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!

@MCOut not sure how you’ve concluded black women are excluded - I’ve listed prominent GC women of colour

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

@HermioneWeasley are you implying that black women have no right to take issue with white GC women co-opting racism as a gotcha because there are GC women of colour?

Do you know that any of the women above are comfortable with white women doing this? Have you assumed that all GC women think it's fine?

Presumably some women will think it's a comparable situation and others won't. Same as with everything

I know black women are not excluded from being GC. I know that white women randomly and casually using racism as a vehicle to prove their point makes me feel uncomfortable engaging with them.

OP do you find it offensive because you think a white person identifying as black is more offensive than a man identifying as a woman, because black people are more oppressed by white people than women are by men?

Do you mean that because racism is a worse form of oppression than sexism, it’s therefore racist to say that an act (trans-identity) where the “oppressor” identifies as the “oppressed” is the same, whether it’s happening along sex or racial lines?

If so, I see what you’re saying.

However, are GC using trans-racial identities to point out the unfairness of trans-gender identities necessarily even proposing that sexism is worse than/equal to racism?

I think trans-racial identities might even be used as an example because racism IS worse, and then the logical argument is, “okay you agree that’s ridiculous in the context of race, can you not therefore understand our argument when it’s based on sex/gender?”

Not necessarily to say that they’re just as bad as each other, just to illustrate that both follow the same logical fallacy, but people seem to find it easier to spot the fallacy when it comes to race because it’s much clearer.

The point is encroachment and cultural appropriation, for males to ASSUME that what they feel is ‘like a woman’. How could they possibly know how a woman feels, other than by minimising womens experience as unique and belonging to them.

Quite easily actually, because I am actually one… I can’t speak for all black women fair enough, but all black women that I know with GC leaning views are not joining this movement. The same explanations have been given as to why time and time again, and are constantly met with defensive arguments. Can’t really claim to want our participation if there is an unwillingness to change the damaging way in which this is being argued.

👏

You are just making stuff up here. No one is making a ‘vulnerable white woman argument’. They are arguing that women ( regardless of any other characteristic) are vulnerable to predatory men and single sex spaces are the way we protect women at times they are vulnerable. It is you, not GC women, who entered race into that to make your spurious case.

It’s a movement in which black women are excluded
Again this is something you have entirely made up. No woman is excluded. Some of the most prominent activists are black women and other women of colour. It’s utterly dishonest to make these absurd claims.

@mosiacmaker it's not about one being worse, although in my life racism is worse at the moment. It's about them being so different. And it's about white people co opting and appropriating the experience of black people to make their point when they have idea about what that experience is, and often don't listen to black women when they talk about it.

Look at the reception black women have got on the feminist boards here when they have spoken about issues related to race. You'll see why we needed out own board.

@Allaboutthepeople Can you not see that dismissing black women's feelings about using their own oppression as a gotcha is the exact problem we have with it?

@MCOut has said she is a black woman that feels excluded and your response is to shout liar.

But isn't the point being made is that it's a valid comparison precisely because white people have no more idea of what it's like to be black, anymore than men have of what it is to be a woman? And that anyone co opting something they have no experience of is equally offensive?

I was having this very conversation with my best friend just the other day. I’m white, she’s black, we are both ‘GC’ (if that means we think you can’t change sex).

She was drawing parallels - saying it’s people from one dominant group appropriating the experience of and assuming the rights of a less privileged group because they ‘feel’ a certain way. However, for her racism felt like a bigger, more difficult battle as it’s so pervasive over every area of her life. That’s roughly paraphrasing her, anyway.

I found it interesting. I don’t think it’s exactly the same but I can also see the parallels. Ultimately, I’ll be led by what black people think and feel about this issue.

Neither of us are GC activists, btw, we just both think it’s bollocks that a man can ‘feel’ like a woman.

You'll notice if you calmly read my comment that I didn't mention transitioning sex. I believe you cannot change your biological sex but as gender is a perceieved characteristic, you can change it (in my opinion, it's okay if you don't feel the same!). The GC argument is always Sex does not equal Gender, which I agree with (It's a fact). You cannot choose or change your sex but you can change how you look and what people call you and what people think of you.

Yes, many people do de-transition. People make rash decisions and have surgeries and medications and therapies to support their transition and then realise it's not what they want. This is why I think children, young and vulnerable people should have extra support and education in the options available to transition (i.e. so they start off simple with clothes and a name change). And I also believe anyone wishing to transition should be offered therapy and proper support from charities and orgs supporting trans people, so they make educated choices. I think there should be cooling off periods after choosing meds/ops etc.

This however, has nothing to do with the main post. Being trans is not a choice, transitioning is. Belonging to a race is not a choice, pretending is. But me (a cis woman) dressing up as a man and calling myself Dave isn't going to harm anyone, or cause upset, or be offensive to a marginalised group. A white person changing their appearance so they look black, is offensive to a marginalised group.

@LadyBird1973 it's really not.

Let's put this simply. You don't like men co opting your experience. So why do you expect black women to be ok with white people co opting ours experience of racism?

I think that’s quite a naive and presumptuous view. I’m not meaning to be rude, but if Dave decides he wants to be called Daria and wear dresses….and then takes a place on a women’s sports team, or a women’s scholarship or career development programme, or wins ‘Woman of The Year’ award in his industry, or decides he wants to use the changing room alongside my teenage daughter or become my daughter’s Girl Guides Leader on overnight trips etc etc …then Dave isn’t just doing a bit of harmless gender bending , is he? He is disadvantaging and potentially endangering and definitely fucking offending many many members of a group with far less privilege.

It's not co opting your experience of racism though - that would be pretending to be black when not. It's just saying that the pretending is equally offensive, whether done by men claiming they can be women or white people claiming they can get black.

@LadyBird1973 how does a white person know how offensive it for black people to see white people parodying them?

Also, a reminder that you are on the black mumsnetters section. A section carved for black women to talk about how they feel about things.

I mean you seem determined to be affronted. Would that be a fair assessment?

That just sounds like a regurgitation of the angry black woman trope tbh

There is no wonder black women feel excluded from feminism if, when they dare to have a chat about issues that bother them between themselves, white people have to interject to accuse them of being "determined to be affronted"

There is so much mysoginy involved in weaponsing women's opinions as being emotional as well, making it an unfeminist action as well

I'm not sure of your point re parodying - a person can know something objectively^ but not feel it, since it isn't happening to them personally. That's true of lots of things - you can have empathy for a victim of bullying and know it's nasty, without having personal experience of it.

But no one can legitimately claim to be something they aren't or to have had exactly the same experiences, when that's a physical impossibility. ^
^
While this is a black mumsnetters board, it is discussing GC white feminists so women in that category do have a right to an opinion.
There is no overwhelming consensus on this - some people feel it's a valid comparison, others don't.^

Ignore italics - not idea what happened there!

this is an example why this gender ideology is so harmful.

Women are here arguing among ourselves instead of resisting the removal of our rights and safeguards.

Women are oppressed by men.

Black women are oppressed by white peoples AND men.

White women can't understand the lived reality of black women. Just as a non disabled woman doesn't live the reality of a disabled woman.

Not all women are oppressed but enough are that women deserve protection in law and society. Not all black people are oppressed but enough are they deserve protection in law and society. The same for disabled people.

There are biological differences between men and women.

There are also biological differences between white people and black people.

I just have to laugh. This post is about the perspective of black women and I’m saying as one that the GC movement at large has alienated me and I’m not prepared to engage with these narratives and your response is to say my perspective and the perspective of other black women I know is dishonest… while meanwhile our oppression is used to make a point… one quick look at Google will make it clear I am far from the only person who sees the white suprematist undertones in all of this. Just look at the defence on mumsnet of that one who did an interview with neo-Nazis and yet you want to pretend there is no race issue.

I Will apologise for joining the discussion here. It popped up on my active section and the thread title caught my attention. I didn't realise this part of Mumsnet excluded white people.

I feel so very strongly about men violating female spaces and boundaries and can see the parallel here with white people chipping in.

I didn't realise. I have learnt. I apologise