GC White women comparing being transgender to someone white claiming to be black

[NewNameNigel]

Does anyone else find this incredibly offensive?
Race and sex are so incredibly different!

Rachel is not black. .. incredibly inappropriate lol

They spotted this conundrum in Atlanta (US TV show) as well.

I am a brown women. I can't change my sex even if I want (I wish, I had endometriosis) and I can't change the color of my skin.

For some people, changing your sex is possible, you become the other sex but simply dressing different, using other pronouns and claiming your are that sex. But the same people say that it's impossible to change race, because you can't change the material reality, you can't change the color of your skin. They don't say it like that, but they mean that. Otherwise, following their logical, why a white person couldn't become Indian, but simply dressing with typical Indian clothes, adopting Indian culture and eating Indian food?

Out of curiosity, are you black?

Please leave out the desperate straw-man arguments.

P. S.
My ancestors were not oppressors either but rather the oppressed. We belong to the same race darling! Apparently.

I suffer from "profiling", have had to change my name on applications to get a job and I have been explicitly discriminated against based on religious/nationality grounds.

So let's not make the issue of bigoted cunts a white vs black thing. Otherwise, you are recially profiling me and that's offensive, as I assume you know.

I'm a bit confused by this. I don't think people can change sex.

But the reason I think people can't change race isn't based on "material reality". Racial catagories aren't based on "material reality" in the way sex is.

The experience of growing up as racialised is based on extrinsic factors where as a lot of being a women is based on intrinsic factors like having a materiallt different reproductive system.

I'm not one is better than the other. I'm saying they are very different and people with no experience of racism should not claim they are similar.

Sorry I made an assumption based on this comment from you which, in the context of the discussion very much implied that you were white. Maybe a typo?

I don't oppress anyone and don't belong to an "Oppressor race"

Speaking on the topic of this thread - race is based mostly on natal observable characteristics of a human body, and so is sex. I think it logical to draw a conclusion that it is equally ridiculous to "identify out of" either of those. I don't see the massive chasm that wouldn't allow to draw parallels.

It's racist to pretend to be a different race, and even if you don't think it's racist- it's not right or normal.

Actually transitioning and believing you are not the gender you were assigned at birth isn't the same. It's not sexist or any 'ist' and it's not pretending.

Isn't race based on the heritage of your ancestors rather than natal observations? A black couple can give birth to a pale skin child who the latwe discover is albino. That child would still be black wouldn't it? And it had no bearing on the way your body develops unlike sex.

There are differences in outcomes between races but this is because of outside forces not an intrinsic difference in biology.

@NewNameNigel

I am indeed white, so you were right all along. But I'm the wrong type of white. The type that is like a splinter in the foot of those that see race as the oppressors vs the oppressed. In that world view, we are indeed of the same race (the oppressed). Or, if we look at racial physical characteristics we have our own history and experiences impacted by those characteristics.

As someone who'd readily say that no one can change sex any sooner than they can change their race, I don't believe in harm of that statement. Quite the opposite - it takes away the permission to play with our realities and biological identities on a whim.
I think the biggest barrier in the communication here will be your belief in race as a social construct vs mine that sees it as a collection of biological observations. I see sex in the same way. So I'm comparing apples to apples, whilst some compare apples to oranges and as a result we draw completely different conclusions.

Anyways, I didn't even notice I'm on Black Mumsnetters section - it's safer for me to butt out as I don't think I'll ever get desensitised enough to handle my "oppressor" status with grace.

@QueenCamilla I don't know what the wrong type of white is. However black women don't get to duck out of being made to uncomfortable because of their race. Perhaps the discomfort you feel here might help you empathise a little with black woman.

QueenCamilla, it is all far more complex than you seem to think. Some of my ancestors ‘changed race’ and they were far from the only people in Southern US States to be recorded as black on one US census and white on another only to be black again on yet another.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity)

No one can actually transition to the opposite sex. All anyone can do is have a lot of hormone intervention and cosmetic surgery to try to give one the appearance of being the opposite sex.

For people who have gender dysphoria, however sincerely they 'identify' with the opposite sex, it can never be more than an identification. However sincerely they feel, it is still a pretence. They cannot know what it is like to live in the sex of the opposite body and to have been raised in it, treated by others since birth as being that sex and being socialised as that sex. All they can do is ' act' what they think it is like.

You only need to see that heartbreaking testimonial from a young female, years after her ' transition' to presenting as a man - and they do look male - to realise how painfully it is a pretence. Anyone looking at that person would see a man. Yet that person is intensely lonely and has been unable to make male friends. Because that person is not a man, has not been socialised as one, and simply does not know how to relate to males as a man themselves, and the males can clearly sense it.

Race is a social construct, whereas sex differences are an immutable biological fact.

I would agree that ‘sex’ and ‘race’ are totally different and yes it annoys me when they are used as a gotcha. There are two distinct binary sexes but race isn’t. So for example you could have two mixed race twins - one looking ‘black’ and the other looking 100% white - but with the same parents. So yes one might say (let’s pick any white man I can think of) Boris Johnson if he were to say he is black is wrong. People would object But what if his mum were black? What if his grandmother was black? What if his great grandmother were black ? Where does one draw the line?
In my family there are three grandchildren with one black great grandparent and seven white great grandparents - two look ‘white’ and are fair skinned etc - no-one would ever guess their heritage - the third looks ‘half black /half white’ completely - she has taken all the genetics seemingly from that great grandparent - she has said she feels she has no choice but to identify if you like as mixed race black because that’s how she is seen. Genetics are bizarre. Not binary at all.

But genetics do determine skin colour, just as they determine sex and however a person identifies, it doesn't change material reality. Yes, people can be mixed race but that doesn't change the basic point that f your skin colour is white and your family is white, then you cannot claim to be black and take those things reserved for black people, to level the playing field a bit. Rachel Dolezal genuine (so far as I know) felt more affinity with black people than white - I remember an interview where she said so, but as much as she identified as black, she wasn't black. And that's the end of it really and that's elegy GC feminists make the comparison. Not least because men who claim they are exactly the same as a woman because they 'feel' it, have the luxury of no longer feeling it if the going gets tough. Same as Rachel Dolezal.

Typos all over the place there, sorry.

@LadyBird1973 genetics determine physical characteristiclls but people aren't genetically split into distinct catagories that align with race.
Humans have decided which characteristics make up a race. They could have decided to do it on height or eye colour with skin color being irrelevant.

Unlike sex which is a binary classification each with a distinct development pathway.

A lot of prominent GC feminists are of colour - Allison Bailey, Rosiaro Sanchez, Lucy Masoud, Akua Reindorf off the top of my head.

@pikkumyy77 poor women, women with English as an additional language and women with a cultural or religious requirement for single sex spaces and services are disproportionately impacted by this movement, whereas the TRAs are the whitest most privileged group I’ve ever seen.

Well yes. And I'd agree that it's as mad to treat people differently on the basis of skin colour, as it would be on a height basis. But since physical characteristics have determined how certain groups have been treated, certain things have been put in place to compensate (for want of a better word) and it's wrong for someone without those characteristics (and therefore without having been treated badly on account of them), to take those resources set aside for the people who do. To me, that applies to men taking women's resources as it would to someone like RD taking a job set aside for a black person.
Plus there's all the lying and gaslighting of people that comes with claiming something blatantly untrue.

I think this all depends on the sex vs gender nature of the argument- I hold some GC views (although I would argue not extreme) which are around two main views of mine. - firstly that someone’s sex should have nothing to do with what is acceptable or not when they present themselves to the world - so for example I would welcome the social acceptability of men wearing make up without them feeling this made them ‘trans’. My other concern is also the erosion of female (as a sex) only spaces/sports etc. and that people should be able to discuss their concerns about these changes without being shouted down or attacked.

As a white person (and sorry I’ll back off out of here after this post) I see some value in the example but I would never consider this issue as in any way it a comparable to the oppression and long term systemic harm caused by racism. However as an example of why you can’t appropriate a protected characteristic to steal an opportunity or space from a more vulnerable group, I think it has some use. I hadn’t considered all the implications of using it though,and reading some of the responses here has shown me that some people might interpret the intent and meaning differently and think I’m saying that women are at risk from trans people to the same level that black people encounter racism, which is absolutely not my intention when using the example, and so I will adopt much greater care in the future. Thank you for the discussion and sorry for the more unfortunate encounters above, us white people have much anti racism work still to do.

Sex is binary but that only matters because of how women have been treated on account of it. Theres no actual legitimate reason why women have been treated as less than men, anymore than there's a legitimate reason for racism.
So I'm not sure that it matters that there's a difference between sex and race in terms of one being binary and the other not, in that it's about how we are treated on account of history/society deciding somewhere along the line that we deserve less, for whatever fucked up reason existed in the minds of the ruling class at the time.

@Hollyhead I don't think women have generally taken the view that trans people are a threat to us per se. I think that before all this batshit TRA stuff happened, there was a lot of sympathy and tolerance for trans people. It's more the aggressive, abusive men who will use it to gain access to places they've no business being in and the threat to our sports that is why women have become more hardline about it. The TRA have screwed over genuine trans people who were just going about their lives quietly and causing no harm.

It’s is exploitative and hugely disrespectful and not just because the outcome does not compare to the current and historic consequences of racism. Then there is the willingness of GC activists to utilise anything and everyone regardless of how badly they impact black people. For example, using the same sexist vulnerable white woman stereotype that is used to bash black women and engaging with right wing elements who actively work against the interests of black people. It’s a movement in which black women are excluded and yet the narratives of black oppression are exploited.