Hacker News Reader

Comment by mvnuweucxqokii | Hacker News Reader

That's a strawman.

The steelman version is something like the following chain of reasoning: (a) gender identity is something that everyone has that is distinct from sex, (b) with enough introspection, everyone can discover their true gender identity, (c) if you don't have a strongly felt gender identity, you need to introspect, (d) if introspection does not yield certainty then this suggests genderfluidity, or even worse that puberty ought be delayed until certainty is achieved.

Or how about: an AMAB child playing with a Barbie doll often is strongly suggestive that he might actually be trans.

Or how about: values like "being on time" or believing that a math problem has one correct answer are inherently white supremacist and racist.

etc.

View on HN

That's not the steel man, that's a straw man where you just flipped the politics of the scenario.

Letting kids feel safe to introspect and question their gender expression is a good thing.

The implication that kids will be _systematically_ forced to delay puberty or undergo a transition they don't want is absurd and not a valid "chain of reasoning". Yes, I'm sure it has happened and could continue in rare instances because a) there are lots of crazy parents; b) it is a new, trending concept and people like fads. But that is really no different than other types of trauma parents and teachers give to kids across the political spectrum. You're going to have to do a lot more work to prove this is something likely to happen on a broad scale.

The fact that gender identity is now something kids are allowed to have means people will interrogate them about it. People may even attempt to coerce them (just like any other beliefs) and kids will likely change their minds over time. The ability to defend their beliefs, resist influence, have role models, receive reliable advice and mentorship, manage their relationships, make serious medical decisions, etc etc is all part of the equation. It's also not that big of a deal or the end of society.

I guess it comes down to how widespread you think the coercion that you mention is. I tend to believe the current rate of non-cis identification is at least an order of magnitude over the "natural" background rate, specifically because of a system of incentives and disincentives which have been set up. Being non-cis grants attention, care, affirmation, and deference from administrators. It is one of the few categories that administrators seem actually willing to go to the mat to protect from vicious bullying. Being cis means being boring, being tacitly oppressive, and not receiving as much attention, affirmation, or defense from administrators and teachers.

I view this all as a negative insofar as it nudges cis kids to identify as non-cis and start edging closer to risks to their mental and physical health as a result.

Maybe in 15 years this will look silly and we'll all know that 10% non-cis is totally normal and all these people will be able to live authentic lives.

But if in 15 years we reach the opposite discovery, my view is that we will have done a lot of damage to individuals and to systems along the way.

> make serious medical decisions

Did you sneak that in by mistake? Kids shouldn't be making any serious medical decisions for obvious reasons. This is law in many countries.

More like, learn how to evaluate those decisions and advocate for their own healthcare, which is something everyone needs to learn and practice in the US eventually.

Medical interventions for adolescents is always going to be controversial and no simple heuristic will solve it. Hopefully if kids are more comfortable expressing their identity and not comforming to traditional stereotypes then medical treatments will feel less necessary.

It's less rare than you might think, here are some statistics from US insurance claims, which is a lower bound as the wealthier may choose to pay privately:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-tran...

Note this includes surgery on girls as young as 13 years old, to remove their breasts.

Those numbers are still "rare" and don't tell us that kids are being coerced.

My assumption for now is that the increase is due to latent demand and wider awareness & acceptance. We need to see the steady state after a decade or so.

Several of my high school classmates (from the mid-2000s) started transitioning as soon as they could skip town and decide their own life. And it was clear they had known and wanted it for a long time prior.

> That's not the steel man, that's a straw man where you just flipped the politics of the scenario.

That’s just HN

Wow, that's a completely ridiculous strawman. My kids go to one of the most liberal school districts in the nation, and never once have they been told they need to "introspect their gender identity," let alone the absolutely absurd notion that "if they're not certain, they're genderfluid and/or need puberty blockers."

Literally the only thing along those lines that is taught is to respect other people's gender identity. This has been no harder for them to grasp than "Gay people exist and that's ok" was for my generation.

If you really believe that school districts out there are pushing puberty blockers, then your YouTube algorithm is probably feeding you a heck of a lot of crap.

If this is the steel man god help this argument.

Just to be clear: are you saying the argument is bad because these things are never taught, or are you saying that these things are good to teach actually?

I see your "how about" and raise you a [citation needed].

That is a fair ask. To be honest, I am unwilling to devote to this discussion the time which would be required to research examples.

I will concede that if these things never happened, I personally would find the infohazard argument non-compelling, though others may have their own feared infohazards.

On the flip side, if hypothetically these were common ideas animating public school curricula and/or teacher behavior, would you consider that sufficient justification for homeschooling as being discussed here?

When it comes to public policy, I don't find myself particularly animated by hypotheticals. I think we have more than enough on our plate if we just pay attention to things that are actually happening in the large.

Would you please explain the math example? I was in school until last year (Germany tho) but I don't get it (the 4chan argument about percentages and races?)

See for example a slide from education advocates which states that asserting "2 + 2 = 4" is "Covert White Supremacy".

https://twitter.com/HTheijsmeijer/status/1571174175162699778...

There was a huge popular discourse in 2020 specifically about whether 2 + 2 = 4. See e.g. Kareem Carr, who was a major participant: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/biostatistics/2020/09/kareem-ca...

The steelman argument for the subjectivity of math would be something like: the process of choosing how to represent/model a real world situation in mathematical terms may influence what conclusions can or will be reached under that model, because biased assumptions can sneak their way into the model.

To be clear, this is good knowledge and should be taught.

However, it is not an effective attack on the coherence of natural number arithmetic. We have to get students to a certain level of objective operational competence before they are ready to think about the subjectivity of mathematical modeling.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com