If someone identifies as a different race....is it any different from gender?

[Jackieyoulooknice]

Just saw this story on Facebook..

fabiosa.com/ctnws-rsvlk-aumgr-pbdmt-rw-proud-to-be-now-a-black-woman-former-flight-attendant-changes-the-race-with-tan-injections/?utm_source=wikrmain&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=ssr

This woman doesn't identify as a different race she just wanted to be black, but everyone seems to be mocking her. If someone felt they identified as a different race would this be any stranger than someone who felt the same about their gender and became transgender?

Not trolling but just surprised at all the mocking that I saw people doing quite openly when most people seem accepting of transgender people.

I haven't really got an opinion on it as I find the situation so hard to imagine.

Like, what does it mean to ‘feel’ black if you’re white?

I’m black. I like Motown, and grunge, and britpop, and classical music, and ballet, and street dance and opera.

And theatre. And ballroom dancing. And bland food. And hot foreign holidays.

I’m black because I AM, it’s not a ‘feeling’ - it doesn’t feel like anything or take up headspace.

*JFC mumsnet! Race isn't part of your identity because it's ingrained in your family history, your upbringing and your entire family way of life. Your economic status, opportunities available to you, education, career etc. It's your culture, not your body.

Mumsnet commenters really are wilfully ignorant sometimes

Still not getting it: race is a cultural construct, so you cannot identify into or out of a culture you were/were not brought up within.

Gender is also a cultural construct, yet you can identify into/out of the specific gender construct you were raised within?

Incidentally, can you think of any parallels whereby cultural gender constructs impact "Your economic status, opportunities available to you, education, career"?

Appleisapple5

Check your privilege and be an ally

You win the award for the first attempted shut down of the day.

Check your privilege = shut up because I don't have an answer to your point.

The arguments for transgenderism and transracialism are logically identical

TheCat

You’re right. I was watching OITNB yesterday and noticed that ‘black’ people have so many variations of tone and colour, there’s definitely a huge spectrum between ‘black’ and ‘white’ and you can sub out any other racial group in either place.

Men and women are pretty binary though.

Is the issue here the words 'I identify WITH X, Y or Z' as opposed to 'I identify AS X, Y or Z'?

I can identify WITH a number of cultures aspects, some parts of different religions, some stereotypical opposite sex opinions, but I am not actually any of them and don't profess to 'be' any of them. I'm me, a white middle aged woman, happy in my skin and enjoys being able to think my own thoughts. Until doublethink 1984 becomes a reality, then I'm probably scuppered.

There are only differences because of societies’ treatment and expectations.

...but isn't this very thing actively asserted about sex/gender by TRAs that post here? I mean it'd be hind of hard to suggest it's a hard distinction when "gender is a social construct" is a cornerstone of your outlook and arguments.

It's your culture, not your body.

Isn't the whole concept of why we see racism as wrong predicated on the idea this is a superficial outward physical difference and that people are actually all the same?

I mean for that matter isn't the superficial difference what racists pick out?

Like, what does it mean to ‘feel’ black if you’re white?

Indeed. And what does it mean to “feel” like a woman when you’re a man?

missus

You’re right. The term has been barstardised

Marking place here- I have made the same point on other threads and been told to back down as I don't "understand".

And yes that's right I actually don't get it- what is the difference?

Barack Obama’s identifies as black, but, why couldn’t he identify as white, if he wanted? In the US legally he can identify as any race he wants because race isn’t legally defined. Sex is legally defined though; however, I have a friend who is chromasomally xxy. He identifies as a man, but why couldn’t he identify as a woman, if he wanted?

applesisapple5 a black baby adopted by a white faily is still black, even though they are not exposed to the culture and don’t know their birth family’s history, aren’t they?

but Merry, that's the same with being a woman. when a man tells me he feels like a woman what is he feeling? Which woman does he feel like?

Identity is the key word and the identity is trans, just like emo, goth, punk all the other identities that have taken off. Trans people are trans, that's the identity. Woman, man, child and black are not identities to be assumed, or, if they are, then they are all up for grabs.

Reality either means something, or it doesn't.

It's exactly the same.

You can't 'identify' into being a certain race, and you can't 'identify' into being a woman. Same as you can't identify your way out of either of these things, because if you could I'm sure millions of black people and women would have done so to avoid their oppression.

I’m black because I AM, it’s not a ‘feeling’ - it doesn’t feel like anything or take up headspace.

Exactly.

I'm a woman because I am, it's not a feeling. It doesn't feel like anything or take up headspace.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/feministsunknown.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/i-am-uberpoor/amp/

The anti women activists are actually laughable in their arguments.

I doubt my inner headspace is anywhere near my female friends, why would it be. Saying you are something and expecting to be treated like the thing you identify is sexist, racist and ageist. There is zero science to back it up, we sex people according to which biological category they fall into. There are females and males with intersex conditions, there are white people with black parents and vice versa. This doesn't stop females existing or black people existing, and generally being treated appallingly throughout history and across the globe. Intersectionality was supposed to help women who face the double whammy of sex and race though it has largely been co opted by white heterosexual males, go figure.

Biologically, there is only one race.. the human race.

As humans from any of our sociologically imposed races could mate and produce viable offspring.

So biologically it has no meaning.

What about age? This morning I woke up and felt about 70, can I claim my pension?

I REALLY identify as an elderly lady today. And how I feel on the inside is the most important bit of identity right?

@CantankerousCamel.... Brilliant link...!

@TwoBlueShoes Obama identified himself as black due to how he was treated by others in society.

Young children don't identify as any racial group until other people, normally adults, tell them. In the case of non-white children unfortunately this can be unwanted touching by strangers due to their "cute mixed features", or in the case of some of my friends' younger siblings having racial abuse shouted at them.

LittleMissedTheSunshine I think you mean species.

There may be only one race overall, but there is a world of ethnic difference at the genetic level.

For example, black people are far more likely to have blood type B than caucasians; you can identify as black all you want, but that won't make you black from a medical perspective. There are ethnic differences in drug metabolism too; some drugs are associated with great outcomes in white patients but poorer outcomes in black patients, even after controlling for income level, environment etc.

The same applies to sex. Identify as female all you like, but it won't alter the way you metabolize propanolol, for instance (metabolized more rapidly in women tham men) or how your heart attack presents (easily recognisable in men, much harder to spot in women).

Medically, sex and ethnicity MATTER. They are not 'opt-in'.

SheCameFromGreece

Thank you for this:

Still not getting it: race is a cultural construct, so you cannot identify into or out of a culture you were/were not brought up within. Gender is also a cultural construct, yet you can identify into/out of the specific gender construct you were raised within?

This is exactly it. If I can, as a woman, decide to identify as a man, then surely I can, as a white person, decide to identify as a black person?

I believe black people have a much higher predisposition to certain diseases such as sickle cell, due to certain BIOLOGICAL differences.

It doesn’t make them better or worse humans, white is not the default but to not acknowledge that there are differences is disingenuous at best.