The researchers, from Oregon State University, published an article in the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, highlighting their shock at the sarcastic and mocking nature of the responses they received from undergraduate LGBTQ students studying in STEM fields.
Out of the 349 responses to their questionnaire, the researchers identified 50 that contained slurs, hate speech, or direct targeting of the research team. They referred to these respondents as "malicious" and decided to adapt their project to examine how these joke responses relate to engineering culture and the rise of online fascism.
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The resulting paper, titled "Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences," analyzed the responses based on themes such as demographics, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), gender, anti-trans and anti-queer sentiments, racism, antisemitism, and online hate subculture references. Many of the answers contained offensive language, profanity, and references to memes.
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When asked to provide demographic data, 24% of the "malicious" respondents indicated their gender as being related to a helicopter or aircraft, ranging from an "Apache Attack Helicopter" to a "V22 osprey." In the section about disabilities, responses varied from claiming to be illiterate to expressing frustration with communist leadership in their country. Some even argued that identifying as transgender itself is a disability due to the perceived inability to accept biological reality.
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Other responses rejected the researchers' project entirely, with answers such as "My skin color is not important" and "These questions are stupid. Everyone is a grab bag of genetics from all over the world." The researchers also claimed that online memes associated with white nationalist and fascist movements were prevalent throughout the data, alongside references to gaming and nerd culture.
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The researchers emphasized that the mockery they received had a profound impact on their morale and mental health, particularly for one transgender researcher who was already seeking therapy for anxiety and depression related to online anti-trans rhetoric. They stated that managing the study's data collection caused significant personal distress, requiring time off from the project to recover from the traumatic harm caused by reading the students' responses.
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Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that fascism has become a prevalent ideology within engineering and computer science academia. They proposed a counter response in the form of "social justice STEM education," which would include perspectives on online hate radicalization and center anti-colonial, intersectional solidarity organizing as its opposition.
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However, the researchers expressed surprise that their findings were ultimately rejected by many academic journals, leading them to believe that their research on fascism in academia is viewed as irrelevant or alarmist. They described their research methods as utilizing antifascist and trans/queer methodologies to transform the raw data and make effective interventions and transformations to programs and institutions. They also emphasized the importance of anti-fascism as a framework that connects contemporary fascist movements to the racial foundation of the United States, highlighting the pervasive nature of white supremacy in the country.
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The researchers argued that the solution to the rise of fascism lies in transforming education itself. They envisioned the university as a central site for revolutionary struggle, where critical consciousness can be fostered through a pedagogy of liberation. They suggested using the experiences of transgender citizens as a teachable example of power dynamics and oppression, emphasizing that categories such as race, gender, and sexuality have roots in European colonial logics shared by fascist movements.
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Engineering, in particular, was identified as a critical field for teaching this far-left ideology, as graduates often work in industries such as fossil fuels, defense, construction, and technology. The researchers believed that educating these graduates about the relationships between these fields and national and global racial capitalism, as well as ongoing apartheid in Palestine, would be beneficial.
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