AIBU to find the idea of trans-racial ridiculous.....

[CastlesBlown]

but support the idea of trans-gender? I just read this article

www.upworthy.com/a-black-trans-woman-explains-changing-gender-vs-changing-race?c=ufb1

And the arguments for trans-gender appear to support trans-racial, despite that being the very opposite of what it aims to do.

I feel SO confused!!!!!

Both are self-identification. I feel that if one is accepted, the other has to be too.

Agreed.

Leaving Rachel out of it (because hers is a complicated situation) on face value, I just don't see how one can accept trans-gender but not trans-race.

Gender is out and out genetics. Race is actually more of a social than gender.

Anyone that feels unhappy in their own skin and goes to such extents to love a lie deserves our sympathy.

Gender is a social construct too, imposed on top of your sex.

If you accept trans-gender then you have to support trans-racial too. Or trans anything really. Trans-fruit. I could look like a white woman but inside I might feel like a red strawberry. Or Trans-species. I might feel like a horse trapped in a human body.

All the arguments I hear against 'trans-racial' sound identical to me as the arguments against trans-sexual 30-40 yrs ago*. So I'm leaning towards YABU.

*ps: trans-gender word wasn't around (much?) then.

I agree - while your sex is a very definite physical division for people who are lucky enough to be born one or the other...

...blackness/whiteness/etc isn't even really a physical division between people, there are people on both sides of the line who are less black/white than people on the other side of the line, and so many wildly different cultures/ethnic groups covered by the two (sometimes with different people in the same ethnic group being considered black/white by different people!) that the division, as a biological one, is not sound on any level at all.

This just makes me think about the real black guy despairing of Robert Downy Juniors character in Tropic thunder.

Which in itself is all fun and whatnot, but it's not very fun to be the butt of relentless jokes if this is how you are because you grew up among what you considered your own.

As in it would be 100% ok for people to literally point and laugh at you in the street if you behave like WHO YOU ARE as influenced by the brothers and sisters you grew up with and love, and only stop when you behave like people of a racial stereotype you DON'T know, DON'T identify with, and that DOESN'T like you.

Even now I have just touched upon this subject, and someone is making snarky comments about "ho ho ho saying you're black when you're white", because that's totally great.

Now I have grown up used to people taking the piss and am not going to become a quivering victim overnight, not going to bother me, but I do it's a bit odd that you can be treated like you are putting on the black and white minstrel show for being and identifying as you were actually raised in the physical world eg: among black brothers and sisters, that if you speak in a nice bit of patois and prefer how you look with a brown tan and a "black" hairstyle in those circumstances you are a "wigger" and "pathetic" whereas if you imagine inside your head that you are a different sex, it is incumbent on the whole of society to humour you or be phobic.

So for that reason I think it's a bit weird that people can be so damning to the naacp lady on the one hand...

I'm mixed-race black African/white, and I look it. Here's a picture of one of my natural children.

Is he allowed to identify as black when he grows up?

Wonder how these HUMANS identify themselves........

www.itv.com/news/central/2015-03-02/the-black-and-white-twins-born-to-mixed-race-parents/

or these:

sfglobe.com/2015/03/09/family-gives-birth-to-two-sets-of-black-and-white-twins/

I think anyone is entitled to identify themselves in any way as long as they arnt lying or deceiving others for money or gain.

Who cares.

Still I do chuckle at people who pretend to be something they arnt like Lilly Allen and her cockney accent while we all know she's posh. Just be yourself.

knowsay.. it is a really interesting subject.. I can see your perspective, that being brought up in a family and being raised a certain way is / can be a significant influence on who you become.

I'm guessing that the Rachel Dolezal case is a bit different because she lied, by pretending that she had a black father, black son etc. when she doesn't..

She has brought the subject to the fore though, and a lot of people (myself included) haven't had much exposure to it, so I hope that works out in a positive way.

wildrumpypumus - I don't know what your boy will decide to identify with, but he is absolutely completely gorgeous

I'm not sure you can be trans racial as such.

However I think there is something to be said for the idea of identifying somewhat with a race you don't appear to belong to.

For instance people with one black grandparent can legitimately identify as black and I believe this is generally accepted. My dns who falls into this category look paler skinned than I do (I am olive skinned - Mediterranean background) so it is clearly not all about appearance.

So if you were adopted by black parents or you have black adopted siblings or half siblings but you are white (or vice versa, or different races eg Asian), you may feel some connection with that race that is legitimate. Doesn't entitle you to anything in particular but it's still a connection.

I read an article in the Guardian with a transsexual saying it was different because 'I am a women'. But that is not true, biologically, and never can be, so I really don't see how you can say a man, can fundamentally become and woman anymore than a white person can fundamentally become a black person.

You can identify with the other, but you can't be the other just through force of will. I feel sorry for RD. People are lining up to worship B/C Jenner as some kind of hero and condemn her for doing the same thing. I find it much more difficult to believe in the Jenner case. A man who had 5 children and was married 3 times before deciding aged 65 he was a woman than a woman who has grown up surrounded by AA's that she feels black at university.

I think it was the deception that really irritated people she lied about her heritage goodness knows why, I guess mixed race children and adults can identify in whichever race they want.

She identified as white when she tried to sue for racial discrimination though i just think she tried to dupe people and was caught yes she may have grown up with A A people friends etc yes she might be more comfortable in that community etc etc but basically she didnt correct anybody she seemed to like being bi racial.

I think anyone is entitled to identify themselves in any way as long as they arnt lying or deceiving others for money or gain. You could argue that as a male athlete, Bruce Jenner gained himself immense fame, power and wealth in a way he absolutely would not have been able to do as a woman. His and a lot of other people's theory is that tanswomen ARE women so doesn't that mean that he was deceiving others for money or gain? Or not.

Presumably, if you take RD at her word, she identifies as Black and would have faced enormous prejudice and possibly violence telling people she was transitioning to Black and therefore just did, without telling anyone. People appear to be perfectly happy with transwomen winning sporting events, beating women born with vaginas...

My newly radical feminist take on this is that we have our biology, which others use to discriminate against us, whether that is skin colour, sexual characteristics or whatever. Overlaid is cultural and societal expectations of behaviour, dress speech and so on.

In order to solve this whole issue, what we do is get rid of discrimination, privileged violence and all the nasty shit that goes with it. We 'allow' and celebrate anyone dressing, speaking, performing, acting any way they want, as long as they aren't hurting anyone else. Bingo, no more problems.

Sorry doesn't compute for me. Trans racial ie I identify my self as black just sounds wack. As a black woman I find it thoroughly distasteful. Why? Maybe because I would never see that person as such. Also for me colour (rather that race) is a social construct apart from skin colour the black person is the same inside. Being black is about socialisation and all it's plus and minuses. I can't see the gender comparison as being the same as colour differences have less to do with biology.

OP, I think they are same. If you accept one, you accept the other. The fact that the media has reacted so differently to each situation is very telling.

Women can beat women their partners their children folk on the street im not sure why all trans women are percieved as violent or aggressive kellie malonie was a horrible man now she is a horrible trans woman vile nasty human being being a trans woman doesnt change that , Bruce Jenner ran races as a man with a mans build and a penis he didnt lie to the public he lied to himself for years and his wives and children just because he is now a woman doesnt make caitlyn jenner a saint

For some reason I feel really sorry for her. I'm sure her parents decision to adopt African American children might be at the root of this.Perhaps sibling rivalry or the perception that they were preferred/chosen by her parents might have affected her choices.I think that a confused and vulnerable woman has been vilified by the press and by her own family.

I actually think they are different.

Transgender is easier to accept (though I'm still not sure if I do any more) because you can divide sex and gender and say sex in biological and non negotiable but gender is a social construct and open to interpretation.

With race you can't do that. You can feel culturally or socially closer to a race that you are not physically but you are still your physical race and it is impossible to say that you aren't. There's no get out clause like there is with gender because there is no separate word for the social element of race.

I have no problem whatsoever with someone of any race identifying with the culture, history or society of another race for whatever reason. But to say that they are that race is nonsense.

Two of my children are mixed race. I try to connect them with their other culture but they essentially feel White British. That's fine. But they aren't White British they are White British/Hispanic Brazilian. And they can't change that whether they want to or not. It's the same with Rumpy's son. He can do, feel or say whatever he likes when he grows up. But he is mixed race, with a heavier weighting towards Caucasian.

Also, I suppose it depends on what you believe is inherent in sex/gender and race.

Personally I believe that men and women have inherent differences. I do not believe that people of different races do.

You are what you are. I'm quite an Anglophile. I love English food, history, and culture. I'd speak with an RP accent and adopt English customs and manners if it wouldn't make me look like a complete idiot. Does that entitle me to refer to myself as English because I 'identify' with the culture? No. There was a story not long ago about an English couple who 'identified' with Native American culture. They dressed the part and 'lived' the life. Should they be able to call themselves Native Americans? No.

Shoot, my grandparents were born in Cornwall and I'm not even allowed to call myself Cornish .

Personally I believe that men and women have inherent differences. I do not believe that people of different races do. Surely that makes it more not sure the word I want to use here 'normal', easy, unproblematic to transition something that has no biological basis rather than something that does.

If gender is inextricably linked to biological sex then women are those people who have vaginas and XX chromosomes. You can't just 'feel' it. However if race has far less biological differences (and there are some) surely a feeling (or rather a set of societal norms and cultural mores) is what we are talking about.