What is the difference? (Warning - another transgender thread)

[Flippetydip]

I am prepared to get totally flamed for this but it is a genuine, and not meant to be goady question. I know there is a huge amount of transgender posts on here at the moment (hence the title so people have the choice not to read) but my question is:

If I can self ID as a man (or woman if I'm a man) can I self ID as a person of another race? I seem to recall a huge hoo-ha back along over some woman in the States who identified as black but was originally white and was absolutely pilloried. Genuinely, what is the difference?

How the fuck can you identify as anything you are clearly not.

Sorry op but all this identifying bollocks boils my piss.

A man is a man a woman is a woman and if you are black skinned you are not white skinned or Asian or Chinese.

It’s all a bit silly now.

Gender is not a biological trait passed from parent to child in the way that race is. Race is something that is only available to certain people. Gender is available to all people.

Rachel Dolezal, who claimed to be transracial, could wash off the makeup and remove the braids and resume life as a white women. Trans people can't do this because their gender is something innate to who they are - they aren't pretending by wearing a costume the way anyone claimig to be a different race would be.

(There are of course people who believe that trans people are simply 'pretending' to be the gender they identify as, but that is not reflective of the actual reality or experience of real trans people)

Genuine trans people aren't pretending.

But there will be some men with their own agenda who do, if the proposed changes come in.

The difference is op that nobody gives a shit about women. We don’t qualify for the same respect.

Gender is not a biological trait

Nope, but sex sure is. Can't change your DNA.

Gender is a social construct.

I don’t care anymore. It just irks me that apparently when men identify as female it just means slapping on makeup, having long hair and wearing pretty dresses... so it’s completely stupid.
It’s like men have consensed women into makeup, hair and dresses so much so that it’s now okay to do these things and be called female and if somebody doesn’t accept it then it’s women hating women.

I don’t even understand it, but it’s totally regressive

Rachel Dolezal, who claimed to be transracial, could wash off the makeup and remove the braids and resume life as a white women.

Firstly, thank you -that was her - couldn't recall be bothered to google.

Secondly, if you identify as a woman, before you have surgery, you can take off the dress/woman's clothing/make up/false boobs and go back to being a man. I don't see the difference. Why should she necessarily have been "pretending" - maybe it felt deep rooted to her.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/12/comparison-transgender-people-rachel-dolezal

A counter-point. One argument being RD benefitted from her self-ID politically/financially whereas transitioning transperople seldom benefit socially/economically.

I have to say I don’t understand why gender is innate but race isn’t, but frankly to me it is sex which matters rather than gender (in the limited spheres of life in which it matters at all)

Race is not a biological trait. It’s a cultural concept.

Gender is not a biological trait passed from parent to child in the way that race is

Sex is a biologically inherited trait. What’s the difference?

I to all intents and purposes look white but my mother is BME. Which race is “available” to me if it’s as simple as saying it’s a biological trait?

Frantically

Me too. If you are a woman you are born a woman with a vagina, female hormones and the experience of being a woman. Ditto a man.

Sorry but if you put on a dress make up and heels and you have a penis you are still a man whatever is in your head.

Totally defend your rights to dress and act this way, I couldn’t care less but stay in your man spaces and keep out of mine and my dds.,

And you are the race and nationality you are born in and appear. Why would you want to deny or change that anyway

And you are the race and nationality you are born in and appear. Why would you want to deny or change that anyway

Replace "race and nationality" with sex and it reads the same. How is race a cultural construct/inherent and sex is not?

My dad is Jewish American my mum Welsh I was born in Britain.

My sister is very blond and pale I am dark skinned and dark haired. Really who cares just be you

Gender norms change over time and place
How do young children know which toys/clothes/likes indicate they are the wrong sex
How did the 2 year old Jazz Jennings, who pulled the poppers on her baby gro to turn in into a dress, know that dress=girl
50 years ago all babies wore dresses
And trans demonstrate their transness by stereotypes.
Are we going to claim that women who don't subscribe to gender norms are men
Internal gender does not make sense

What about transabled people? I genuinely don't understand why it's not ok for a doctor to mutilate someone who identifies as disabled but it is ok if they identify as female. Why the inconsistency?

Replace "race and nationality" with sex and it reads the same. How is race a cultural construct/inherent and sex is not?

The point which would be raised in response is that gender, as opposed to sex, is not a biological trait.

I’m not persuaded of the difference. You either respect the right of people to identify as something which biologically they are not, or you don’t, but then I’m gender critical.

Sex isn't a biologically inherited trait. You aren't born female because your mother was female or male because your father was male. You're born a sex (male / female / intersex) because all humans are. It isn't an inherited characteristic. Racial characteristics are inherited - if you are born black it's because you have black ancestors.

OP, the reason trans women don't take off a dress and 'go back to being a man' is that if you are trans woman, you aren't a man in the first place. It's not like you flip a switch between genders by changing your clothes. Trans people feel that they have always been the gender they identify as - it's just that their gender and their biological sex don't correspond.

A counter-point. One argument being RD benefitted from her self-ID politically/financially whereas transitioning transpeople seldom benefit socially/economically.

She identified as black and went into roles for black people/campaigned on behalf of black people as if she was one and shared the experience. Isn't this the same thing that has happened with the labour women only roles? Out of all the labour women, even if you agree that transwomen are women, transwomen are statistically over-represented in LGBT groups, women only roles etc. Not transpeople, not transmen or gender neutral people of either sex, but transwomen. Is this a self confidence borne of male conditioning?

Really not sure about that logic @fugitive. Surely you are male or female because of the egg/sperm from your parents which joined together to make you.

Likewise I am white but have BME ancestors. Or do you subscribe to something like the one drop rule?

the reason trans women don't take off a dress and 'go back to being a man' is that if you are trans woman, you aren't a man in the first place.

But some people do. There's a finance bod who calls himself Pippa some days and Philip others.

Yes, you can identify as being of another gender, race or indeed species to that you were born of.

Currently society only recognises the first as being possible or genuine, but that doesn't mean some people feel that nature has put them in the "wrong" bracket.