has nothing to do with software development," So the next time one of my co-workers suggests we should do more to be inclusive when our software asks a user if they are male/female, I should tell them that gender has nothing to do with software development?

oramit 5y ago

I agree that this isn't the most productive HN thread ever, with a lot of comments repeating tired talking points or going for quick jabs instead of reasonable discussion. However, I would prefer to keep this topic open because it signals to me that there is still so much work to be done to educate people. Trans people are a tiny minority that is only now coming into the public consciousness. We're going to have to work through a lot of ignorant discussions and bad faith actors to get to a healthier place.

mkr-hn 5y ago

These discussions used to be a lot worse. I think occasionally having people butt heads a little with good moderation has helped relax people a bit on the subject. This is the most productive thread I've seen on the issue on HN.