Frequent commenter Other Bill gets credit for the headline as well as the pointer to a telling, if ridiculous, story.
Oregon State University researchers had circulated a survey regarding LGBTQ students in STEM to engineering undergrads. As described in the scholars’ paper, published in the Summer 2023 edition of the “Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies,” many of the students surveyed resented the questions about their gender as well as the premise of the research, and demonstrated their disapproval by entering gag and satirical responses to request for their gender and ethnicity.
Among the answers:
- “Apache attack helicopter”
- “homophobic biggot, yes we exist,”
- “Cis gender lizard king,”
- “Fucking white male.”
- “Quasi-Demi-poney; bankai-released state queercopter with a hint of faggotdrag lesbian and homosexual upside-down Frappuccino cake”
- “on-cookie-cutter cis-furry dragonkin. Don’t judge”
- “Afro/Klingon-Asiatic Galapogayation”
- “Aerosol”
…and many more.
This, the authors concluded, demonstrates the rise in fascism in the United States. In the paper, titled “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interesting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences,” the researchers diagnosed these “malicious” responses as the mark of “individuals exercising discursive power in their language to target researchers and tamper with data, reflecting “characteristics of contemporary far-right or fascist political movements in the U.S., such as the synthesis of antisemitism with anti-Black and anti-feminist rhetorics….Importantly, the themes and repetitions serve to mark shared references and signify an existing community with a shared political agenda and racist, trans-antagonistic, and online political meme commentary.”
“Theories of fascism provide a framework to interpret the ways that dominant, oppressive, or reactionary ideologies regarding race, personhood, and gender become entrenched in community base building, exercises of power, and the State,” the scholars wrote, adding that the responses were “just one small component of broader fascist base building in the United States which frequently targets trans individuals and student activists.”
Thus, they concluded, scholars “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.”
Funny, I would have interpreted the responses to indicate a healthy disdain for time-wasting surveys and wasteful research on matters having nothing whatsoever to do with engineering, as well as evidence of a sense of humor among a group not usually thought to have one.
But these “scholars” hail from Oregon, after all, the epicenter of a culture that regards any variation from progressive cant and woke agendas as evidence of “fascism.”
Ethics Alarms 
I’m sorry, it is well documented that ‘attack helicopter’ is indeed a gender. I challenge you to find a gender other than male or female that is as well referenced as ‘attack helicopter’ Attack helicopter has been published as a gender in children’s textbooks along with its symbol. Unfortunately, the gatekeepers of the trans community have decided that the attack helicopter gender is too dangerous and must be destroyed. All that is left are stealth attack helicopters.
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/the-deeply-depressing-unpublishing
But seriously, it is apparent that these people are so sheltered that they have never met an engineer.
My pronouns are I/me/my/mine. Try having a conversation with me under those conditions.
I find it fundamentally appropriate that the publication for the mentally ill students is “BATS”.
Applied gender studies? There is such a thing? It’s different from theoretical gender studies? What are these sorts of studies applied to?
They’re great vehicles for getting young minds into universities via federally backed loans that are ever increasing in price.
Man layers of perverse incentives driving the idiocy of the modern leftist seminaries. I mean universities.
Of course there is, but we used to call it “dating.”
Hah.
Well, most religions frown upon dating people that young.
Jack,
“… many of the students surveyed resented the questions about their gender as well as the premise of the research …”
Based on the nature of the (quoted) responses, they were likely all/mostly made by young, white, middle-class males taking cracks at the other side. There’s nothing wrong with them being white males, mind you, but let’s not imagine these survey responses represent more than a limited demographic sliver.
If they truly took issue with the survey, don’t take it, leave those sections blank, or engage in constructive dialogue with those conducting it, instead of making infantile jokes (none of those responses were CLEVER). “I think your question is stupid, and so are you! MORON! HAHAHAHA!” Idiots. Immediately resorting to mocking people with whom you disagree (or don’t understand) is the sign of a weak mind. Whatever one thinks of transgender politics, these aren’t the kids you want on “your side” because they don’t have the cognitive ability to attack based on merit, only snark. This represents addled children, not principled youth.
Even my 90 IQ points knows that …
Reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly legitimate rhetorical device.
I’d be willing to bet young, middle class, white males make up a much larger “limited demographic sliver” than anybody who imagines they were “assigned” to the wrong gender at birth.
If transgender ideology had ever made a virtue of being coherent, or of engaging with criticism constructively, I would agree with your argument. But instead it has gone in the opposite direction, redefining words as it suits them at the moment, vilifying anyone who dares question their dogma. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.”
“Based on the nature of the (quoted) responses, they were likely all/mostly made by young, white, middle-class males taking cracks at the other side.”
Opinion stated as fact.
“There’s nothing wrong with them being white males, mind you, but let’s not imagine these survey responses represent more than a limited demographic sliver.”
Please see above.
Paul:
No one is talking to you. The comment was addressed to “Jack”. I only post it here because he doesn’t like private messages on public posts.
1) No one stated a fact as I included the word “likely” (implying it was a guess)
2) See above, smarty-pants.
No one:
Jack has chosen to have a reply button on all comments. Build your own blog and choose otherwise if you don’t like other people using Jack’s reply button.
1) Gosh Neil, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that your understanding of the workings of a participatory forum and a fact-based Reality will never collide.
2) Foxtrot Oscar!
My favorite part is that Neil has to be explicit that there’s nothing wrong with being white males. It’s almost like he has to differentiate himself from many of the people making similar arguments who actually do believe there’s something wrong with white males.
No, I did that so Jack wouldn’t retort with accusations of reverse racism, as he so often does.
I wonder though, would it phase you at all to say the same thing but with any other demographic replacing “white males…”?
“Based on the nature of the (quoted) responses, they were likely all/mostly made by young, Jewish, middle-class males taking cracks at the other side. There’s nothing wrong with them being Jewish, mind you…”
It just strikes me as telling how willing people are these days to practice what they claim to hate if the target is of the current outgroup. How many people who would bristle at anything close to stereotyping black people (especially with a negative characteristic or behavior!) are perfectly willing to do it to white males.
Excellent comment. I’m alarmed to see a list of “jokes” which includes at least one overt slur used to target gay people referred to as evidence of a “good sense of humor” by Jack, who I’ve seen defend gay rights on this blog in the past week.
Another “gotcha?” For the record, which is the ‘overt slur’ as opposed to a tongue-in-cheek satire of such slurs you think I approved of? Because I checked again and missed it. Especially since any satirical answer’s intent is unclear, other than to mock the questions. Moreover, the responses as a whole suggested a presence of humor, and one or more unfunny attempts does not refute that conclusion.
It’s the f slur about halfway through this one. And it wasn’t a gotcha, it was a criticism.
“ “Quasi-Demi-poney; bankai-released state queercopter with a hint of faggotdrag lesbian and homosexual upside-down Frappuccino cake””
That was my guess. It’s parody. And even using a flat-out slur, which the writer didn’t, isn’t “fascism” by any definition.
You’re saying “faggot” isn’t a slur? Or that adding “drag” to it makes it not one? Either way, I disagree.
I do agree that it doesn’t meet the definition of fascism, though fascists are almost always homophobic and transphobic. Would a fascist make these types of jokes? Probably. Are fascists the only people who would make these jokes? No, you’re correct about that.
I’m saying that “faggot” in that collection of silly and intentionally absurd stream-of-consciousness nonsense is not a slur, any more than the word is when it turns up in “Finnegan’s Wake.” Of course, those who want to see slurs will see slurs.
I don’t agree. If someone replied to a request to list one’s race with the n word, would that magically become not a slur if the person was intending to be parodic?
And the butt of the joke is LGBT people, with all their newfangled woke pronouns. The intent is to mock marginalized groups and their identities. That’s true of each of these “jokes,” the f slur one is just the most overt. That you agree with the mockery doesn’t make the slur less of a slur, you just find the slur acceptable in this context.
Nope. You’re reaching. The target of the jibe is the survey itself, and the silliness of the researchers. Occam’s Razor.
I don’t think I’m reaching. The slur is right there; I think you have to reach to justify it, and simply being asked one’s gender identity doesn’t strike me as justification enough. But we clearly are not going to agree on this subject.
No kidding. I won’t appeal to my own authority as a long-time writer and student of satire, but I will simply relate this: directing a production of “Lady in the Dark,” I was explaining to some actors the right way to treat a character written as flamboyantly gay but in the period not supposed to be thought of as gay. Another member of the cast, a teacher as well as a fine actor and friend, said, deadpan, “I don’t know, Jack: he sure seems like a homo to me!” The speaker was gay, though many who heard his joke didn’t know that. His device is still well known and practiced, and it is the same device I detected in that one “fascist” response.
Oh, I doubt they were given a choice about this survey. I also doubt the survey would allow blank answers. I remember my college orientation, when we were put in a room with a line down the center. One side of the room was labelled ‘comfortable’ and the other ‘uncomfortable’. The orientation leaders read off a series of statements. If you were comfortable with it, you went to the comfortable side, if you weren’t…you get the picture. The first time a girl went to the ‘wrong’ side, she was ‘shark attacked’ by all the orientation leaders for several minutes. So, you want them to engage in such ‘constructive dialogue’? Would you really want to put yourself out for that and get thrown out of the engineering program? Do you know how engineering programs work?
I wasn’t permitted to leave the “gender-self identification” or “racial/ethnic self-identification” space blank to register for my 2023 Mass Bar renewal!
Wow. No more adults in any of the rooms.
OK, I looked into it more. They were offered $5 Amazon gift cards, but from many of the responses, they didn’t expect some of the questions. Some of the ‘offensive’ responses were ‘I identify as a gift-card’, “I am an ethnic gift-card”, and “my disability is that I don’t have enough gift-cards”. I may just be me, but I seem to be picking up a pattern here. My favorite was probably the incredibly hateful response to their ethnic identity as “Come on man, these questions are stupid. Everyone is a grab bag of genetics from all over the world”. In college, I was reprimanded by listing my ethnicity as ‘mongrel American’ despite the fact that it is true.
One of the researchers had to be pulled off the project because the responses to ‘heal from traumatic harm and that should tell you all you need to know about this ‘research’.
FWIW The College Fix article cites that a good half of the surveys were incomplete or invalid, meaning that about 300 surveyees in fact didn’t bother responding.
I identify as a Trillionaire. I’m going to have to politely request that everyone who asks for my pronouns donate the contents of their bank accounts into my own in order to affirm my gender identity.
The report is awfully close to Babylon Bee material. I wonder whether the research article, and maybe even the journal, are jokes?
Clearly, “fascism” now means “failure to agree wholeheartedly with anything and everything whacked out lefty.”
The verbiage sounds very familiar. I thought they would tire of using “Robust” as an adjective to describe something.
What is the difference between robust analysis and basic analysis? You analyze something to the best of your ability or you do not. From my perspective it is a word salad from someone who is either ignorant of the terms being used or is not and wants to keep the audience ignorant.
Agreed. The only other words needed in there are “literally” and “surreal”.
And “garner.”
Joel,
Apparently, college administrators and journalists learn a new word then they use it ad nauseam. I first noticed this practice when they learned the word intransigence. After it’s first use in the paper every other story by print and tv media types starting using it until a different new word became the word de jure’
One of my pet peeves is hearing advertisements that use the phrase ‘melty cheese’.
Melty as opposed to … what? I always thought that was pretty much a basic characteristic of cheese,
When the survey participants clearly see through the bullshit research better than the people “conducting it” should have name.
There’s one aspect of this clown show research project that everybody has missed – it was funded by the National Science Foundation to the tune of $349,311 under the “Engineering education” funding line
Grant details are here: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1764103
I decided to head down the rabbit hole provided by The College Fix and skim the paper in question. It was much, much worse that I anticipated. You can access the paper here (pp. 67-94):
Click to access BATS_2023_2769-2124_v2_i1-2.pdf
The list of investigators -with a full engineering prof as the principal investigator (i.e. the adult in the room) – is provided on p. 67. A mixed bag of researchers if there ever was one. But, for a research project on “engineering education”, these two sort of stuck out as the likely instigators:
https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/qwo-li-driskill
https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/feature-story/lot-challenges-i-run-are-level-political-disengagement-engineering-says-andrea-haverkamp-phd-candidate-environmental-engineering-queer
Nothing says ‘engineering education’ like LGBT… advocacy. (And I mean “nothing”)
I skimmed the paper – however, it was too intellectually-dense for me to comprehend. Here are a couple of observations:
= The article provides a new baseline for what is meant by the term “word salad”. Holy crap – talk about Piled Higher and Deeper (aka PHD)!
= While reading all of the authors’ whining regarding the “malicious” responses to their questionnaire, the narrative had a real Hall Monitor vibe – somebody who enjoyed tattling on the bad boys to the authorities
= The funniest parts of the paper were all of the “malicious” inputs received from the engineering students – followed, of course, by the resulting pearl-clutching by the ‘researchers.’
= Reality check: they gave their survey to engineering students in their late teens and early 20s. Probably a lot of guys who are tired of woke indoctrination sessions taking time away from doing problem sets for their next thermo or statics class. What type of responses did the woke investigators expect? (Yes, that’s a rhetorical question)
I want to know what the hell they spent nearly 350k on. When we got NSF grants they for 3 years but amounted to less than 1/2 of that amount and funded a few part timers.
Conflating race with choosing to categorize yourself as “demi-sexual” or “agender” or “non-binary” is incredibly disrespectful to people of color.
You can’t help being brown or white.
To define yourself as some random made up word is not being a minority, it’s being an attention whore and has zero to do with the struggle for racial equality.
Gosh, it almost seems like the authors of this study and results sound like racists.
A simple case of “be careful what you ask for.” That’ll be $350K, thanks.