Northwestern University academics accuse students of ‘fascism’ after saying they identified as ‘Apache attack helicopters’ in tech culture survey

Northwestern academics have accused students of “fascism” after they said they identified as “Apache attack helicopters” in a tech culture survey.

The researchers claimed that the far right in the US was on the rise after seeing the students’ answers to the questionnaire.

They claimed the responses were “malicious” and a sign of white supremacy, which they subsequently wrote about in a paper titled “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interesting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire on Transgender Student Experiences in Engineering and Computer Science.”

Identifying as an “attack helicopter” is a meme dating back at least to 2014 used to mock transgender people and those who identify outside of the gender binary.

Researchers deeply concerned about fascism in the US after undergrad students wrote in a gender survey that they identified as Apache attack helicopters

The researchers wrote the paper describing their experiences working on the survey on LGBT students in STEM subjects.

They said the “backlash” to the project “reflects characteristics of contemporary far-right or fascist political movements in the US, such as the synthesis of anti-Semitism with anti-black and anti-feminist rhetoric.”

According to a post in the College fixabout a quarter of the so-called “malicious responses” to the survey gave an aircraft-related answer to the gender question, including a handful who specifically identified as an “Apache helicopter.”

Other responses the researchers received were: a ‘V-22 Osprey’ and an ‘F-16 fighter jet’.

Others seemed to express a degree of frustration on top of the survey mockery. One respondent wrote that they identify as a ‘homophobic biggot, yes we exist’.

Someone else wrote, “Cis sex lizard king,” and yet another wrote, “F***ing white male.”

Some wrote even more detailed answers like ‘Quasi-Demi-pony; bankai-released state queercopter with a twist of f****tdrag lesbian and gay upside-down Frappuccino cake,” and “on-cookie-cutter cis-furry dragonkin. Do not judge.’

Researchers wrote a paper describing their experiences while working on a survey of LGBT students in STEM subjects in the summer 2023 edition of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, housed at Northwestern University

The researchers — all of whom are associated with Oregon State University — reported sending the survey to more than 3,000 email addresses associated with “department chairs, program administrators, and faculty of accredited engineering undergraduate programs,” who were then able to forward the survey to undergraduate students.

They ended up with 723 responses, of which only 299 were normal. They reported that 374 were invalid or incomplete responses, and 50 (about 15 percent) came from so-called “malicious” responders.

“Importantly, the themes and repetitions serve to highlight shared references and indicate an existing community with a shared political agenda and racist, transantagonistic, and online political meme commentary,” the researchers wrote.

One respondent wrote that their gender was “pansexual attack helicopter,” and also listed their race as “kangz.”

Other “malicious responses” included students saying their race was “Afro/Klingon-Asian Galapogayation” and their gender was “Aerosol.”

One creative student named their race “Native American (Elizabeth Warren),” apparently mocking Warren’s questionable history of identifying as part Native American.

A creative student named their race “Native American (Elizabeth Warren),” apparently mocking Warren’s questionable history of identifying as part Native American

Several respondents also mentioned being transgender as a disability. One response roundly criticized the research for “ruining science.”

“I really don’t care at this point. You are ruining real scientific disciplines here,” the person wrote. “There are two sexes, male and female. If an engineer makes a nut and bolt, but then labels them oddly, they’re not such a great engineer.’

The researchers labeled the critique of their survey as “fascist,” writing, “Theories of fascism provide a framework for interpreting the ways in which dominant, oppressive, or reactionary ideologies related to race, personality, and gender become entrenched in community building, power exercises, and the state.”

They added that the responses they received were “only a small part of a broader fascist grassroots education in the United States, which often targets trans people and student activists.”

They argued that for these reasons, modern academics should “develop a robust analysis of how racist and fascist discourses are inseparable from transphobic discourses and approach malignant responses to research targeting marginalized people in technology as central evidence in this research.”