If I am outwardly a white woman, to others, but born in Africa and identify as a black woman?

You just want to be adopted and write letters to six year old girls don't you? :o

"twattymctwatterson

Can I identify as a snow leopard? I've always felt more leopardy than human"
You just want to be adopted and write letters to six year old girls don't you? :o

@SimonBridges - I would absolutely have been able to do the "pass white" thing in South Africa at that time.

it's interesting to me that the article rants about people lying because a lot of people don't believe me if I do tell them my heritage or are surprised when they meet my dad.

My DP is adopted and the information that he found about his adoptive parents was not necessarily what a lot of people would associate with his skin colour.

I myself find it very sad that some people are obsessed by ethnicity as I think it has nothing to do with anything really.

You can be culturally Black African if you're white, but not ethnically Black African.

Maybe OP has deliberately confused ethnicity for culture...

Take this man, Peter Davison.
White man, yes?

His dad was mixed race.

I agree Beyond.
I have a number of friends who are seen by society as white, who have lived theirs lives as white people, who have married white people and have white children. Yet they have one black grandparent.

What race are they?

Transracialism should be more accepted - there is no such thing as "genetically black" or "genetically white", just a group of linked phenotypical presentations that are generally associated with one race or another.

Compared with male/female which can be objectively quantified.

I just don't understand tbh. Every time you looked in a mirror you would have seen a white face. I think you're confusing the fact that you feel like the customs, culture, food and language of the place you grew up feel like 'home' to you which is understandable - with the physical attributes of the people in that locality.

No idea if this thread is just to collect arguments to reason with somebody who has come out with this claim to you! I suspect so.

I think where/how you have been brought up has a lot to do with it.

I could never ‘get’ a lot of how people live and think in DH country (he wouldn’t 100% either as he’s not lived there since he was a kid).

I know a lot about the place, it’s history and culture but even my knowledge is dated and ‘that place’ no longer exists due to politics and religion. People have changed somewhat too as a result. Many people even refer to themselves as X (pre revolution reference which is historic and cultural) rather than Y (country name, more religious connotation).

Because you cannot have experienced life as black woman.

(I'm white btw so I'm not having a pop at you but I think this is the answer to your question). Even when you were in Africa, I think you would have had familiarity with the language and culture but your experience of it would still have been as a white child.

I'm not sure where this thread is going, but my ancestry is not all white although I have white skin. I do feel a very strong affinity with another culture that is prominent in my background, but I can't officially identify with it because I don't look like it. Where I am and how I got to be here and not anywhere else is strongly influenced by this cultural heritage, yet I can't really identify with it (and when I have tried I have been scorned). For some of us this is a real dilemma.

It is lying isn’t it?

You can love (what you think is) a culture(al ideal) and try to Iive the life but you can’t become another race. I love Italy but know enough to see the culture and society, warts and all.

Through martial arts I’ve met a few (usually men) who have gone to study martial arts in Japan, got into bhuddism, eat the food, love the art and culture, marry a japanese woman... but they aren’t Japanese. Never will be and would never be accepted as one by either culture.

6 people who lived as a different ethnicity.
bizarreandgrotesque.com/2015/09/14/6-downright-surreal-cases-of-people-lying-about-their-ethnicity/

Mark Stebbins is an interesting one.

I really want to identify my way out of my disability but it doesn't work that way.

The exact same areguments are against transracial and transgender. Yet transgender is all fine and dandy and you get people making excuses such as hormone washes in the womb making the baby be born in the wrong body and such. Its bizzare to see people arguing about this. I am on another forum too and they ripped Dolezal to shreads yet also rip any member who says that sex is a real fucking thing to shreds.

I guess anyone can feel that they identify as anyone if they want.

However, identifying as ‘a group’ - is going to throw up what ‘the groups’ identity is - which is often the cultural norm within that group, the shared experiences, the historic values etc. I know this is fluid and depends on perspective.

So identifying as a black African - if no one outside the group minds - or inside = no issue. However if many other black Africans, who define being so as bring visibly black and born in Africa - may take issue with that definition and therefore identity being challenged.

Likewise, anyone can say they feel pregnant - however if they don’t have a baby inside them they won’t have the same experience- or physical changes which give some legal protections.

So - I guess it depends how the group defines itself in the first place - it’s not really something an individual can define on behalf of the group.

Can I identify as a snow leopard? I've always felt more leopardy than human

OP "for reasons of national security should persons not tick the box of their outward appearance? "

Not sure what that means.

Glitched as soon as the sperm met the ova it was determined if you were male or female. We don't start off like a ken doll and then our genitals mysteriously form into either male or female. For a very small number of people their chromasomes are not XX or XY. Or their genitals maybe underdeveloped or unclear. Those people are Intersex, not transgender. There is no scientific evidence that trans people had something go wrong during foetal development and it is impossible to be born in the wrong body unless you believe we have souls that preexist our physical bodies and exist and develop independently of our bodies.

DH went to school with some twins like this.

nypost.com/2017/09/05/meet-the-black-and-white-twins-that-baffle-everyone/

At some point in the womb you became either male or female. It is perfectly possible for there to be some kind of genetic or hormonal mix up and to be born in the wrong body, so to speak.

Oh is there? Really? How does that work then?

At some point in the womb you became either male or female. It is perfectly possible for there to be some kind of genetic or hormonal mix up and to be born in the wrong body, so to speak.

This doesn't apply to race. There is no point where a fetus become white or black. That is an inherited trait based on your parents.

To draw parallels between the two is ridiculous.

Well this has taken a turn I wasn't expecting! I thought you were making a point about transgender people and saying that if a man could identify as a woman without issue you should be able to do the same?!

I'm a member of a lefty women's group that tore Dolezal to shreds - apparently race isn't a costume you can take on and off. I would absolutely agree.

But in the same group, anyone supporting the recent GoFundMe has been removed from the group. Anyone who questions the trans agenda is labelled a TERF and removed. Gender fluidity is wholly supported - so apparently womanhood IS a costume you can take on and off.

I find the cognitive dissonance staggering.

OP, I appreciate that due to your upbringing you may identify more with black people than white people. However, you must acknowledge that you have enormous privilege over those people, and you can present as white any time you choose, which is an option they don't have?

I feel a very strong affinity with French culture. I would absolutely love to be French. I spent a lot of time there in my childhood. But I'm not. I recognise the difference between feeling that I am French and wishing that I were, and I would be insane if I thought my documentation should be changed to present me as French.

Buttock implants? Give over.