I was reading the yahoo comments about the news item on the substitute teacher who was fired for being trans.

Yeah, I know. Don't read Internet comments. But I was curious.

There were 600+. No surprise there. But they seemed all to be all about how disordered trans people were and how they shouldn't be allowed near kids. All? Surely someone who reads yahoo understands transgender folks.

Then I realized.

They're ordered according to how many "likes" and "dislikes" they got. When I changed the ordering to chronological, they suddenly seemed a lot more balanced. True, the pro-trans comments had more dislikes than likes, but they were nowhere near the non-existent frequency they seemed to be when I used the other ordering.

Effectively, that ordering allows a majority to "shout down" a minority, because minority opinions get buried. To anyone who doesn't think to change the ordering, Yahoo makes it looks like people overwhelmingly believe we're disordered, bad for kids, spreading our agenda, an affront to Christianity, etc.

I wouldn't let internet comments or likes/dislikes bother me too much. You never know if it's really the amount of people supposedly represented or just a few people with a bunch of different accounts trying to artificially inflate things. Plus, the internet is global. The people with negative opinions could come from anywhere. For all we know, they could be people living in one of the countries where LGBT people have no rights at all and being bigoted towards them is the norm. They don't necessarily represent how people around us think. Just a few things to keep in mind when things on the internet get you down. Plus, people just seem nastier on the internet in general. I'm not sure why that is, but it seems to be the case.

Quote from: Pikachu on April 10, 2014, 11:46:38 AMPlus, people just seem nastier on the internet in general. I'm not sure why that is, but it seems to be the case.

^^THIS^^

I read the comments sometimes, but for entertainment purposes only!  But a part of me wonders if the freedom of anonymity allowed in many comments sections allows people to write what they really think deep down, and not just the kinds of gentler things they'd say in public to another human being.  I hope not!

Quote from: __________ on April 10, 2014, 11:51:40 AM
^^THIS^^

I read the comments sometimes, but for entertainment purposes only!  But a part of me wonders if the freedom of anonymity allowed in many comments sections allows people to write what they really think deep down, and not just the kinds of gentler things they'd say in public to another human being.  I hope not!

I hope not, too. It's kind of unsettling to think people can be so two-faced. I dunno... I've heard people say the nastiness was due to anonymity, but I always wonder. Having anonymity doesn't affect how I act, personally. If I said something nasty to or about someone, I'd still feel bad, regardless of whether people could identify me.

Just remember, the internet gives people free reign to say whatever hateful, intolerant, bigoted things they want to say with absolutely no chance of repercussions. 95%+ of them would NEVER say these things to an actual trans person's face, and in fact, probably almost all of them have never even knowingly met a trans person in real life, so they're just basing their opinions on their own completely-wrong assumptions about what trans people are like.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

This is how I see it.

Are you happy being who you are?
Good.

Haters gonna hate.

I may be "sick" but IRL, the last person who accused me of that was a relative who committed suicide just afterward.  She had a ton of psychotropic drugs in her system at the time the 0.32 caliber pistol went off in her mouth!!   

I enjoy being known as weird though.

Thanks for the tip on evaluating and arranging comments on Yahoo!!  I will let some of my clueless friends (who are nevertheless friends) in on it. 

People who frequently comment on Yahoo are a hardly a representative sample of our society.   Most people have better things to do, so we are left with the trolls, unemployable losers, sociopaths, nutjobs and the Beavises and Buttheads between spank socks.  This is the dregs of humanity, people.

These people are mostly just out to press your buttons because they have nothing better to do and can hide behind their keyboards.

Again, don't read the comments.

I read the article. The question I have is how is the teacher a 'distraction'? She's never discussed her transgender status with her students and from all accounts is and excellent teacher. Perhaps this parent's problem is that SHE is uncomfortable with the teacher. The students and parents are missing out on a teaching moment. I'm sure the vast majority of those in opposition know nothing about what it is to be transgender.

What seems to scare a lot of narrow minded parents (and commentators) is that children and young people are often a lot more open to accepting trans* people and diversity in general than the close minded are comfortable with.