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!!!!!

With Michael Jackson it was more the surgery he underwent to give himself a non-black nose and jawline, etc.

Well disappointed that's an interesting question.

One part of me says no, what makes me female is more than having a vagina and breasts. So adding those things to a man does not make that man a woman and the idea that it does is actually slightly offensive.

But on the other hand, it's such a drastic thing to do to yourself. I can't climb into someone's head and tell them whether they feel male or female. If you are troubled enough by your gender to undergo reassignment surgery then I don't have the right to piss all over your gender and tell you what to identify yourself as.

I'm not going to negate that experience for that person.

How can anyone ever really know whether they feel male or female? I don't know if I feel female as opposed to male because I don't know what male feels like. Male and female could feel exactly the same - no one has got the experience of both in order to compare them and say with authority that they feel different.

Of course the answer to your final question is really no - you can't change XX or XY.

I think splitting the question into sex vs gender is helpful. One can be changed, the other can't, and the fact that your sex and gender don't match is what makes you TG.

I think I would accept TG more than TR simply because your gender can be thoroughly changed by surgery

You can change your gender Terry - you can't change your sex.

How would surgery change your gender?

Caitlyn Jenner has not had gender reassignment. She is being referred to as a woman (no qualification) and any "mis" gendering or reference to Caitlin by her dead name seems to be a no no in the press and on here.

The prevailing attitude society seems to be moving towards is that once a person identifies themselves as being a member of the opposite sex/gender, they must instantly be accepted as such by all. Regardless of whether they've had, or ever intend to have, reassignment surgery.

It's not really about how you see yourself. It's about how others see you and treat you accordingly.

In a world where there were no downsides to being a certain sex or a certain race, then being trans would only about self. Until then, it's not, for many reasons.

Yes, I'd think it odd that someone would hold the idea that one trans scenario is ok and another not. I'd suggest that they do a bit more reading and listening and a bit less talking.

Oh I thought CJ had had gender reassignment surgery.

NotJust I found your post a little patronising.

I agree that race is a big load of bollocks and people who think it's this big 'proper' thing in genetics need to do some more research.

I also agree with what I interpret MrsTerryPratchett as saying - I feel like most people who are transgender are such because they feel gender pressures that are based on bullshit. That some people feel the need to go so far as to change their sex via surgery to make it 'match up' with the socially constructed gender that best fits them, to their mind, is really tragic, but perhaps the best solution for a lot of people right now.

I assumed the 'transracial' thing was being used as a bit of a piss take, since the story came out the same week as the Caitlyn Jenner story broke...

So what is to stop me deciding to be a black guy called Simon? Nothing really presumably? Except I'm not black, I'm not a bloke and I'm not called Simon.

God it's a minefield isn't it?

Could I also identify as Glaswegian, despite the fact I've never been there?

How can anyone ever really know whether they feel male or female?

Well, quite. Yet we are asked to accept that transwomen are women because they have always 'felt like a woman' - how do they know?

There are some transwomen who are happy with simply being transwomen and don't feel the need to insist they are women for all situations. They get called TERFs, bigots and transphobes

Plenty are they what used to be called cross dressers?

What does TERF stand for?

Race isn't a load of bollocks if you are on the receiving end of discrimination because of it, though. Sathe with the other trans issues.

We're not there yet on the equality front no matter how many people claim to be equalists and that the garden is rosy. This stuff still matters.

Sometime ago there was a story in the news of a white child born from two balck parents.
They did some genetic tests and yes the child WAS the child of the two parents.
They were clearly both black.
And ther doctors couldn't quite explain how this was possible apart from the fact that they both probably, at some point, had a white ancestor.

This child is raised in a black community, by black parents, in a black culture. But his skin looks white.

Which race is he?? Can you really say he is white with two black parents? Can you say he is white with no experience of being white either?

Could I also identify as Glaswegian, despite the fact I've never been there?

It depends. Do you:

• wear string vests
• get mad for it on Buckfast/Mad Dog 2020
• say, "awright ya bam?" by way of friendly greeting
• hate the Tories
• like Irn Bru
• support the Cellic OR Rangers
• Distrust authority
• Revere irn bru

Maman that raises the point to me that if race is so fluid, like nationality, then what's to stop anyone picking and choosing what they want to be?

There are so many variables you may as well do what you like.

Possibly the deciding factor for what race you are is actually how others perceive you, rather than how you perceive yourself?

No I have to admit, pumpkin, I don't do any of those things.

But what if I have a sort of Glaswegian feeling inside of me, like a sort of rumbly in my tumbly?

I feel how I imagine Glaswegian people feel. I certainly feel out of place in Cardiff.

I would say that how you feel as an ethnic group is very much down to your education/how you have been brought up etc... We thend to think that race=ethnic group, in reality I believe it's much more complicated than that.
Maybe children who have been adopted could be a good example of that difference.
Eg someone I know is from Korea but was adopted by a dutch couple. His race is clearly 'korean' but if you ask him he will say he feels white dutch as ethnic group.

Now can you change your ethnic group is again a different question. I'm not so sure you can 'change' completely, esp if there is a big difference (eg from chinese to european) but you will certainly adopt some attitude from your new 'group' and lose some of your 'old' group. I don't think you can change that much.

Race isn't a load of bollocks if you are on the receiving end of discrimination because of it, though. Sathe with the other trans issues.

We're not there yet on the equality front no matter how many people claim to be equalists and that the garden is rosy. This stuff still matters.

It still doesn't magically give it a clear genetic basis, though, which was kind of the point...

Possibly the deciding factor for what race you are is actually how others perceive you, rather than how you perceive yourself?

But people don't agree on other people's races, so how does that work? Ask a load of people from the rural north what a Sri Lankan's or Pakistani's race is and they'll tell you they're black. Not because they think everyone's called black, but because they genuinely don't know enough to tell who's what.

formidable no, most identify as transsexual (as opposed to transgender). This is very good introductory reading on the difference.

Here is a great blog from a gender-critical transwoman.

TERF is Trans-Excluding Radical Feminist and is only ever used as an insult.

Yet we are asked to accept that transwomen are women because they have always 'felt like a woman' - how do they know? The concept of 'feeling like a woman' is weird anyway. In my friend group there are women all the way from, 'I love cupcakes and pink and flowers and never shout' to 'shut the fuck up and let me drive this car very fast while shouting'. All women, all subject to the same gender nonsense.

If we did anyway with discrimination, gender violence and biological determinism, would that solve everyone's issues?

And if sex and gender are entirely unrelated, why not just use 'woman' to mean someone with a broadly female biology (mammary glands, ovaries, womb, XX chromosomes etc.) and use some other word for all the gender nonsense. Because otherwise, where can we discuss abortions, rape, DV, FGM and the like without all this side-talking about trans-issues?

And yes formidable, race is probably a notion that actually has no real basis.
We are very much basing that on 'the looks' of the other person. Very much something coming from our Victorian area that we haven't shaken yet.

esp when you see that actually there is less genetic difference between one race and the other than within people of the same race.

Gosh I've finished this thread considerably more confused than when I started....

I'm going to have to sleep on it

But what if I have a sort of Glaswegian feeling inside of me, like a sort of rumbly in my tumbly?

That's hunger. You need a fried mars bar inside you, hen, so ye do.

I feel how I imagine Glaswegian people feel. I certainly feel out of place in Cardiff.

I hate to have to break this to you, but really, what you're describing sounds as though you belong to ... Edinburgh.

Could be worse, although I'm not sure how.

So race is as essentially meaningless as nationality?

A false grouping designed to engender feelings of community within the group and to exclude others.

But sex and gender are both fixed. Are we prisoners within our XY chromosome?

Pumpkin proper lolz