Would I be unreasonable to do either of these things? To tell a Sikh man

[Wheezo]

1. ... that if he wants to avoid being racially attacked he should remove his turban because to wear something so obviously advertising his 'difference' is to invite racial abuse of some kind which he could do more to avoid (same goes for anyone wearing clothes with religious/cultural/non-western/non-white associations that draws attention to their 'difference')

1. Attend a Black Lawyers' Conference (I'm orange white btw) and attempt to join in discussions about my experience of being discriminated against on the basis that my addiction to fake tan is limiting my career prospects

I think someone who did either of these things would be pretty darn unreasonable but I am coming across opinions that would suggest I am the unreasonable one so just testing it out in the blazing furnace of AIBU to see if it's actually just me.

Historical oppression I think is the key; there is still an uneven playing field for black people, institutionalised racism, lower aspirations etc etc. Which is not true for people who wear fake tan. And of choice the choice issue

It's a bloody ridiculous analogy...

No, you would have to have grown/ spent formative years as a black person, to understand the experience

Same as being a woman or a MTF transexual

I guess there would be parts of South Asia where walking around with a turban on, as opposed to not, might be life-threatening. I guess if you were a Sikh you would avoid those areas if at all possible. I don't think you'd last very long if you said 'it's just not RIGHT that it's dangerous to walk around in these places, something should be DONE'.

Is this thread real? Because I didn't think normal, rational adults could come to such twisted conclusions.

Whackmole, have you seen the full thread?

bejeezus I agree - the fake tan is my choice. But it's because I want my physical appearance to align with how I think I ought to look or how I look to myself in my head. The act of making my skin darker/more tanned is just how my brain works, with a good dose of social conditioning too and it just makes me feel more comfortable in my own skin. To black people I guess they they would identify me immediately as a white person trying to look black. But if I want to be black I can redefine myself as black can't I? I can insist born black people take my struggle to be accepted as black as equally strenuous as their own struggle for equality and human rights and if they tell me I can't join in because I'm not black (by their standards) then they are being equally racist aren't they?

I made it back from FWR.

I think, for what it's worth, that it's for the group to decide it's membership and values. So if a group defines itself as being for black lawyers then that is their right. If you as a tanorexic rock up and say "look at me, my skin's just as dark as everyone else and I identify as being a black lawyer" then I would think they would have the right to turn you away if they disagreed that you met their membership criteria.

If I was to turn up to the Masons wearing a suit and say I know it's men only but I work in the building industry and I identify as a man I think they'd find a reason not to admit me.

No you can't . And no, they definitely aren't

No Wheezo because there is absolutely no proven chromosomal reason for you to want to be black.

Your decision to wear fake tan is based purely on vanity.

Wow Wheezo - don't have time to post but you're a sly one

I see where you are coming from.

I am feeling a bit sorry for transgendered women now :(

It's not sly, It's fucked up.

Just get on with your real point here Wheezo.

You don't think that transgendered women should be classed as "real" women.

yeah, I think being a trans woman must be really hard. Maybe Wheezo is trans-racial in some way, wanting to be a different ethnicity than her physical attributes indicate she is. The biological basis for transgenderism is not well understood, and apparently it was thought of as a mental illness for a long time :( Maybe there's some new phenomenon of trans-racial-ness that we were all unaware of! On the off chance that's the case, fake tan may not be the best/only approach to exploring how to change your racial identity :)

Have you heard of trans-abled people? Their inner self-identity is that of a disabled person. Some use wheelchairs. Some have operations to become disabled, so their outward appearance matches their self-identity

It's bonkers

You can self-identify anyway you like. I think it is even 'a right'. And even I would respect that. But it dont make it so! You may identify ad a ladybird, but you ain't (and there are many people who do identify as animals)

I cannot fathom why it is ok to say that a persons body is wrong and take steps to alter it with drugs and surgery. But it is consisted offensive to suggest that the persons mind is wrong (and they might want to consider drugs to alter that instead)

I may be missing the point, but if you want to look like Madge off Benidrom, and not be judged then you are asking the impossible.

You can have a fake tan without looking like a giant tangerine.

So if a man wants to look and dress like a woman because he feels that he is a she and makes every effort in their appearance to appear as female, s/he shouldn't be admitted to a conference to discuss women's issues and concerns?

Lady Upthread you quoted me: "To truly be myself I have to use fake tan and that makes me physically feel more aligned to what I want to physically be - even if I am not in reality." and commented:

"Which means that it is something you culd work if you wished. ave some counselling, regain some self esteem and then you wouldn't need the fake tan to feel good about yourself.
The issue is with you."

So does the same approach apply to MTF transgender pre-ops? If they truly feel themselves to be women and want to appear to the world as women, they still can't insist on being part of women's conferences (posters who point to shared history of oppression etc. as preventing my fake tan from legitimately allowing me to join in with the BLC) because essentially they need to work on their self-esteem, have counselling to be comfortable as men and then they wouldn't need to dress as women to feel good about themselves?

It is my opinion that MTF transexual people should not be allowed into women only spaces, particularly if they are pre-op and still have a penis

This, very heated, discussion wad had over 3 or 4 consecutive threads on FWR quite recently. I am not going to get into it again, I am spent. Everything I have to day on the subject is in those threads (cant link, on phone). In short, it is not because I hate transexual people in anyway, or feel threatened by them, or have any ill-will towards them. I just think its important to keep women only spaces for women, ad a place women can share without men. And some women would feel comfortable with MTF in them, not because they are transexual, but because they are men

If you are talking about RadFems2012, then topics up for discussion such as FGM; if wimen want to share their experiences of that, it would be entirely inappropriate to think a MTF post surgery person could process that with a women's soul

Is that what this thread is about?

That would be true only if you assume that transgender is a mental health issue, which I don't believe it is.
So in that case, being a transgender isn't something that you can work on through counselling etc...

Can I ask what you are talking about when you transgender? Do you include inly transsexual who have had the op, people who are waiting to have the op or also all the other persons that 'don't feel right' but do not wish but become a woman?

Had a bit more though about it but no time just now to expand. I will back later.

uncomfortable

So is there no one on this thread who:

(a) would tell a woman to wear certain clothes to avoid being raped; but
(b) never tell a Sikh man to take off his turban to avoid being racially attacked

?

And if there is someone who does agree with that view then can they explain why the two are different to me please?

How about just getting to the point here?

The problem I have with the rape analogy is that a Sikh man wears a turban for religious reasons. A woman wears a short skirt purely out of choice. The two are not comparable. I still don't think a short skirt is asking for rape though, of course.

But what they do have in common, I guess, is that a rapist will rape women no matter what they wear. A racist will attack people who are racially different, whether they wear a turban or not. The rapist and the racist will both make their attacks based on what the person is, not what they wear.

So really, I'm going round in circles here and can't decide whether it's a good analogy :)

In the short skirt/rapist scenario and the turban/racial attacker scenario, it is not the person in the short skirt or the person in the turban who is doing anything wrong, it's the person attacking them.

So it doesn't matter if you think that religious choices are different from aesthetic/fashion/whatever choices a woman in a short skirt has made; they do not deserve to be attacked for them.

babooshka My post at 12:50 help at all?

waterlego Is not all religion ultimately a choice though? Otherwise people would not convert from one religion to another - a lot of High CofE churchgoers moved to RC out of disgust at ordaining women clergy - they exercised a right of choice in their religion in the same way people move bank accounts because they don't like their current bank's ethics/moral stance etc. You have groups dedicated to formerly being a Muslim around, ex-Scientologists - these people once joined and left a religion - presumably they weren't forced to so they exercised choice? I fully appreciate "choice" becomes moot when to deny your religion would involve cutting yourself off from your friends and your community, but plenty of people do leave religions and take that choice as hard as it may be.