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.

wheezo,

my thoughts about transgendered.
The beliefs that a man or woman is defined only by the external sexual attributes (a penis or breast/uterus) doesn't make sense to me. You would never say that a woman is less of a woman if she doesn't have breast or a uterus for example.
So I would never send away someone just on the ground 'he has a penis'. Having a penis or not doesn't define the person, just having a uterus or not doesn't define a woman imho.

The belief that chromosomes defines a person is another issue. This is the nature vs nurture discussion. Are a XY or XX chromosomes defining completely a person? Or is it link with hormones? In this case, is a man taking women's hormone becoming a woman?
I personally think that the 'nurture' side (ie what sort of experiences you have had) is stronger and defines the person more than their genes.
That means that it is possible for a black person to have no idea what it means to face discrimination. I have lived on a small island where racism was no existent, mix races marriages the norm as were mixed race children. Where actually not being mixed raced was a strange thing. Living in that environment, a black child would not experience the discrimination and racism we are all thinking about. His reaction to racism as an adult would be completely different than the one of a man who has been growing in NY for example.
On the other side, there was a few years ago a story about a child born from black parents who was white. None of the parents knew any relative who were white. This child is growing within a black culture, with the beliefs associated and probably the racism too (both from black and white people I suspect :(). So even though outwardly, he might be white, his experience will be very close to the one of a black person. Should this child be part of the BLC when he is older or the WLC (white lawyer conference)?

What that means is that within a group, the experience will vary considerably. So excluding someone because 'they haven't actually experienced it the same way that US' is based on the hypothesis that all members of the group 'female' or 'black lawyers' have actually had the same experience of discrimination, which is not the case.

What I do believe is that to be part of a group you need to want to belong to it. It is about you, as for example a MTF, wanting and making the females problems becoming YOUR problems and YOUR issues.
What it is NOT is for females to also 'absorb' the trans issue and MTF issues/discrimination to make them their issues too.
These are specific issues linked with MTF and should be considered as such.

That would of course imply that you can be member of several groups and suffer discrimination from several angle, eg as a woman, as an MTF, as a Sikh, as an homosexual etc...

Also, by wearing extreme fake tan, you do not become non-white

You would be a white person with no sense of taste, or no mirror

Choice about religion.... Do you?

or is it also a cultural thing (eg you have been raised as a catholic)?
or is it about very strong beliefs? (eg if you believe in rebirth, the choice of religion that would accommodate that would be quite small)

People who move from CofE to RC did so because the differences between the two are small. It would be more unusual to see a CofE becoming a Buddhist because they've allowed women to become priests.

Choice about religion isn't that widespread around the world though....

bejeezus, I agree, if the only thing you do is to use fake tan, you are not becoming 'non white'.

But if you actually change the way you live, your beliefs, your values, then you can become 'non white'

No you cant

And the notion that you van OS down to privelege

White or male

Lady I did say "choice" becomes moot when you are born into a religion and to change would cut you off from all you have known. But the fact that some people do do that means it is possible to exercise choice about religion. Appreciate that in other parts of the world that exercising that choice would lead to being killed. But in the UK I am guessing there is more choice depending on where you live and how your community deals with someone rejecting the religion. I have plenty of Jewish friends who would say they are non-practising, doesn't stop them enjoying a good Shabbat meal on a Friday although for some it does mean they won't circumcise to much disapproval from family and friends. They have been able to exercise choice about what parts of their religion they like and reject those they don't. So I think for the purposes of the analogy we're talking UK only because all the events have occurred/would occur within the UK.

And entitlement

And the notion that you van OS down to privelege

?? sorry didn't understand you there. What is OS?

And also

"What I do believe is that to be part of a group you need to want to belong to it. It is about you, as for example a MTF, wanting and making the females problems becoming YOUR problems and YOUR issues.
What it is NOT is for females to also 'absorb' the trans issue and MTF issues/discrimination to make them their issues too.
These are specific issues linked with MTF and should be considered as such."

So for fake tan purposes the fact that I want to belong to the BLC empathising with their problems and their issues and viewing them as mine too (despite what anyone else thinks) makes me part of their group whether they would define me as such? However the BLC do not need to change their agenda to take into account my experiences?

Can is

no I would expect them to. It is you who want to belong to that group so it is up to you as an 'orange person' to make the effort to belong to it.

It is however more than just 'empathy' or viewing their problems as yours, it is about living the problems and the issues. It's not 'their' problems any more. They are your problems that you are experiencing day in day out.
A group though is defined by more than just problems that they experience. It is a set of values and beliefs. It is a set of expectations and what is culturally acceptable for such group to do. Being part of that group means accepting and making all these part of who you are. Not just again empathy, understanding etc...

Bejeezus as in the privilege of never having experienced racism/sexism as an innate part of who you are as someone born as black/ethnic minority/female?

Your trans-able post was disturbing. What's the psychology of someone who feels that they ought to be disabled in some way and strive to be? I am too afraid to google. Can you tell me any more? Do they believe they are disabled without being so, or do they act to injure themselves to make themselves disabled and then empathise with people who have become disabled through accident or ill health/congenital conditions?

bejeezus why is not possible to become 'non white'?

Do you think it is also not possible to become 'non Christian' if you have been brought up as a Christian?
Do you think your skin colour is completely defining you as a person and nothing else is?

OK so Lady you would expect the BLC to accommodate my wishes to talk about being discriminated against in my career for use of fake tan, so long as I can somehow prove myself black enough in outlook and experience, despite me not actually being black and to most people appearing as a white person who has chosen to be orange. Otherwise the BLC would be discriminating against me? I just can't get my head round that.

And if I managed to get the conference closed down on the basis that they were excluding me because I was not black (or black enough in my view) and therefore it was discrimination that's just logical? No minority groups are allowed a safe space in which to discuss their experience without white/male people who identify with them joining in?

wheezo that's exactly the issue I was raising about this kid who is white and born from black parents, living in a white community.
What do you think? Is he black or is he white?
Is the fact that he has a white skin makes him a white person (with all their prejudices and expectations and good sides)
Or is he a black person even though he doesn't have a black skin because he has been brought up to be a black person?

I've also know black people who have grown to act like 'white people' being just as racist and looking down on his 'counterparts'.

The issue of you appearing to be white who has chosen to be orange is an issue. Because you are not trying to be an orange, you are trying to be black aren't you (and in that case, it would make sense for you to be part of the BLC)? Expectations towards you would be different. However, if we go back to the case of trans and more specifically transsexual (who have become women), then that issue doesn't exist.

I'm in the mental health profession and I'd just like to point out that transgendered people wishing to transition via hormones and/or surgery do have to see a psychiatrist for extensive assessment and may have to have counselling. Partly because it is a long, hard process (worked in a service for this for a while), partly because people presenting for transgender issues can be people with other mental health problems which are not real transgenderism (eg small percentage are delusional).

Additionally, some transgendered people make use of therapy to come to terms with being transgendered - and can accept they are not 'women' (mtf) or 'men' (ftm) but themselves.

To address a point raised by lady, a woman who has lost a breast or breasts or cancer, had a hysterectomy whatever, will still have an entirely different life experience and identity to a mtf transgendered person. The experience of one's body would be totally different, both as lived in by that person and as handled and experienced by those around him/her right from babyhood. A mtf woman can never know what it is to be a 'born' woman. That is cold hard reality.

A thought experiment a colleague suggested us to compare transgendered people with people who present seeking help as their body image is of an amputee (rare but real condition). The latter group are usually refused surgical help as it is regarded as wrong to amputate a healthy limb for such a reason, even though distress and attempts to conform to their internal identity drive the latter group to extreme measures (eg attempts to amputate own limb). Yet surgery is somewhat available to transgendered people seeking to have drastic surgery on a healthy body.

sad that's a very interesting point.

a sikh man's turban is about his religion not his race, and he's not about to take it off, so you better learn to live with it. sikh women are entitled to wear turbans too.

and at the black lawyers do, you'd just be taking the piss.

As a feminist, I really wish feminists wouldn't use the racism/sexism comparison. It always comes off as trying to say that sexism is worse then racism.

Note: It is nearly always white feminists who have no experience of racism who do this. Funny that.

Also, if this is a crap attempt at justifying transphobia, I'll be .

Yes, I see the transphobia apologists have already arrived. The only people I ever read using the imagined disability analogy are transphobes.

You do know they used to claim that being gay could be "cured" by therapy too? Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness until 1973.

Op your second analogy is rubbish. Wearing fake tan does not equal believing your self to be black, living as a black person and being judged fir being black the way a transexual (a section of society who are maligned by the patriarchy) do.

What others have said.
In response to

1. it's not the fault of the Sikh man for wearing the turban, it's the fault of intolerant racist twunts and society should expect twunts, not Sikhs, to alter their behaviour.

2. really OP? Too much St Tropez is equivalent to being black? Oh please. I can't believe you can't see how odd an analogy that is.

The OP was so obviously a link to trans issues. I don't think you can compare getting a spray tan to look black in the same way as trans people feel and grow up. It is a very simplistic way of looking at it.

This issue of trans women and the Radfem conference has been done to death on FWR. Just look for the 1000 comments threads.

Suffice it to say many people were supportive of trans issues and a minority showed very little understanding and support of trans issues. In fact. a couple became very abusive. :(

No one on here will know what it is like to be trans. No one on here truly understands the biology and psychology of trans.

Some people are trans. Get over it :)

Goth Why do you think comparing sexism to racism implies sexism is worse than racism? Does it not imply they are both deserving of equal protection under the law? I do know your point about the DSM in 1973 and eventual removal of homosexuality, pharmacologically sponsored crap that is is. I think if someone is prepared to go through the trauma of surgery and an entire upheaval of their life experience then it must be for a good reason and a necessary reason for them to live. I should imagine depression/anxiety/suicide risk etc would be very high for transgender people because of the extreme stress of living in a body you can't reconcile yourself to and being under pressure to conform to the stereotypes of your gender. I think that (only having discovered this today) I would also support the right of trans-able people to self-amputate if they had the same level of support and therapy before committing to that decision as transgender folk did - because I am assuming their level of stress, depression and anxiety about their body not fitting their mind would be the same.

However, does supporting transgender or transablist rights mean that their rights trump all other groups rights to a space of their own if the target group don't agree with the self-definition that group/individual has made? Or is self-identification the only requirement to class yourself as one of the protected groups? Do you have to have done anything irrevocable to yourself bodily before that self-identification is recognised or required to be recognised by others?

Lady Am just trying to read through your various examples to work out what I think.