LBC now - topic is questioning whether transgenderism is logically the same as transitioning from white to black

I’m a POC.
I experience sexism and racism in exactly the same way except in my lived experience..
Sexist Men think they can physically touch or harm me because I am a woman.
Racist People think they can say what they like to me about the colour of my skin.
Sometimes I get the double gift of both.
I feel... that transgender and transracial are the same issue.
Cannot see a logical argument as to why it’s different.
Yet the same people will champion one, argue the other.
Illogical and insulting.

Listened to it today. It was an interesting discussion. It was amazing to hear the penny drop as people called in. I was pleased to hear the sort of conversation we should be getting on the BBC.

However what was missed was the fact that Krug and Dolezal had been "living as black" considerably longer than a TW is required to "live as a woman" before getting a GRC. Nawaz's point was that he should not identify as a woman today and get on an all women shortlist tomorrow. He argued for the status quo in respect of the GRA, so a TW with a GRC could, according to him, get on an all women shortlist.

By that logic, there is no reason not to have a "Race Recognition Act" by which a white person who, like Krug, has "lived as black" for two years could get a "Race Recognition Certificate" and be "treated for all purposes" as black.

Nawaz needs to follow through on his analogy.

I don't think it is derailing the thread. It's relevant because it's an example of how race can be more blurred lines, not as clear cut, especially with races having mixed so much over thousands of years. Its not as binary as sex.

In any event, what's wrong with a discussion evolving naturally.

I think the Jewishness of Jessica Krug complicates the case. I saw a link posted on another thread. A definition of BAME. It included Arabs. Jews are ethnicity wise closely related to Arabs, and also many Arabs look as white skin toned as Jews. Separately Jewish people originally come from Israel, which is close regionally to Africa. So I don't think it's as simple as a white person impersonating a black person in this case. I think it's more complicated.

You're on form today; I love reading what you have to say.

- I'm reluctant to continue derailing the thread

Then please start a new one which addresses your concerns. You've already raised some interesting points and I for one would be happy to contribute that new thread.

Does your DH think we should do away with safeguarding becatse only a tiny minority of adults abuse children?

What a fucking excellent riposte; I do hope we get some feedback.

(Like Kit I too am not having a go at OP or OP's DH)

Thanks, SheepandCow.

As I said on the other thread, I'm Jewish and have been called a P* and experienced racism from people who thought I was Roma. As well as anti-Semitism from people who knew I was Jewish. So I find claims that Jews are de facto white and experience life entirely as white people and with white 'privilege' really unhelpful.

I don't identify as black, but I don't identify as white, either. There are too few Jews in the UK for us to get our own box on ethnic identity forms, so I have no choice but to tick the 'other' box - quite literally 'othered'. Racial identity is not simple.

By comparison, male and female are completely clear-cut binary categories. And men clearly do experience class privileges over women as a class.

The idea therefore that it is beyond the pale to identify as black, while simultaneously applauding those men who identify as women, is clearly rampant hypocrisy.

Black people can be Jewish. Jewish people can be black. Jewishness is not about skin tone or colour. Baroness King (former Labour MP, Oona King) is black and Jewish.

Whoopi Goldberg is black and self described as Jewish.

@xxyzz I agree with everything you've written. It's what I tried to explain in my posts yesterday - perhaps not expressed as well as you! There's been a worrying increase in anti-Semitism in recent years. Lots not reported - gravestones vandalised, assaults (verbal and physical). Ignorant stereotypes (generalising about a whole group based on a few members of that group) should not go unchallenged/uncorrected.

On another thread about this, the OP felt it relevant to describe Jessica Krug as a white Jewish woman because that's how Jessica self described (although she of course self described as black a few weeks before). I suspect OP wouldn't have felt it relevant to refer to her as a white overweight woman (had Krug self described as overweight). As it happens I do think it's relevant, but not because Jews, a very oppressed and persecuted group, are 'oppressors' but because some people don't see Jewish people as white even when their skin tone is white (both Jews themselves, and some racists on the far right). I'm also not sure whether some posters have yet taken in that Jews can be black skin toned. I noticed with BLM, people are told if they're not black, they don't get to deny or discuss or question the black person's experience - and importantly, perception - of racism. It's telling that when many many Jewish individuals and groups expressed outright fear over Corbyn being antisemitic, everyone else was allowed to dismiss, question, and deny Jewish people's experiences and perceptions. I certainly wouldn't say Jewish people (of all skin tones) are an oppressing class.

Returning to trans issues. I'm feeling old and tired today. I've realised I identity as an older woman. I'm looking forward to drawing my pension and a living in a nice quiet retirement village.

MillyMollyFarmer - I'm reluctant to continue derailing the thread, and as I said, I'm sure we're on the same side as far as women's rights go.

But seriously, when you're in a hole, stop digging. You are defending something that is indefensible. stumbledin suggested that Jews were seen as 'closer to the power elite' and were in a 'position of relative privilege'.

I don't need to know anything about you to know that suggesting that blacks and Jews are two entirely separate races, or suggesting that there is an oppression Olympics and Jews come lower than black people in it, is really unhelpful for the argument that we are both making, as well as being unscientific waffle.

In reality, there is significant overlap between black people and Jewish people; in reality both black people and Jews experience discrimination, some of it similar, some of it different, but attempts to put the discrimination into league tables is monumentally unhelpful to both parties.

still a minority

I increasingly find I notice with the men in my own family, all decent, nice humans, men can rarely be buggered to care about anything that doesn't affect them. Which includes all women's issues and women's experiences, my df has said quite frankly 'well it doesn't bother me, does it?'. It's part of the privilege of being born male in our culture. Females do the job of managing everybody's needs: it's the burden that comes with being born female. They've even tried to rebrand feminism as 'sorting out equality for everyone'.

Where males get interested is where their own interests get affected. My df commented about how all this trans politics didn't affect him so why care, and then I explained what his granddaughters will deal with in their changing room and loo, and what his daughters will experience, and he went apopletic and wrote to his MP. Because His Property then stepped on by other males.

I do honestly think this is why some males support the TRA line: because they get the concept of males wanting x or y, because males. Part of their team. Females on the other hand? Female problem, and females are everyone's mum anyway, and there's the whole enjoying competition thing and that it's quite nice to be on the winning team and see how men are more powerful and get what they want against women.

Equality, for men, is largely about considering other men. This is tragic, if you're female its absolutely fucking horrendous, but it is true. This is what we're fighting.

If you are allowed to change the sex on your birth certificate because of how you feel, then you should be able to change any other 'fact' about your life.

Maybe they don't matter to you when it concerns an oppressed group you're not part of

Honestly these sorts of comments and assumptions are revealing. You don’t know who I am or what I experience. You have misinterpreted what the intention was behind the comments.

I also really don't think that arguing that Jews and blacks are racially entirely separate and that Jews oppress black people helps at all in making the feminist point that actually race is somewhat more amorphous than sex yet even so, identifying as a member of an oppressed race is seen as unforgivable whereas a man identifying as a woman, where the sex boundaries are completely clear, and where women clearly are oppressed by men, is not seen as problematic at all.

It weakens the argument - and is complete baloney - to suggest that all races are completely separate, with clearly defined biological boundaries, or to suggest that all races line up neatly in some sort of oppression Olympics.

Benjamin Boyce hasn't got Maajid's listenership but here's his take on the blackface / womanface inconsistencies:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra6vxi8kMDs

Think before typing this stuff! Or in defence of it!

I don't want to derail the thread as suspect that you and stumbledin and I probably all largely agree on the substance of this thread, but words matter. Stereotypes matter. Maybe they don't matter to you when it concerns an oppressed group you're not part of, but they sure as hell matter to me, and anti-Semitism shapes every aspect of my daily life.

Why does it matter even if they’re a minority though?? (Though as most trans eomen are attracted to women because they’re straight men id Dispute a minority but whatever!)

Does your DH think we should do away with safeguarding becatse only a tiny minority of adults abuse children?

Sorry OP not getting at you btw it’s just the way men do casually hand wave aside women’s experiences as acceptable collateral damage

xxyzz That is NOT what she said! You need to read the comments made again and be careful of throwing around words

That's what disorders of sexual development are - something went wrong in the development of normal binary sex.

Most people who are intersex are still clearly Male or female, except I think there are 2 intersex conditions where this is not the case, someone might know them. It’s a myth that intersex necessarily means not of either sex.

I don't think stumbledin said that.

And to add, stumbledin, your post came close to the sort of extremely, blatantly anti-Semitic propaganda that attempts to blame Jews for slavery (yes this is, unbelievably, a thing).

I'm not saying that that was what you meant to imply, but you should probably be more aware of anti-Semitic tropes before pontificating on Jews as an 'oppressor class'. I'm Jewish and am regularly taken for black or 'unidentified foreign' and experience that as fairly bloody oppressive actually. My parents fled to this country as child refugees and many of my close relatives were murdered precisely because they weren't seen as 'white', or even as human.

So enough of the 'Jews are an oppressor class' or 'Jews are white' already. It's not funny. It's actually pretty hurtful.

stumbled in, I have to disagree with your, I suspect, unthought-through claim, that Jews were the 'oppressor class' versus black people at any point in time, or that Jews now, as Jews, are 'closer to the power elite' than African Americans are. That seems a fairly obviously racist statement, relying on anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Yes, there will be some rich or successful Jews, just as there are some rich or successful African Americans. But the existence of a Zuckerberg, say, no more makes all Jews elite than the existence of an Obama makes all African Americans elite.

I don't feel the use of these lazy stereotypes contributes anything helpful to the discussion. It shows a basic lack of understanding of race and the points being discussed. Jews can be black. They may or may not identify as black. That is the essence of what we are discussing.

Racial essentialism is mainly used by racists. Racism is real and clear, though racial boundaries themselves are not.

Compare that to sex, where biological boundaries and the male-female binary are real and very clear. Misogyny is also real.

It is clear that the arguments against appropriation of an identity and identifying into oppression are much, much stronger where sex is concerned than race.

Yet currently, it is socially unacceptable only to identify into another race and claim their oppression, but not into the opposite sex. That is clearly ridiculous. Both are problematic, but identifying into the opposite sex is much more problematic.

I have been thinking this for some years now. Always get dismissed by people IRL if I mention it. It's bizarre that feeling you are another "race" (for which there is no biological difference) is deemed to be so offensive whereas feeling you are another sex is to be encouraged. A strange world in which we live.