If someone identifies as a different race....is it any different from gender?

[Jackieyoulooknice]

Just saw this story on Facebook..

fabiosa.com/ctnws-rsvlk-aumgr-pbdmt-rw-proud-to-be-now-a-black-woman-former-flight-attendant-changes-the-race-with-tan-injections/?utm_source=wikrmain&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=ssr

This woman doesn't identify as a different race she just wanted to be black, but everyone seems to be mocking her. If someone felt they identified as a different race would this be any stranger than someone who felt the same about their gender and became transgender?

Not trolling but just surprised at all the mocking that I saw people doing quite openly when most people seem accepting of transgender people.

I haven't really got an opinion on it as I find the situation so hard to imagine.

[LaContessaDiPlump]

You've identified a key point that has been cited quite a few times by the gender critical lobby! Basically I (and they) are of the opinion that you can't change sex, or race, or any other such biological characteristics.

The difference in acceptance rate between changing sex and changing race is quite telling, yet in principle it's the same.

[sexnotgender]

It’s exactly the same as thinking you can change sex - I.e. ridiculous.

I can’t decide one morning that I’m male and more than I can decide I’m chinese.

[sexnotgender]

*any more

[sexnotgender]

You’ll be shouted down shortly for being horribly transphobic. They’re not a fan of people poking holes in their logic.

[MissusGeneHunt]

You can identify as whatever you please, I suppose. Doesn't mean you actually ARE the 'thing' you identify as, though. Just attention seeking in this case IMO.

[SluttyButty]

You can't change race and you can't change your sex. It's just not biologically possible.

[applesisapple5]

JFC mumsnet! Race isn't part of your identity because it's ingrained in your family history, your upbringing and your entire family way of life. Your economic status, opportunities available to you, education, career etc. It's your culture, not your body.

Mumsnet commenters really are wilfully ignorant sometimes.

[FlatPackFurnitureCompAnyone]

Race isn't part of your identity because it's ingrained in your family history, your upbringing and your entire family way of life.

You know that’s not true, right? Plenty of people are brought up by families of a different race.

[NotTerfNorCis]

Race... is your culture, not your body.

When people think they can change gender, they're signing up to the 'culture' of the other gender, aren't they? Current thinking is that biology is irrelevant. 'Woman' (and 'man') is a feeling and a set of social stereotypes.

[PatriarchyPersonified]

Funnily enough the feminist publication Hypatia published an article about exactly this point a while ago. All the arguments that support transgenderism can equally be applied to transracialism. Therefore if you accept that one is real, you HAVE to logically accept the other.

Obviously that didn't go down well and they were forced to withdraw the article and apologise. (I think a couple of editors resigned in protest, notably because they backed the article)

I think it's a fair point, the arguments are identical, therefore either both the conditions are real, or neither of them are.

[NoProbLlama78]

I'm white British. I think I have more in common with a black British woman than a white British man.

[enbh]

I do see what you mean. I suppose it's the first time many people (me included) will have seen someone try to attempt to change race so it seems odd and so far from the norm. I suspect the very first transgender people were met with this type of mocking also, but because it's become more commonplace in comparison, and in general people have become more accepting of transgender issues, the mocking is lesser.

[Nutkins24]

Watching this as I can’t get my head around how it’s different. I accept you can be whatever gender you please but I can’t accpet how you can think you’re a woman if you have a penis, unless you define woman as someone who identifies as the female gender not someone with female organs. So you can indentify as black but you won’t actually be biologically black, you can identify as female but you won’t be biologically female (unless you have surgery to get you close to being female bodied). So what do the more extreme TRAs say to this argument? I would like to understand please!?

[SnuggyBuggy]

If dressing in blackface and calling yourself black is offensive then why isn't it offensive for a man to wear a dress and call himself a woman?

[sexnotgender]

And your sex is ingrained in ever cell of your body.

[SheCameFromGreeceSheHadaThirst]

I don't get it either. If we don't accept that Rachel Dolezal is black simply because that's how she says she feels in her head, and she truly believes that she was meant to be a black woman from birth, why is it different when a person with a penis and testicles say that they are female because that's how they feel in their head, and they truly believe that they were meant to be a woman from birth? One is vilified, the other cannot be questioned as it's a hate crime.

Genuine, non-goady question ~ what is the difference? I have a friend who recently found out that she is 1/8 black (great grandparent, unknown until recently as her mother was adopted and they've only just traced her birth family back). Theoretically, she could identify as black as this is her part of her heritage, but if she did so as a blue-eyed blond she'd be lambasted. But penis & testicles, say you're a woman, and suddenly it becomes true

[thirstyformore]

I asked this on a trans thread a while ago. The question was ignored. Logically I cannot see how it is any different. If you can decide you’re a woman surely you can decide you’re black, or white, or Asian?

[RoseTheHatt]

Ridiculous but reading that article it’s pretty clear Martina Big is mentally ill.

[Merryoldgoat]

Fuck’s sake. Of course it’s different.

The whole point is that being a different race from anyone else SHOULDN’T feel different. The problems are societal - why should being black feel any different to being of white or South Asian origin in essentials if raised in the same country? There are only differences because of societies’ treatment and expectations.

[Branleuse]

Race is not biological, its man made, based on man made borders and categories, but considering the history of white appropriation of everything and colonisation and theft and decimation of other cultures and subjugation of other races , it is particularly galling for white people to now just identify as one of these cultures because they like it. I hope these transracial people arent going to start insisting that THEY are in fact the most oppressed black people of all and to be centred in black liberation movements.

Appropriating another biological sex and insisting you are that is another step along this road and even more pervasive and dangerous because many of the surgeries and treatments are irreversible and actually ARE having a massive impact on womens equity and safety

[TheCatFromOuterSpace]

Actually I think changing race is in some ways more plausible than changing sex. The boundaries between races are more blurred than between the sexes. There are plenty of people who are mixed race but hardly any who are intersex. Lots of people who appear white can legitimately identify as black because they have one black grandparent.

[applesisapple5]

I'm not going to spend another minute debating this if people can't google for themselves 🙄

You know that’s not true, right? Plenty of people are brought up by families of a different race.

Yes obviously, but they still have a knowledge of their own culture, if they are bodily, physically different front heirloom birth family (obviously if a white European is adopted by another white European family then that's not so obvious and easier to assimilate)
In terms of 'I feel like I have more in common with' how do you know? Check your privilege and be an ally.

It's too early for this nonsense.

[PatriarchyPersonified]

Merryoldgoat

It doesn't matter that the specifics of race and sex are different, the whole point is that the arguments are logically identical.

Either both conditions are real, or neither of them are.

[Oysterbabe]

Watch The Rachel Divide on Netflix. I started off thinking she was a twat but quite liked her by the end and felt like I got where she was coming from.