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?

jessica I don't think there is any.
As far as RD goes, it appears to be the deception that angered people. She could have married into a black family, formed friendships and links within the black community and been employed within the same organisation at an equivalent level as a white woman. But she went the extra step of claiming something she wasn't.

I also think that suggesting that being a woman is a property which makes me feel or behave intrinsically differently is very dangerous ground. It gets us in to the type of thinking which denied women the vote, or bodily autonomy and still (in some countries) prevent women from having equal rights to men.

I really don't understand how applying the same logic to race is unacceptable, while applying it to biological sex is all fine and dandy.

What is 'being black' thoug? I have a friend whose parents are both mixed race. They have black skin. Her siblings have black skin. Her skin is white. My friend identifies as black - who the hell am I or anyone else to say 'No, sorry, not enough melatonin.'

Ok, first of all, "black" is often used as a political term which incorporates people of mixed black heritage.

Of course your friend can call herself black. She's a light skinned mixed race woman.

I don't understand how RD can feel black. What does black or white even feel like? I am white but couldn't tell you any specifics regarding how it feels, as opposed to anything else.

Small children don't feel feel different to each other on the basis of skin colour. How old are they before they start identifying as boys or girls and is this something they learn from us, rather than having an innate feeling about. It's hard to separate out what exists and what we impose on our kids!

Anyway, RD as a young woman growing up, didn't experience any of societal impositions which may have made her feel different to what her biology clearly states (thay she is white), so I dont understsnd where her feeling comes from.

I really don't understand how applying the same logic to race is unacceptable, while applying it to biological sex is all fine and dandy

Quite. The implications of brain sex differences are just as awful as brain racial differences. Both points of view have been used throughout the centuries to justify slavery, abuse, rape and subjugation of people who were not white males yet when we point out how genderism harms women we are told to die in a fire

Nonifentifyingnc and all of what you have said becomes transphobic if you replace 'opposite sex' with black.

I really don't understand how applying the same logic to race is unacceptable, while applying it to biological sex is all fine and dandy.

Because racism is much newer than misogyny and thus easier to get rid of?

No idea, really.

Of course being a woman makes you feel different from a man ... at least once a month.

However, send a British redhead and an African American to a tropical beach without giving them sunscreen, and they will soon feel rather different, too.

But transwomen don't mean that sort of feeling when they talk about "feeling like a woman". They say they feel pretty. Or vulnerable. Or whatever other stupid stereotype.

At least Dolezal didn't claim that she must be "really black inside" by quoting some racist stereotypes. (Disclaimer: I haven't read all articles about her, but I think it would have been mentioned if she had done that.)

Obsidian, I wouldn't have described myself as transphobic. If someone ferls more at ease living in a way that society would describe as female then I would support that. Otoh, they are never going to understand the biological aspects of being female because biologically they are not.

I don't see a problem with RD identifying as black. But I don't know what that really means because biologically she isn't and I don't really get why being black feels different to being white at an innate level (until to get into being treated differently by other people because you are one or the other). In my head, it's like asking whatnit feels like to have blue eyes - it doesn't feel like anything, it just is. It would only feel a certain way if society made a distinction.

So I still don't get why RD feels as she does.

I don't know RD's entire job history.

But she clearly became an expert on societal racism, structural racism, and her teaching position was about that. Her whole life was devoted to combatting those inequalities.

If I'm an expert on crop rotation in the 14th Century, a university may well wish to hire me to teach that.

This is all about identity and comfort...to identify and relate does not change what the essential person is their sex/race...to be attracted to, sympathize with, understand, embrace,desire does not change what/who you are but just who you would like to be...

I am a black woman...I could want to be a white woman, I could bleach my skin and have white skin but my facial features would not change automatically so I could have plastic surgery and my features changed but my family would not change nor would my blood type nor my children...If you feel something it does not automatically make you that person/sex/race.

That's why I don't think trans women should automatically placed into female spaces.

I think that the situation with Dolezal was not just about the fact she wanted to be black or identified with black people but the lies and fabrication that she used she lied about her parents, racial attacks she experienced all of these things are deeply emotive but also being black for the majority of people is not something you can disguise or swap. She would have been welcomed into the black community if she just said I identify with the black experience and I want to help... it was the lies

nonidentifying I'm afraid that saying that trans women are different to women does indeed make you transphobic in the eyes of anyone who bandies that term about. Saying that Transwomen are male is (apparently) literally the same as committing violence against them and you should #DIAF (die in a fire). And usually some sexual assault/ rape threats too.

If someone feels like a woman then they are what a woman is, and any pointing out of facts is violence and terrorism. Apparently.

Jessicas, I can't link specifically, because there are quite a lot of studies which indicate this. Have a quick google, it's complex and I don't understand it completely myself. But I think there are various theories re alleles which are inefficient at binding testosterone and something to do with mutating androgens.

She would have been welcomed into the black community if she just said I identify with the black experience and I want to help... it was the lies

It always is, isn't it?

Transwomen who say they are women lie, too. It is just so blatant and obvious that it is not really a lie, more of a completey false statement. Still, the dishonesty is grating.
No feminists would have any problem with transwomen if the latter didn't try to deny biologic reality. (I was more of a trans ally back when I thought it was only about body modification, not claiming to be something they are not.)

Completely unrelated, your username is a cool one, Yoniverse.

This is a simplified explanation of one theory:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7689007.stm

I think Maid explained the paradox (is that the right word?) really well - but thank you to all of you for your insight on this thread: this is something I hadn't really thought much about, and this has been really illuminating for me.

On a separate note, though - I genuinely don't understand why you would have to be black to teach Black History: any more than you need to be Jewish to teach Jewish Studies (though I may have missed the point here).

hefzi you don't so long as you are teaching accurate knowledge it does not matter what colour you happen to be...what is important is passion and reliable sources, I do think that life experience can enhance facts (like an artist teaching art history/chef teaching cooking skills)

Thanks Vestal

Thanks, Yoni - I definitely can see that personal experience could add richness also.

It was the lying that got most of us.

On the sex issue the Times article recently is very interesting and people might want to read it (see below) to learn more about these issues:

We are intersex

Nicola Gill
Published at 11:37AM, December 12 2015

"They look like women, feel like women and have relationships with men – but their chromosomes are male. Until now their lives have been shrouded in secrecy. But that’s all about to change

Suz Temko, a glorious arrangement of blonde hair, long legs and feline blue eyes, was a typical teenage girl the night she got drunk on vodka at a party and subsequently discovered she was intersex.

“I was trying to impress my friend’s boyfriend by drinking a bottle of vodka. Not cool. My dad had to pick me up and he was, you know, not angry but most definitely disappointed.” But when Temko’s hangover seemed to drag on long after her vodka shame had faded, it was her mum she turned to. “I still felt blueuggh days later, and I also found a weird lump in my abdomen. I was 15; I hadn’t had a period. I asked my mum if feeling rubbish and having lumps was some peculiar puberty thing no one had mentioned.”

It wasn’t, and several tests later it turned out the lump was actually several lumps of very aggressive cancer. Surgeons operated quickly, but while she was still waking up from the anaesthetic her anxious parents had another bombshell to deal with.

What had been presumed to be cancerous ovaries were actually gonads that hadn’t developed into fully formed testes, and instead of possessing a matching pair of female XX chromosomes Temko’s were male XY ones. “My parents were told all this along with the news I’d need several months of hardcore chemo. Understandably, when I came round, they decided to not tell me I had gonads and XY chromosomes, figuring we’d deal with that, somehow, later.” Later came when she was 16, after an all-clear from what Temko still thought was ovarian cancer – pretty much unheard of in a 15-year-old – when her parents took her to see consultant gynaecologist Professor Sarah Creighton at University College Hospital in London.

Sorry, too long to put it all but it's an interesting article.

I bet they could find differences in african brains over uk brains if they looked hard enough, but nobody would dare look, nobody would get a single penny funding.

I am basing my belief on the fact that brains grow and change with everything you experience/ do so these two groups lives are so different they would have grown differently.

It's behind a paywall (for me, anyway).

I bet they could find differences in african brains over uk brains if they looked hard enough

Are you deliberately ignoring racial differences there?

Deogratias being intersex is a different condition to transgenderism.

vague as. Mixed race white, Thai woman ive beentold im technically black which I don't identify with.
I don't identify with white or Thai either as I don't feel like I should pick sides.
I don't see what Rachel did was wrong, even her lies. She simply reinvented her past and if none of this came out no harm would be done. In fact the harm is only to her and her immediate family.

I knew quite a few white kids growing up who people said were trying to be black, and black kids who were trying to be white. It's just an exploration of identity and RD seemed to have had quite a messed up past which she wanted to disassociate from. The majority of us are lucky to feel right in our own skin. I have no business defining others.