The topic was sexual identity, which Dr. Joos defined as “a determination made through the application of socially agreed-upon biological criteria for classifying persons as females and males.”
She asked students for their own definitions. One, bringing an online-chat sensibility to an academic discussion, typed: “If someone looks like a chick and wants to be called a chick even though they’re not, now they can be one.”
”
— From Trip Gabriel’s Learning in Dorm, Because Class Is on the Web, in today’s New York Times. Trip wonders whether the recent trend toward online learning in higher education degrades the education itself. Gabriel, passing along Dr. Joos’ definition of “sexual identity” as a subjective social determination made without regard to a given person’s objectively pre-installed gear, never asks whether that degrades education. The student with the “online-chat sensibility”, I think, accorded the lady doctor’s question a lot more respect than it had coming.