Feeling black vs feeling female

[CherryPicking]

Rachel Dolezal caused huge offence by claiming to be of African American descent. Not questioning why that's offensive, but if she sincerely identifies with black culture more than her own, how is she different from a man who 'feels' female? Why should the second example be less offensive to members of the oppressed group in question? Not saying I'm in any way offended by men who 'feel' female or identify as trans but just wondering why I'm more accepting of that then I would be someone like RD? Is it social conditioning or is there another reason?

Re: female/male. In my head, these are the adjectives referring to gender roles. I wasn't ascribing anything else to them. I agree that female/male and feminine/masculine makes sense. Is this accepted terminology?

I agree with the op, feel black, or feel like a woman indeed! I am both and find the transgender and transracial identities equally at odds with my experience, I feel as black as I feel like a woman ie not divorced from my body and treatment in society.

I want to be a size six, 5'10, Brazilian supermodel. It doesn't mean that I was born into the wrong body

Your body does not match your feelings and desires regarding how you'd like to look/perform/behave/be treated. Isn't that being born into the "wrong body"?

girl what does "born in the wrong body" mean? You have to believe that 1) there are innate sex based brain differences from birth (latest meta analysis can't find any)
2) these sex based brain differences can arise independent of your body and physiology.

For example, I am prepared to believe that the act of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding and the vast hormonal impacts could affect the brains of women who do that. But you have to have a woman's body in the first place, so it doesn't explain transgender ism at all. And it's nothing to do with being intersex, which is a different thing entirely.

There is no evidence for either 1 or 2. How do you know you're a woman? Most women say it's because of their biology, nothing to do with a "feeling". When transgender people talk about what they experience it tends to be about societal gender roles - "I like dresses and makeup therefore I identify as a woman" type thing (ridiculously simplified)

If you can be trans gender then you can be trans racial - they are both social constructs.

I feel offended by a trans woman claiming they are woman

And I am not sure how many transwoman would be able make others believe that they have always been female, had periods, given birth, struggled through sexist issues that girls/woman face

Yet she did this she never became black she claimed she was black

I think the whole furore over RD is because of the juxtaposition with the trans narrative.

Here we have a white woman who feels different to what her biology would dictate.

If she felt like a white man (whatever that means), she would have sympathy, support and be encouraged to pursue any path to a happy life. She would be protected by discrimination laws.

However, she feels like a black woman, and the same society seem far quicker to dismiss that feeling as utter nonsense. It's like a more serious version of Ali G - is it coz I is black? She has been sneered at, mocked and her psyche dragged apart for armchair analysis.

Either we accept that RD is black (and that self-identification is paramount) or we deny her right to self-identification and must therefore do so for trans people i.e. biology is paramount. It seems like there is an inherent contradiction in how she is being treated compared to how the trans community is treated.

(PS, I am aware that I have oversimplified how society treats trans people, the prevailing opinions on Mumsnet, etc).

Maid I agree with you. But saying that, imagine if a man had "passed" as a woman to the extent he was teaching Women's Studies or Feminism at a respectable uni....might there be some derision and anger thrown at him?

She was after all lecturing on Black History wasn't she?

Skin colour is not a social construct. Gender is.

But sex is not.

Sex and skin colour are biological facts.

Gender and race are the social constructs used to oppress people based on sex and skin colour.

@Arf:
If a man claimed to have been born a woman, claimed to have given birth and used that to secure employment within an organisation that works with mothers and spoke publicly about his birth experience, including episiotomy and how he breastfed his children for 2 years then that deception would be unacceptable.

Your comparison is flawed. Has Rachel spoken about having vitamin d deficiency or hair care problems with extremely curly hair? I.e. about the realities of being black that have nothing to do with racism?

Or did she just claim to experience racist oppression, JUST like transwomen claim to experience sexist oppression.

Men who claim to be women don't have to lie about having been born as women, as they get access to women's spaces, positions as speakers for feminist movements, etc. without that. It doesn't make them morally superior to Rachel Dolezal.

Besides, I am sure I can find an article about a man who claims to have breastfed even though he used his wife's breastmilk to bottle-feed.

Maid I have been trying to articulate exactly what you said - thanks for putting it so succinctly.

If you can be trans gender then you can be trans racial - they are both social constructs.

Exactly.

Skin colour is not a social construct. Gender is. You cannot legitmately claim to be black if you are not black, IMO. You can legitimately claim to be female, whatever your biology.

Female refers to sex though, not gender? And sex isn't a social construct. Gender can be changed but sex can not.

So you can claim to be female(sex) but if someone is born male, then their sex is always male, however much it hurts.

If someone claims they are black, but was born white, then their race will awaits be white, however much it hurts.

People are still treat differently according to skin colour, sometimes it's open hostility, but sometimes it's an ingrained bias, (I'll try find links) so if a white person who has benefitted from white privilege takes a job/place intended for a black person, often created to address inequality, the black person loses out, and when many have to work so much harder to get places in higher power than someone who is white, I can see why people have a problem with a white person feeling black taking positions intended for black people.

People are still treat differently according to sex, regardless of how they feel inside, sometimes it's open hostility, but sometimes it's an ingrained bias, (I'll try find links) so if a male who has benefitted from male privilege takes a job/place intended for females, often created to address inequality, the female loses out, and when many women still have to work so much harder to get places in higher power than someone who is male, I can see why people have a problem with a male who feeling female taking positions intended for females.

disclaimer, I don't hate Transwomen, I don't want transwomen to face violence, suicide or any of the other horrible things they have to face.

She went to university on a scholarship that was specifically intended to go to an African American woman. This woman has made a name for herself campaigning against racial inequality, despite having knowingly and fraudulently profited from a scheme designed to help level the playing field by deliberately misrepresenting herself as black. The hypocrisy is staggering.

I don't think that transgender people want to be the opposite sex, it's that they are the opposite sex
Again, no scientific backing for this theory. Male people are male, even if they feel they should have been female.

She also gave interviews about her struggles growing up as a black person though.
Totally deceitful, and an underhand way of gaining trust from people.

I agree that female/male and feminine/masculine makes sense. Is this accepted terminology?

Yes, pretty much.

Yorksha, plenty of trans women wish to access women's scholarships to women's colleges. There was an article on the guardian recently arguing that trans women should be prioritised over women in women's colleges.

She went to university on a scholarship that was specifically intended to go to an African American woman.

How is that different from transwomen occupying spaces at women's refuges despite not being victims of any violence at all?

Or occupying spaces on all-female basketball teams that would have gone to actual women if the transwoman wasn't so much taller?

I always find it weird how people focus really heavily on mtf transitions but not ftm. They both exist!

I think it's because the mtf are higher in number so have a much larger voice.(I'll try find links)

I'm not sure how high the number of females coming out as trans after years if marriage and children are, but I do think society would understand if her husband left her, and she'd probably be called a selfish mother too. I dint think she'd get the same understanding and sympathy and support as males who come out late in life as trans. Their wives are seen as transphobic if they leave, or don't want to define themselves as lesbian. I think a dh leaving his wife as he doesn't want to be defined as gay wouldn't be called transphobic.

I do wonder if there's an element of societies gender ideas at play too, so a ftm whose lived most of their life as female is used to putting herself last and others (including men) needs and wants first as part of her conditioning and gender role, whereas a mtf who has lived as male all his life has benefitted from having his needs and voice prioritised, then these dynamics continue. Not everyone, but as a general society thing.

If the higher amount of trans community is mtf, and the higher amount if those are people who transition late in life, then it kind of makes sense that more focus is in them.

Hope that made sense or that some other more articulate poster can word it better.

snowflakeespecial.tumblr.com/tagged/sharedgirlhood

Tumbler posts about trans women appropriating girlhood and denying shared girlhood of female people

I do wonder if there's an element of societies gender ideas at play too, so a ftm whose lived most of their life as female is used to putting herself last and others (including men) needs and wants first as part of her conditioning and gender role, whereas a mtf who has lived as male all his life has benefitted from having his needs and voice prioritised, then these dynamics continue. Not everyone, but as a general society thing

Absolutely- male and female socialisation is absolutely real

I want to be a size six, 5'10, Brazilian supermodel. It doesn't mean that I was born into the wrong body

And there are options available, if that is the body you truly feel you were meant to be born in:
Namely; Calf-bone lengthening, rib removal, breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, hair extensions, microdermabrasion, regular tanning, pure white veneers, lip fillers etc.

You could have all that done, and look like a Brazilian supermodel, but due to your place of birth and your heritage, much as you may look like one, you aren't one.
And unless you are one, you can't truly know how it feels to be one.

Much like Rachel Dolezal

I think there's starting to be a body of evidence building that transgenderism has some sort of biological basis, which isn't the case for Dolezal.

And the differences in biological sex do have some impact on our behaviour, eg less testosterone, less aggression (although I know that it's not that simple and other factors also come into play). So there really is an argument that 'feeling' male or female is actually different.

But if you start applying that to race, that somehow it has a property which makes you feel or behave intrinsically differently. Not as a result of the way society views you or your experiences, but simply because of your race. That gets into very dangerous ground and into the type of thinking which justified things like slavery by saying that races are 'different' and feel, think and behave differently. There really can't be any argument that Dolezal has some sort of biological reason for feeling like that unless you're going to start making those sort of arguments. If there are endocrine differences between races I would bet my right arm Dolezal doesn't have them.

Although I do think in both the case of Dolezal and transwomen there is something to be said about the appropriation of an identity when it's appropriation negates the identity of another and how that conflict is best addressed.

Incidentally I think that Guardian article is bloody irresponsible. This is a woman who deceived people to get power and position, lied to her friends and colleagues, lied about her relationships, faked crimes against herself and sought publicity for her lies. And the Guardian has let her make some pretty nasty allegations against her family and ex husband without questioning them. And I hardly think she can be accepted as reliable unquestionably. She blames her parents saying that they went public to discredit her as a witness. But it was her own behaviour which discredited her, not her parents disclosure of it. I think if you were aware that somebody acting as a witness in a court case had engaged in that level of sustained and calculated deceit you'd have a public duty to expose it.

booyaka, sorry to be a pain, but do you know where any of this evidence the biological basis for transgenderism is? A large part of my concern has always been that it feel like I'm being asked to ignore my scientific understanding, so I'd like too see any actual evidence.

It's also not possible to actually know how another person feels. It's no more possible to "feel like a woman" than it is to "feel like a black person".

And the differences in biological sex do have some impact on our behaviour, eg less testosterone, less aggression (although I know that it's not that simple and other factors also come into play). So there really is an argument that 'feeling' male or female is actually different.

Transwomen do not have less testosterone than the average male, though. They are just as violent as the average male, there's scientific proof for that.

Yes, differences in biological sex do have some impact on your behaviour (for example, if you are a woman, you are less likely to be successful by using violence, because you are smaller than at roughly half of the population, so you will learn by trial and error to not use violence to solve your problems) , but transwomen are not biologically different from ordinary males. They have male bodies. Their behaviour is impacted by their biology in the same way as other males' is.