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

You cannot be mixed sex (if you have a Y chromosome you are not female)

This is the only time I've disagreed with this and used intersex as an argument. You can be if not mixed sex then not clearly and straightforwardly male or female sex. That's what disorders of sexual development are - something went wrong in the development of normal binary sex.

(Insert disclaimer about only a vanishingly tiny % of population, who don't have any desire to be included under the trans umbrella, and whose existence doesn't change the fact that there is no such biological thing as "Ladybrain" or "Manbrain")

Muttonindistress
I agree with you. I called in to his show once and he was so rude, talked over me, dismissed what I was saying.
The very next day, the point I was making was reported in the national news. I was right, he was wrong.
I haven't bothered listening to him since.

I think Maajid was being clever about how he approached this issue. Also, you can only really delve into one issue at a time on a talk show and this show focused on the logical inconsistencies between transgenderism and transracialism.

All credit to him - he got callers to think about this issue in a way that they hadn't before, and they admitted as much. He also got callers to say they agreed with JKR.

Yes, his starting point was self-id, but that's because self-id is the main bone of contention at the moment. Accepting the premise that the current GRA is fit for purpose allows the discussion to move on to look at the ideology behind self-id.

Whether the GRA really is fit for purpose is a debate for another show. (And bear in mind, presenters do not want to risk losing their jobs etc. due to accusations of transphobia. He has to be careful about how he handles this debate.)

As for the criticism that he interrupts his callers, I do think that Maajid is willing to engage with people who have a different point of view to him. However, he does want people to respond to the questions he puts to them and he expects his callers to be able to back up their points with logic.

I am hopeful that he can keep returning to this topic. He grasps the issues far more than O'Brien does.

I like Maajid and I liked most of his speech on transracialism and transgenderism, but is he really suggesting you can become either black or a woman from just living that way for 2 years. Because he made it clear he thinks the current GRA process is fine but self ID is not, and he said that both things are the same so your position has to be the same for both. There’s absolutely nothing that can make you black if you were born white. 2 years of ‘living as a black person’ won’t do it. No way. It’s clearly offensive. But he seemed to brush over that part and focus on self ID. So I like his thinking and I like that he was speaking about it on LBC, but he needs to sit down with some GC women and listen to everything we are saying.

Is it because the people who are negatively affected by this whole debate are mainly women??

Yes. The oppression of women has been literally everywhere for ever, it's like wallpaper. Most men don't give a fuck even when they do notice. Some even enjoy seeing women being robbed of the only rights and protections they've managed to scratch out for themselves, as it gives men back the upper hand.

Ironically, the countries that most people, male or female, want to live in (standard of living, education, human rights etc) are those in which women have the most rights and freedoms so men do actually do well out of it.

Sadly though, many men in the world would rather keep women down and be relatively more powerful than women, than raise themselves up if it means bringing women up with them. Every country you'd avoid like the plague looks like this. Tragic really.

If we are looking at thousands of years then at certain points of history some groups now seen as facing active discrimination were the oppressing group. And that includes both Jewish and African groups acting as oppressors. And in the circumstances this thread is about I suspect African Americans would class members of the Jewish community, despite their experience of anti semitism, as being closer the the power elite than they are.

And racism isn't just about skin colour, eg english people can and are racists towards Irish people.

But in any event irrespective of whether the woman concerned is actually Jewish (I dont know I've not read the article!) it is appropriation from a position of relative privilege.

someone who is black can share the experience of racism but will never know the experience of anti semitism
But some will. Some Jews are black. That was my point. Jewishness is not about skin colour.

I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I was responding to what I interpreted (perhaps wrongly?) as you describing Jews, a very oppressed group for thousands of years, as an oppressing group.

Is there an actual biological difference between races?

No, because humans don't have races. Wolves do and cabages do but race in humans is an arbitary social construction- mostly based on skin colour.

Humans are very genetically diverse, you can share lots of genes with someone who looks nothing like you, and be genetically dissimilar to someone of your ethnicity.

Certain populations tend towards certain features (hair colour, skin colour, eye shape) but these really are only skin deep and represent very few genes. Some geographically isolated populations can be fairly well identified by their genomes but it's generally very hard to determine ethnicity from DNA.

For example you will get much bigger average genetic differences between families 50 miles apart in Spain than you will between Jews and Arabs from different parts of the middle east. In both cases the diversity will far outweigh the 'racial' similarities.

It's so meaningless that Archeologists largely don't use DNA to discuss ethnicity at all- they use language groupings.

None of that (sadly) makes racism any less real.

Sex OTOH determines (on average) skeletal structure, muscle mass, height, brain size, some organs, hormones..... You can tell the sex of a human just from the skeleton or from a single cell.

I had a listen this morning (here in Texas). I was disappointed in the callers. They didn't seem to have thought about the issue deeply, which made the discussion very repetitive -- except for "Phoebe" towards the end. Applause to you if you're reading this!

I agree Brandine. I nearly gave up (I did skip a lot) but it was worth hanging on for Phoebe.

To be honest, I was unimpressed by Maajid too. He seems like another James O’Brian to me. That is, an arrogant know-it-all man who speaks loudly over anyone who doesn’t agree with him. I don’t think he has grasped the issue any more than most of the listeners have, but while most of them admitted to being confused, he clearly thinks he’s got it and is jolly pleased with himself.

He seems to think that the main problem is women being offended by transwomen assuming that they understand our lived experience and it being unfair that transwomen can get on women only short lists etc. That’s part of it for sure, but fairly insignificant compared to the potential physical danger to women and girls which comes with self-ID. But while he mentioned DV (though without any explanation of why it was relevant) he said nothing about sexual predation and dismissed concerns about toilets just as O’Brien did.

I would have liked him, or one of the callers, to say actually transracialism and transgenderism are not equivalent. The first is clearly offensive to many POC and possibly fraudulent if someone receives a grant or something on the basis of their identified race. The second is offensive to many women and should be considered fraudulent if a transwoman gets a grant or something meant for women (though in fact, the awarder of such grant will be acclaimed for their inclusivity and the receiver called S&B) and it puts women in actual physical danger. And so the question I think Maajid should have been asking is why everyone is so outraged by the former but not the latter.

SheepandCow

I dont think you have understood the point i was making. irrespective of whether she actually is Jewish or just identifying doesn't negate the arguement that she chose to identify as someone who she is not biologically and can therefore never have experienced that racism.

This doesn't deny the reality of antisemitism.

It is about the actual reality of the experience of racism based on the oppressing group perception of that race of being of lower status.

Equally someone who is Black can share the experience of racism but will never know the specific experience of anti semitism.

Women aren't their biology. But our experience is totally shaped by our experience of being oppressed by men because we are biologically female.

That is the basis and the need for feminism, or rather women's liberation.

Cheddar gorge man was shown to have dark skin.
Most europeans have Neanderthal DNA, alot of the rest of the world do not
Certain peoples in the East have Denisovan DNA, and scientists have identified other 'ghost' pre Homo Sapian DNa species mixed into other people's genetic code which show similar interbreeding with other human close relatives since we came out from Africa, went back in, came out again and mixed it all about, until those other species were all extinct, some relatively recently in genetic terms (around 30,000 years ago)

The idea of 'race' is not a simple story

However. Since the very earliest of human ancestors first stood on two legs (and actually well before that) there were still only two sexes. One who got pregnant. And one who made them so.

Xanthan
I believe that Kamala Harris has always identified herself as Brown
because she is immensely proud of her mother's family
and not very close to her father

If we're unhappy about letting people identify into a group that can't identify out of their oppression, them m to f transition is problematic as well as white to black.

If self ID is acceptable for sex, it follows that race and age should be next. Ultimately, anyone could self ID into an age, sex and race group that qualifies them for special consideration for job interviews, for example or educational scholarships. What about mediocre athletes using self ID to compete in Paralympic games? What's to stop them once that self ID door is kicked in? If one group can have special privileges or exemptions because of a particular characteristic, why can't we all?

The sooner the whole thing implodes under its own weight, the better.

Think of the craziness that kicked off with people taking 'therapy' animals onto planes: pigs, peacocks and probably peccaries too for all I know. The airlines had to call a halt because it became a challenge to some people to see how far they could push the thing.

A thing like this peaks when enough people are brave enough to say, "You're taking the piss now - enough!'

Trevor Noah made some interesting points about Kamala Harris not being 'black enough recently....

twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1296282569953234945?s=20

Sheep interesting indeed.

There are ethical questions about whether it should be acceptable to identify into a group that cannot choose to identify out of their oppression.

I and my siblings are white skinned, although our great great grandmother was black. Despite my skin colour, the official law in other times and places would have forbidden me to own land or to marry a white man, because of that evidenced heritage. I certainly have an interest and romantic fondness for this ancestor of mine and what her story may have been, and I know of some members of the family in previous generations who rejected her memory and tried to cover up her existence, including destroying pictures and records.

Do I have the faintest idea of what it is to be alive in a body that isn't white? No. Not the foggiest. I've never experienced racial prejudice in my life and never will, because the plain fact is I am white. That is my fact, it is what it is.

I could, theoretically, explain that my race is on a spectrum, and I could explain my sense of identity as a black person inside, and my feelings and other things that are all about me and the importance of me- and whatever germ of reality may be in that, it would be outrageously insensitive and offensive to someone who is black and whose reality is living in that body without it being a choice under their control, and who has the lived experience that white people cannot share in. They can read about it, think about it, emotionally get involved with it, embrace the language and culture they feel connected to, but it's a romantic third hand experience of what they believe it may be like.

Incidentally the choices around race often appear to be 'I want to be part of', more than 'I want to suppress and replace'. Which sometimes is not the case around sex. Interesting to reflect on.

As a side note: if race and sex are choices, age will have to be too. That is inevitable.

To have someone who is part of the oppressing group
Slight derail but sort of relevant. She's (now identifying as) Jewish. A group (that includes all skin tones) very much an ^oppressed group over thousands of years. She's also currently identifying as a woman. Again, an oppressed^ group over thousands of years.

This was really interesting. To me the callers highlighted just how little people understand JKRs argument. Most people haven't explored the issues and acknowledged how complex it is and instead they've just accepted the line that JKR is transphobic. The problem with this whole issue is that if very so full of nuance and many people like to sort things into easy to understand black and white boxes that don't allow for that. Often I guess because they don't have the time to research it properly.

The issue isn't necessarily about every biological detail of difference but the fact that people are discriminated against on account of a biological reality ie race and sex.

That is why claiming you are a woman because you "feel" you are has no equivilance to women growing up and experiencing daily reactions and treatment of them because of their sex. And ditto race.

To have someone who is part of the oppressing group claim that just through identifying they are somehow not part of the inherent privilege of being part of the dominant sex or race class is dishonest and a fabrication.

People send off dna samples to try to find out about their 'race', or their dog's breed ... but afaik they don't seem to need to do this to work out what sex they are.

Like it says, we human beings are likely to be mixed race wise over thousands of years

It depends on what you see as "race". I don't think that these days, we would count the French, Spanish, Belgians, Italians, British, Irish as being different races. They are all considered "white".

But "white" isn't a race. Most European white people are probably mixed race if you go back far enough,

My DCs are half Welsh, half Irish, so technically, mixed race. But I wouldn't class them as mixed race on any form, I'd tick the "white-British" box.

Well, not exactly - 23 and me and other such companies (Ancestry.com etc) began with ancestry marked dna sequencing in the public domain.

It's still based on comparing your DNA to other people, not tracing your ancestors. They can't check whether your great x 10 grandmother was a Viking. All they can say is that your DNA is similar to that of many people living in Scandinavian countries now.

Genetic inheritance doesn't split equally as you travel along the family tree. We know that Obama is related to the Queen and Brad Pitt, but that doesn't mean it would be possible to prove that with a DNA test because the common ancestor is about 10 generations ago.

On the other hand DNA tests have shown some white supremacists that their ancestry is not as 'pure' as they thought, and we know that the nature of slavery means that its not unusual for descendants of African American slaves (including Michelle Obama) to have white ancestry.

But many of them would. For instance the positive discrimination that women require in order to gain the same power that men have.

It's a moot point, really, because I can't see it happening. But many of the issues with men identifying into womanhood arise because of the power dynamic, rather than the actual biological differences.

Sexism occurs because of the power dynamic.

Which is why sometimes, for me, talking about the difference in the biological sexes, chromosomes, hormones, etc, isn't the issue. It's the problems that arise out of those sex differences.