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Student kicked out for telling professor there are only two genders

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
    I'm wondering if we can reach agreement that this student's claim about what scientists believe is factually wrong?

    Does anyone want to try and defend his claim by citing any sort of "official view of biologists" to the effect "that there are only two genders"? The claim seems nonsensical at face value if one accepts the standard definition that sex is biological (genes + hormones + body bits and functions) whereas gender is societal (how society categorizes people and what behaviors it expects of them). But even if we change the subject to 'sex' rather than 'gender', the public proclamations that I am aware by biologists say there aren't just two sexes. So the boy appears completely factually incorrect in his claims about the "official view of biologists".

    From a 2015 article in the Journal Nature:
    The idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that...

    Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary — their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another...

    When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have identified many of the genes involved in the main forms of DSD, and have uncovered variations in these genes that have subtle effects on a person's anatomical or physiological sex. What's more, new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body. Some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives its behaviour, through a complicated network of molecular interactions. “I think there's much greater diversity within male or female, and there is certainly an area of overlap where some people can't easily define themselves within the binary structure,” says John Achermann, who studies sex development and endocrinology at University College London's Institute of Child Health...

    Gene mutations affecting gonad development can result in a person with XY chromosomes developing typically female characteristics, whereas alterations in hormone signalling can cause XX individuals to develop along male lines...

    “Biologically, it's a spectrum,” says Vilain...

    Last year, for example, surgeons reported that they had been operating on a hernia in a man, when they discovered that he had a womb. The man was 70, and had fathered four children.

    ...things become even more complex when scientists zoom in to look at individual cells. The common assumption that every cell contains the same set of genes is untrue. ...stem cells from a fetus cross the placenta into the mother's body, and vice versa ...men often carry cells from their mothers, and women who have been pregnant with a male fetus can carry a smattering of its discarded cells... Other studies have shown that these immigrant cells are not idle; they integrate into their new environment...

    Biologists may have been building a more nuanced view of sex, but society has yet to catch up...


    The article has a picture of the first complaint filed against him, and among the things it lists are "Refusal to stop talking out of turn; Angry outbursts in response to being required to listen to a trans speaker...". If those things are indeed true, and he was truly being disruptive and not shutting up when asked and having various angry outbursts, then throwing him out of class seems justified.

    For those here who haven't attended university, lectures do vary a bit in style by subject and lecturer but ultimately they tend to be fairly similar to high school and are mostly about the lecturer talking (or playing videos) and the class listening and learning. They are not a forum where students have some sort of right to talk as much as they want for as long as they want. They are a forum for learning, and any student that started talking unduly would be disrupting the other students' learning and the lecturer would have an obligation to act on behalf of the other students (who are spending time and money to be in the class and learning) to address the disruption. And when the student brings up First Amendment rights he is talking absolute nonsense.

    A given lecturer may feel that it's appropriate to have some sort of class discussion about an issue, but if so, that's entirely up to the lecturer, and any methods of guiding the discussion or limits set on the discussion are entirely up to the lecturer. Students may occasionally call out questions during the lecture, and that's usually encouraged, but if one student keeps on doing and doing and doing it, the rest of the class will start glaring at them and the lecturer will usually encourage them to quiet down. If it's bad it will generally escalate through the stages of the lecturer's body language suggesting enough's enough, and increasingly less subtle verbal hints that the lecturer's getting exasperated. I've never seen a lecturer escalate to the point of having to openly and flatly tell a particular student to be quiet and stop being disruptive. And I've certainly never seen it escalate to the point of the lecturer ending up telling the student to leave the classroom because they refused to be quiet after they were told to be quiet.

    So my takeaway from the article is that he was disrupting the classes to such a significant extent that the lecturer ended up throwing him out. He doesn't deny he was being disruptive, and he admits he wasn't following the rules for the class discussion. (He also appears to have been peddling factually false information in his outbursts, which annoys me from a scientific perspective, though students are allowed to be ignorant and wrong and learning stuff is what they're there for.) If he wanted to deny these misbehavior and disruptiveness allegations (which he doesn't seem to) he should find some other students in the class who can testify that his behavior was actually okay, and that it was the professor who lost it and had angry outbursts. Since the article fails to quote any other class students, I tend to assume they all agreed with the lecturer that this student was being disruptive and needed to be kicked out.

    It is only very recently that we have decided that "gender is societal" - as far as scientists are concerned, gender is equivalent to the sexual designation of an organism. "female", "male", "androgynous" and so on are "gender" terms that refer to the biological sex of an organism.

    I find this whole "50+" gender thing to be ridiculous. In fact, I have not even seen anyone actually claim to be one of these in-between genders. Even transgender people want to be recognized by either "male" or "female" whichever one they are transitioning into.

    But regardless, even if this kid was completely wrong, it has nothing to do with the topic. The topic is about how he was treated when he dared to question his professor. Daring to question what you are being taught should be encouraged in college, not a reason to be kicked out. And he did follow the rules of the class. The professor only allowed WOMEN to talk which is a problem right there. If there are no direct correlation between sex and gender, who is she to decide who is a woman and can speak? But regardless, he politely sat there not saying anything until it was clear that no women were going to speak up.

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Tassman View Post
      Well I've seen how Trump and his conservative supporters react to hecklers and it's not pretty.
      Yeah!

      hqdefault.jpg

      Oh wait. That was you guys.

      Comment


      • #33
        Good to see Mountain Man's suddenly a world expert on mental disorders. The real question is, who is dumber, MM or the two clowns in his avatar?


        Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
        P1: A liberal did this.
        C1: All liberals do this.
        C2: We are justified in doing this to all liberals.

        There's a couple problems with that reasoning.
        Another equally-problematic interpretation of Rogue's reasoning...
        P1. Person A did/said X on the subject of tolerance/free-speech.
        P2. Person B did/said not-X on the subject of tolerance/free-speech.
        P3. I choose to label them both "liberals" and choose to declare that when they acted they were acting as "liberals" and the action they were taking at the time represented "liberalism". My authority to make such declarations is self-evident and need not be disputed.
        P4. "Liberals" must agree with each other on all issues. One "liberal" is not allowed to have a divergent opinion from another "liberal" on tolerance/free-speech issues. "Liberals" are not allowed to be able to be split into any discernible subgroups or factions with different views.
        C. "Liberals" are tolerance/free-speech hypocrites.

        I find it amusing that Rogue seems to think he's making some sort of at least half-serious point.


        Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
        Apparently, you slept through biology 101. All of my health and biology courses described the male and female reproductive system, I don’t recall seeing a third one, did you?
        I skipped 100 level science and did 200 level in my first year of uni, so I never did bio 101. But out of curiosity, I've just looked up on the net what the textbooks are for the human biology 101 courses at my local university and at Harvard. The textbooks are Campbell Biology, and Life: The Science of Biology. I was able to download searchable pdf versions of both, and used the contents page, index, glossary, and pdf search functions to look at what they said on gender, sex, and reproduction.

        They barely ever use the word gender. The provided no formal definition of sex either in the glossary or the text itself. Their discussions of reproduction compare species that reproduce asexually with species that reproduce sexually. There is a relatively brief discussion of how sexual development might go wrong in a particular individual - hormonal abnormalities that might prevent an individual with XY chromosomes developing working gonads, etc. There is some discussion about how some animal species have individuals naturally undergo sex changes (e.g. in the group there is always one male, and if the male dies the biggest female changes to be a male). There is zero discussion of human transgenderism and no occurrences of that word. In general there were zero formal definitions, clear assertions, factual statements, or quoted claims, that would support the OP-quoted claim that "the official view of biologists is that there are only two genders."
        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

        Comment


        • #34
          In the classroom particularly, students are not as entitled to express their own views and ideology as are their professors. Also, we note that religious types are sometimes encouraged by those who should know better to be deliberately disruptive in classrooms when certain subjects are mentioned; anything going against Biblical nonsense.

          Education and indoctrination are in conflict in this case.
          “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
          “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
          “not all there” - you know who you are

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            Good to see Mountain Man's suddenly a world expert on mental disorders. The real question is, who is dumber, MM or the two clowns in his avatar?
            Yo Charles! Where are you? Aren't you going to complain about this personal attack? Hello? Please stop slacking off.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
              I skipped 100 level science and did 200 level in my first year of uni, so I never did bio 101.
              And yet you seem baffled by the fact there’s only two biological genders.

              But out of curiosity, I've just looked up on the net what the textbooks are for the human biology 101 courses at my local university and at Harvard. The textbooks are Campbell Biology, and Life: The Science of Biology. I was able to download searchable pdf versions of both, and used the contents page, index, glossary, and pdf search functions to look at what they said on gender, sex, and reproduction.
              Who says I was talking about college level? I was talking down lower, like high school or middle school because I seriously doubt that a college level course would spend much time establishing something that you should already know. Does college level English spend time establishing that A is the first letter in the alphabet?

              They barely ever use the word gender. The provided no formal definition of sex either in the glossary or the text itself. Their discussions of reproduction compare species that reproduce asexually with species that reproduce sexually. There is a relatively brief discussion of how sexual development might go wrong in a particular individual - hormonal abnormalities that might prevent an individual with XY chromosomes developing working gonads, etc. There is some discussion about how some animal species have individuals naturally undergo sex changes (e.g. in the group there is always one male, and if the male dies the biggest female changes to be a male). There is zero discussion of human transgenderism and no occurrences of that word. In general there were zero formal definitions, clear assertions, factual statements, or quoted claims, that would support the OP-quoted claim that "the official view of biologists is that there are only two genders."
              It’s amazing that you haven’t figured out yet that a college level book isn’t going to spend time explaining basic concepts. So let’s try this from the top, how many sexual organs do humans have and what is the general combination of these organs? Do humans have one and not the other?
              "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
              GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                It is only very recently that we have decided that "gender is societal"
                I think in recent decades there's been increasing public consciousness about the need for more nuanced terms when dealing with these issues, and there's been a realization that it's useful to differentiate biological sex from social gender roles. I think the need for clarification has occurred due to a number of factors, and while the publicity surrounding transgender people in our culture has been one of those factors, I think anthropological research showing that plenty of cultures have/had more than two genders, and social research looking at how societies work, have been influential too. Previously many people used the English words 'sex' and 'gender' fully interchangeably.

                as far as scientists are concerned, gender is equivalent to the sexual designation of an organism.
                Citation needed.

                Which scientists? I'm a scientist. I don't use it that way. What scientific body has declared that sex = gender?

                I find this whole "50+" gender thing to be ridiculous.
                So do I.

                A scientist interested in classifying people with biological developmental disorders based on all the various combination of things that can go wrong genetically and hormonally etc might well have a scheme of classification that exceeds that number. But for common use it seems total overkill, and I would suggest that male/female/agender would be a sufficient classification system for everyday use.

                In fact, I have not even seen anyone actually claim to be one of these in-between genders. Even transgender people want to be recognized by either "male" or "female" whichever one they are transitioning into.
                There are a reasonable number of transgender people who do not identify with either gender.

                This is also reflected in the gender systems of various cultures. e.g the Bugis people in Indonesia have 5 genders: male / trans-male / female / trans-female / agender.

                The topic is about how he was treated when he dared to question his professor.
                The complaint that the professor filed that is photographed in the article doesn't say "dared to question", it says that he was disruptive by refusing to keep quiet when asked and having angry outbursts. It's fairly telling that he doesn't seem to be disputing this.

                Daring to question what you are being taught should be encouraged in college, not a reason to be kicked out.
                Depends on the setting and how you go about it. You can't just interrupt the lecture and give an endless angry monologue of your own views. You can go and see the lecturer in office hours and ask your questions and talk it over. Or in tutorials you can ask the tutor and talk it over with them. And at the end of the day, students are under zero obligation to actually believe what they are being taught if they don't want to.

                A lecture is not generally an appropriate debate venue for arguments between the lecturer and a student, any more than a sermon is a venue for a church-goer to have a stand-up argument with the preacher over the fact that they don't agree with his teachings. A person doing that can expect to be kicked out. If they have concerns or questions about the teaching they can approach the person later in a quieter setting.

                And he did follow the rules of the class.
                Your claim appears to be false. The complaint said he didn't, and his own account implies he didn't.

                The professor only allowed WOMEN to talk which is a problem right there. If there are no direct correlation between sex and gender, who is she to decide who is a woman and can speak? But regardless, he politely sat there not saying anything until it was clear that no women were going to speak up.
                The complaint implies more than one instance of problem behavior on his part. The guy appears to be a complete jerk who kept interrupting angrily with his own wild claims and repeatedly disrupted the class. If you think this is about something that happened only once where he politely waited his turn and then said 5 sentences calmly and then politely waited for a response, only to have the lecturer get so upset at having her own ideas questioned that she kicked him out of class, filed the complaint, and got him banished from the course... then I have a bridge to sell you.
                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                  So let’s try this from the top, how many sexual organs do humans have and what is the general combination of these organs? Do humans have one and not the other?
                  Let's broaden the scope: does gender confusion exist in the animal kingdom in general? Or is it exclusively a human thing?
                  Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                  But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                  Than a fool in the eyes of God


                  From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                    Well I've seen how Trump and his conservative supporters react to hecklers and it's not pretty.
                    Why the pivot?

                    Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                    So funny! Mention Trump and you immediately pivot to the "sins" of Obama/Clinton. Without fail!

                    Trump has proven to have remarkable difficulty tolerating negative media commentary. More than most. He has referred to the media as the “opposition party” and tweeted that “any negative polls are fake news”. It's a term he seems to use for any media reports he doesn’t like,
                    I DENOUNCE DONALD J. TRUMP AND ALL HIS IMMORAL ACTS.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                      I think in recent decades there's been increasing public consciousness about the need for more nuanced terms when dealing with these issues, and there's been a realization that it's useful to differentiate biological sex from social gender roles. I think the need for clarification has occurred due to a number of factors, and while the publicity surrounding transgender people in our culture has been one of those factors, I think anthropological research showing that plenty of cultures have/had more than two genders, and social research looking at how societies work, have been influential too. Previously many people used the English words 'sex' and 'gender' fully interchangeably.

                      Citation needed.

                      Which scientists? I'm a scientist. I don't use it that way. What scientific body has declared that sex = gender?

                      So do I.

                      A scientist interested in classifying people with biological developmental disorders based on all the various combination of things that can go wrong genetically and hormonally etc might well have a scheme of classification that exceeds that number. But for common use it seems total overkill, and I would suggest that male/female/agender would be a sufficient classification system for everyday use.

                      There are a reasonable number of transgender people who do not identify with either gender.

                      This is also reflected in the gender systems of various cultures. e.g the Bugis people in Indonesia have 5 genders: male / trans-male / female / trans-female / agender.

                      The complaint that the professor filed that is photographed in the article doesn't say "dared to question", it says that he was disruptive by refusing to keep quiet when asked and having angry outbursts. It's fairly telling that he doesn't seem to be disputing this.

                      Depends on the setting and how you go about it. You can't just interrupt the lecture and give an endless angry monologue of your own views. You can go and see the lecturer in office hours and ask your questions and talk it over. Or in tutorials you can ask the tutor and talk it over with them. And at the end of the day, students are under zero obligation to actually believe what they are being taught if they don't want to.

                      A lecture is not generally an appropriate debate venue for arguments between the lecturer and a student, any more than a sermon is a venue for a church-goer to have a stand-up argument with the preacher over the fact that they don't agree with his teachings. A person doing that can expect to be kicked out. If they have concerns or questions about the teaching they can approach the person later in a quieter setting.

                      Your claim appears to be false. The complaint said he didn't, and his own account implies he didn't.

                      The complaint implies more than one instance of problem behavior on his part. The guy appears to be a complete jerk who kept interrupting angrily with his own wild claims and repeatedly disrupted the class. If you think this is about something that happened only once where he politely waited his turn and then said 5 sentences calmly and then politely waited for a response, only to have the lecturer get so upset at having her own ideas questioned that she kicked him out of class, filed the complaint, and got him banished from the course... then I have a bridge to sell you.
                      You seem to be doing exactly what you are accusing me of doing, making up stuff that you don't know the facts about. You have no idea if he was disrupting the class. Of course the professor would make that claim if they were trying to get rid of him. Do you think they would say "I want him removed because he politely questioned my views in front of others?"

                      A lecture where the professor ASKS for comments from the audience after their lecture should expect to get questions and comments from the audience. He said he waited until no women spoke up. which as I said was sexist and wrong of the professor in the first place.

                      So he did not interrupt. He waited until nobody else spoke up, after the professor ASKED for comments.

                      She just didn't like the comments.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                        Who says I was talking about college level? I was talking down lower, like high school or middle school
                        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                          This thread isn't about how many genders their are. It's about liberal "tolerance" of other views. Where's the love?

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                            Yes because we all know that the first 12 years of education should be ignored and doesn’t exist to build a foundation for higher education.

                            To show how absurd you are being, let’s try your logic out with another topic:

                            You:”I can’t find any English professor that says that A is the first letter of the English alphabet. I downloaded a bunch of English books from different universities and none of them say A is the first letter. I guess it isn’t the first letter.”

                            Me:”That’s because the alphabet is covered in grade school.”

                            You:”

                            Yep, that’s about how absurd you sound.
                            "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                            GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                              Yes because we all know that the first 12 years of education should be ignored and doesn’t exist to build a foundation for higher education.

                              To show how absurd you are being, let’s try your logic out with another topic:

                              You:”I can’t find any English professor that says that A is the first letter of the English alphabet. I downloaded a bunch of English books from different universities and none of them say A is the first letter. I guess it isn’t the first letter.”

                              Me:”That’s because the alphabet is covered in grade school.”

                              You:”

                              Yep, that’s about how absurd you sound.
                              Again, this thread isn't about how many genders their are.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                                If you are going to study comparative religions....
                                What part of "does not seem to be a degree worth pursuing" do you not understand?
                                Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                                Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                                sigpic
                                I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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