Gender “researchers” from Oregon State University recently published a paper entitled “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy” in the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies. The Trans-Gender-Non-Conforming (TGNC) authors originally sought to conduct a survey of engineering students regarding their self-identification and experiences in the STEM field. However, as prominent social science commentator Aydin Paladin expertly explains, the paper based on their results very unprofessionally devolved into tendentious political and social media-styled aspersions. The researchers complained about how some of the responses were offensive because a minority of the respondents said they identified as an “attack helicopter” (e.g., AH-64 Apache). This lampooning of their victimhood allegedly caused one author to suffer “traumatic harm” from the ordeal of encountering the sarcastic disposition of these STEM undergraduates.
A Ridiculous and Flawed Study from Start to Finish
In fairness, at least two of the authors possess an engineering bachelor degree, but the bulk of their collective academic credentials focus on grievance mongering commonly subsumed under the field of “gender studies.” All five (three presumably biological men with a possible fourth) self-identify as “queer” (which they don’t define) and three of them claim to be “disabled” – presumably in a psychological rather than in a bodily sense. One is a PhD candidate, while the remaining four already received their doctorates.
The original study consisted of three-thousand questionnaires distributed to undergraduate engineering students, and of the total of 723 responses, the researchers explicitly categorized any non-TGNC identification as invalid, and omitted it from the study. Hence, only oppressed victims would be accepted, which amounted to about 41% of the responses. Their concerns (and anxiety) arose from fifty responses (about 7% of the responses) which they categorized as “malicious” based either on their expressed skepticism of any benefit from such an endeavor, or mocking the exercise outright by responding with whimsical or outré identities. Some of the respondents identified as genders such as “aerosol” and “mail” or races such as “cracker” and “kangz.”
Such overwrought navel-gazing from “researchers” delving into the solicited insults of the survey respondents deservedly warrants ridicule. The Kruger-Dunning effect reveals the inability of the ignorant to recognize the extent of their ignorance, and the cluelessness of these “researchers” trying to quantify their trans-biased notion that STEM education oppresses people like themselves, proves the point. They all seemed astonished that engineering students would (justifiably) belittle their efforts as unworthy of respect.
To their credit, the authors did make distinctions between participants who politely voiced skepticism regarding the benefit of this alleged research and those who deliberately exhibited insensitivity to their plight of being part of a “marginalized” group. However, their diagnosis in both instances was to use some form of Jedi mind-reading prescience and conclude that the malicious responses were due to fascism and white supremacy. They concluded that “Our field must develop a robust analysis of how racist and fascist discourses are inseparable from transphobic discourses and approach malicious responses to research that focuses on marginalized people in engineering as central evidence in this research.”
The disparaging libel of “fascist” is particularly egregious, since equating Anglo-American-style individualism and self-reliance with European authoritarian bound subjugation reeks of pejorative projection, and once again demonstrates their ignorance and naïve misunderstanding of the world outside the purview of their queer field of study. In my experience, engineers overall seem rather temperamentally conservative, politically libertarian and professionally meritocratic (which among the Left and those like these TGNC researchers may constitute "white supremacy.”) Their training and employment emphasizes controlling for failure using mathematical modeling and empirical evidence. However, they also do not suffer fools or (worse) midwits easily, and are ones to fully appreciate Isaac Asimov’s quip “Those… who think they know everything… annoy… those of us who do.” Thus trans acolytes who disparage them for not sharing their non-empirical prejudices should expect an indifferent reception.
What the Study Reveals About the Transgenderism
All this begs the question, how should society treat gender non-conforming people? Matt Walsh addressed this inquiry with his documentary “What is a Woman?” in which he interrogates trans advocates about definitions and ideologically motivated mutilation of minors (as an aside, an “adult human female” should constitute the standard reply). However, although provocative, Walsh’s film provides a cultural marker from which to stake policies, but is epistemologically incomplete.
For humans, sex is binary, with anatomical characteristics that distinguish between adult males and females (though not in juveniles). Differences such as chromosomes and genitals, as well as secondary sex characteristics such as facial hair, deeper voice and laryngeal prominence (i.e., Adam's apple) for men, and breasts and wider hips for women. Despite these immutable dimorphic characteristics, the trans social contagion asserts that individuals can play make-believe and magically transform their sex or “expressed gender” by their mere say-so.
Trans advocates hijack the sympathy that most people have for those afflicted with gender dysphoria, and demand that all of us individually affirm what these supposed self-identifications signify and that society as a whole acknowledge and support these falsehoods. The reason for this, as was explained in a “social work” article, “Transgender theory derived from queer theory and feminist theory. It is the idea that each individual is the expert on their own gender, gender experience, and ultimately has autonomy over their [sic] own body.” Thus, we are left with some subjective emotional presumption forming the basis of their wishing-makes-it-so assertion, which the public must acquiesce to.
This is why the media can proclaim that William “Lia” Thomas is a “trans woman” when he is actually a man who competes (unfairly) against women in swimming. Far more troubling, under California’s SB132, incarcerated adult biological males (i.e., men) can be housed with female inmates. These are all examples of faux women, who are either indulging in fantasies or are (more likely) frauds.
And yet, the TGNC authors presumably cannot fathom that some people – and in particular those involved in STEM (who after all must learn to command knowledge of factual information) disregard their delusional claims.
Further Considerations and Implications
Thus far, the most contentious issue of this whole trans advocacy has yet to be articulated: grooming– the sexual abuse of minors – especially prepubescent children and even adolescents. Children’s metabolic and emotional states are delicate and remain in flux during their development, and any sort of deliberate interference with that development constitutes an immoral violation of normal childhood. LGBTQ+ sirens demand that children be robbed of their childhood, whether for their own debased desires or so they can make promises of “gender affirming care” that induces morbidity and psychological torment from puberty blockers and other trans-related treatments as Jay P. Greene over at the Heritage Foundation has written about.
Moreover, trans advocates insist that children be encouraged to recognize them being “born in the wrong body” at an early age, in order to buttress their demands for early intervention with hormonal and later surgical castration. While this insistence has been puckishly parodied with an old Twitter (pre-Musk) identity meme about parents scheduling to have their child's eye removed because he identified as a "pirate," it is no laughing matter when authorities in government, medicine and education foster this insanity onto the developing minds of minor children who lack physical maturity, broad experience or academic knowledge to resist such encroachment. Synthesized leftist aspirations– including Gnostic visions of treating human bodies as Play-Doh – exacerbate this concern.
Hence, parents – already burdened by economic uncertainties, rising inflation, pernicious human resource offices and assaults on their natural authority – are obliged to guard against these institutionally-sanctioned predators to prevent this disturbing trend from threatening the well-being of their children. Writer Peachy Keenan articulated this seething sentiment with this eloquent warning "When it comes to sex ed, I live by a very simple rule: if an adult who is not our pediatrician tries to talk to my child[ren] about their genitals, this person’s kneecaps should expect to meet my crowbar.”
The Need for Vigilance and to Not Back Down
Sadly, not all parents and guardians comprehend this need, or worse have imbibed the Kool-Aid and seek court intervention to “trans” their kids, often against the wishes of the other parent. Such adults (usually women), in order to draw undue attention to themselves, indulge their narcissism onto minors as a simulacrum of their imagination. A few mothers feign ailments of their children – a phenomenon often called Munchhausen by Proxy Syndrome (officially labeled as “factitious disorder imposed on another”), and in the case of those mothers who pressure their children into gender-transit sterilization, a preferable term would be the “MIDAS TOUCH” (Matronly Imposed Darwin Award Surrogacy To One’s Underage Children). If the shoe fits,…
Finally, one might ask, what’s the harm in switching pronouns? Aye, there’s the rub. This postmodernist attitude engenders needless morphological (and probably also psychological) maiming. The rainbow flag conceals a lot of needless neurological pain and tissue slicing that it eventually imparts to its adherents as one urology website illustrates with this (NSFW) in a phalloplasty procedure. Volunteers – step right up! Figure 12 displays an arm after replacing skin tissue used to construct artificial male genitals and connect the urethra with grafts from the thigh.
This article began with the justified mocking of a study that was the basis for a paper published in a gender studies periodical; one that could only risibly be called “research” or “science.” Despite the presumptuous and nonsensical conclusions these gender-bending “researchers” garnered from the scorn heaped upon them by a handful of engineering students, it is those students who won the day. My suggestion, to those and other TNGC researchers going forward is to paraphrase Pink Floyd in “Another Brick in the Wall” – “teachers, leave them kids alone!”
Photo Credit- nybreaking. com