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!

"Did you also miss the banner at the top of the page? If so maybe you should pay more attention."

You can only say that to me if you never ever miss anything in life and notice everything at all times. I very much doubt that's true and it's just a cheap, snarky comment.

I've never barged into a black woman's space claiming I conviniently missed the name and the banner right at the top saying "please be respectful" and proceded to lecture everyone about how I have a right to be here, no.

When I pointed it out to you you continued and said you had the right to be here. You are the reason MNHQ is commenting.

If you're going to talk about me, then yes, I am going to comment. And once I'm in the middle of a conversation I'm not going to drop out of it because you think I should. That's not how chat sites work.

'Safe space' means the right to talk without abuse not right to police who can be included or excluded. And obviously if you were talking about a topic that doesn't have anything to do with the group of people I fall into, then I wouldn't comment at all.
I'm assuming MNHQ haven't deleted any of my posts so they don't deem them to have broken any of their rules.

Anyway, I will bow out now, since it's getting snarky and that's not to the benefit of anyone here.

If you're going to talk about me, then yes, I am going to comment

The post wasn't about you. It was about how black women feel.

A genuine question to both you and OP. I can't count how many times I've seen TRAs arguing that efforts to keep communal open-plan showers and changing room single-sex are exactly the same as racial segregation in the pre-Civil Rights Era American south. Does this also fall among the minor disagreements you mentioned and you feel you can live with, or would you feel that's an overstepping of boundaries of a different order of magnitude? As an outsider, it's rather reminiscent of the, to me, equally monstrous comparisons with Auschwitz raised by the same activists. But in both cases, it's of course primarily up to the group concerned to decide what is and what isn't acceptable.

I've never seen that argument made by TRAs but I would not be impressed by that one either.

OP, I agree with you on your points but can I ask what you think about individuals who are white, with a white family tree, but claim to identify as Black, or Japanese, and not in a sense of becoming naturalized citizens of another country through a dual nationality, but simply say they’ve been born in a wrong body and identify differently? Thanks.

I think if white GC feminists were to accept that such a comparison is at best ridiculous and at worst offensive they'd have to reconcile with the notion that there exists a demographic a great deal more disadvantaged than them because of a trait they cannot change. This is why for example, you'll often find many white women arguing that the use of the name/word 'Karen', is (one of the most) offensive slurs. It also brings to the fore a unique brand of micro-aggression that every Black woman could wax lyrical about, which apparently doesn't exist, was just a misunderstanding and or is just another way of being divisive.

@GrumpyPandaThis is going to sound contradictory, but I think it is grossly inappropriate to pretend that the conditions that trans people face now are in any way comparable to what African-Americans faced during segregation or Black South Africans during apartheid. However, at the same time the same, tired, sexist, vulnerable, white girl, crap was used as a justification to degrade the rights of both of those populations. The brute caricature has well and truly been redesigned. Pointing that out is just the truth, but it should be done in a way that doesn’t convolute the experiences of black and trans people.

This was supposed to be a safe space for black mumsnetters to explore their experience (and discomfort) with the GC appropriation of a specifically raced experience of passing/stolen identity as isomorphic with trans requests to be treated with respect for their chosen gender.

At the best of times this is an interesting conversation to have—I mean I would be interested in it as an anthropologist because of the complicated history of alliance, passing, and demotion/outcasting which underlies movement between castes, races, or religious groups. Historically women, especially, have often chosen or been forced to move identities when they marry into another group: upper castes become lower castes, jews become christians, black people live as white, white people choose to become black—in the 17th snd 18th century, famously, white captives became Indian through adoption and choice, refusing to return and resume life as white even if offered the chance. Movement between groups, adopted identities, the fight for social recognition, is nothing new. Sometimes those people were choosing to “pass” from a disfavored social status to a more favored one—jews into Christians in spain, blacks into whites in the US. Sometimes individuals pass from more favored to less favored by choice and self adoption—read The Sea Captain’s Wife, The Sweeter The Juice, (black into white) and The Color of Water for three different historical/biographical accounts of this process. All instances of a nominally white person living as a person of color or in the community can’t be collapsed into Rachel Dolezal.

The problem, as I see it, with the GC appropriation is that it is just a trite appropriation of a complex issue. Its just used as a kind of forced teaming, a gotcha. Why do black people get to reject Racel Dolezal while women don’t get to reject trans person X? We get versions of this wail all the time from white people who resent any privilege they don’t have access to. If black people can complain about slavery and get social approval why can’t I call paying taxes slavery and get social approval? What the GC argument boils down to is not solidarity (I support your struggle) but simply envy (you seem to have the ability to police the boundaries of your group and I want the same right).

I have only read the opening post, however concur that I hate this false equivalence about anything compared to being Black.

"Would you say x if this was a Black person"
"Wold you do y if it was a Black person"

This constant othering of Black people, it's exhausting. Black people are real people; rich and poor, good and bad, no different from any other person in basic terms, though experience of racism varied.

Off to read the whole thread now.

This was supposed to be a safe space for black mumsnetters to explore their experience (and discomfort) with the GC appropriation of a specifically raced experience of passing/stolen identity as isomorphic with trans requests to be treated with respect for their chosen gender.

Quite. However a poster earlier believed the thread to be about her.
I think that's a symptom of the way society treats white women compared to black women. Even black women's pain is about the more important feelings of the white women.

Yes I agree! Its frustrating to have a fruitful discussion hijacked by bleats of “if you just understood us more!” “I never meant to overstep” etc…etc…Or the pearl clutching over posts, like mine, that were not sufficiently deferential.

I hope the discussion can continue.

"Would you say x if this was a Black person"
"Wold you do y if it was a Black person"

This constant othering of Black people, it's exhausting. Black people are real people; rich and poor, good and bad, no different from any other person in basic terms, though experience of racism varied.

I'm sure it must be exhausting, being othered like that

hence why GC feminists reject the 'but trans women are women just like black women are women' 'how can you keep us out of your sports team/therapy group that's just like when white people excluded black people in the South'

It's bollocks. Black women are women just like white women are women and disabled women are women and lesbians are women and old women are women and young women are women. All women, all oppressed because we are women and some with additional oppression or privilege on top.

So frustrating to have a fruitful discussion hijacked by virtue signalling.

Misses the point entirely. We don’t agree on the framing of the argument.

That's not the point of the conversation though it is?

This conversation is about how white GC feminists are making black women feel. Throwing back comments about how tra's are doing it worse in an attempt to distract and deflect really doesn't help.

And coming into a conversation between black women and insisting on continuing to interject your point of view on them instead of actually listening to what they are saying, forcing the conversation round to your point of view etc just reinforces the whole issues with white feminism

Just imagine how much more powerful feminism could be if people actually stopped and listened and took on board what women of colour are actually saying. Instead of belittling, ignoring, attacking, darvo-ing and distracting from then accusing women of colour of being the ones to divide women and feminism.

So frustrating to have a fruitful discussion hijacked by virtue signalling.

So frustrating to have a fruitful discussion hijacked by fragility and ego.

As a GC white woman I would just like to thank you for this thread. Lots to think about. For me, even though race and sex are not equivalent, in both cases we can talk about using identity to take advantage of spaces that exist to benefit a particular group and redress disadvantage. It would not be OK for me to post on this forum claiming that I identify as Black, have lived experience of the struggles discussed here, and therefore have a right to be included as an equal, nor would it be OK for my white kids to identify as Black and apply for e.g. a scholarship specifically for BAME students. It is similarly not OK for men (however they identify) to claim space in academic programmes, prisons, professional networking groups, hospital wards, sporting events, rape counselling sessions or any other spaces that have been set up for women, yet society seems to sleepwalking into the latter situation. Is that line of argument offensive?

I think you'll find that's classed as fragility and ego 🤔

Ist para: what does this mean? I haven't seen anyone saying 'separate your race from your sex' either here or on twitter/X, & I read a lot of GC accounts & threads on both, posted by women & men of various races. I've never come across it as a concept.

2nd para: Yes we have good arguments, but those on the other side usually ignore them or resort to lies, blathering, thought-stopping mantras, emotional blackmail, insults, threats, etc. It is actually a gotcha, because from what I've seen over the years the question always results in silence from the other side. They know there's no good answer to it - just as with 'the Staniland question'.

The 'you would've supported segregation' stuff doesn't appear on MN (that I'm aware of) but it often appears on twitter/X, along with 'white women's tears' to describe any GC argument, which is offensive to everyone: the white GC people it aims at dismissing & silencing, & the black GC people who are ignored by it (& all the GC men, I guess).

Laughably, some posts show photos of GC gatherings with text along the lines of, 'See how old & white they all are', completely ignoring the young people & black people in the photo they've put up.

A real low point on twitter/X was seeing someone post about a GC woman, saying she's not really black. They had no argument to use against her arguments in a debate, so they used pure BS instead.

I really don’t know what to say other than to apologize for the silencing of this thread by the influx of white posters each determined to win the argument. I do not think the analogy is appropriate, I think it is appropriation. I do not think the arguments advanced in its favor are appropriate as they run roughshod over what critics are saying.

In addition any argument that includes the phrase “virtue signaling “ is, to me, revolting in a discussion that is nominally supposed to take place between allies and sisters. How is it virtue “signaling “ to take the side of the wounded in a discussion? Only the right wing (homophobic, racist , pro oppression) use the term as a term of offense. It was crafted, like white/right uses of woke, to shame people out of alliance and out of virtuous acts.

I apologize for taking part, even if in sincere support of black Mumsnet’s point. It seems that the white GC tidal wave has drowned out other voices.

Coincidentally, I've been listening to an October 2023 series on BBC Sounds called 'The Gift' about DNA testing, & ep 4 ('Race') chimes with this thread (without the GC/GI bit, of course).

Chimes with this thread in what way out of interest? If I remember correctly, it was about a woman who found out that she had a small amount of black ancestry. It didn’t touch on feminism at all and appropriation was just discussed in relation to how she struggled exploring her ancestry in a respectful manner. Personally, there’s a world of difference between her confusion and flat out white women appropriating a narrative for their benefit.

@MCOut I did say 'without the GC/GI bit, of course'. You even quoted it.

Leaving that aside, I think when GC people make the racial identity point, they're saying to their opponents, "If you respect the boundary of race, why don't you respect the boundary of sex?". That seems a legitimate question, & one which is never answered by them. (In fact, it's an excellent way to get a PITA twitter user off a thread.)

Btw, it's not only women who use the question. Why do you object to women but not men using it?