Students list ‘Apache attack helicopter’ as gender on ‘engineering culture’ survey, angering scholars

The College Fix ^ | 07/20/2023 | MARSHELLE PAULINO

[DFG]

Some students wrote that their gender was “Apache attack helicopter” in response to a survey about “engineering culture,” which prompted accusations from the academics that “fascism” is on the rise in America.

The researchers wrote a paper that described their experiences while working on a survey about LGBT students in STEM in the Summer 2023 edition of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, housed out of Northwestern University.

Titled “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interesting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences,” the paper reported on “individuals exercising discursive power in their language to target researchers and tamper with data.”

The authors wrote that the “backlash” to the project “reflects 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.”

About 25 percent of the “malicious responses” provided some airplane-related response to gender, including several who specifically identified as an “Apache helicopter.” Identifying as an “attack helicopter” is a meme that goes back to at least 2014.

Other responses included a “V-22 Osprey” and a “F-16 fighter jet.”

[Shqipo]

I’d go with “Pinochet helicopter doorman” myself

[Twotone]

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[Rio]

Here’s an odd essay from someone who thinks she’s an Apache Attach Helicopter...

https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/science-fiction/2020-01-15-fall-isexuallyidentifyasanattackhelicopter.html