Rachel Dolezal, race, and gender

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Dolezal has written a book about her experiences in which she argues that if people can identify as a different gender, they should also legitimately be able to identify as a different race. Interesting piece in today's Grauniad

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/rachel-dolezal-not-going-stoop-apologise-grovel?CMP=share_btn_tw

almond I get what you mean. Where I think race and sex are similar is they are both visible characteristics that are obvious externally. You can't choose to identify out of either because people will treat you according to how they see you. And people who identify in have to put in effort to "pass". And they may not succeed.

Tbh, the text we were given on race is contradictory:
"Race is possibly one of the most contentious concepts in the English language. Broadly speaking, the term describes biologically distinct groups of people who are identifiable through differences in physical appearance such as skin tone and hair colour... Rather than being seen as a natural biological phenomenon, it is now widely agreed that race, in the biological sense, is a relative modern construct."

In general, the message was that it was far more relevant to talk about ethnicity than race, because for distinct racial groups to exist, they would need to be distinct from each other in a large number of genes. So this is then quite different to sex, of which there seems to be two different genetic groups.

So yeah. Maybe not a great comparison after all then.

twitter.com/KatanaOfLogic/status/835077370155511809

Saw this on another thread.

It's complicated, and I'm certainly not in favour of people being able to 'identify' as something they absolutely are not, whether we consider it to be race or ethnicity.

As an aside, why does all sorts of shit turn into a link on this site, but the one thing I actually wanted to link to on purpose, does not?

Spot on whereyouleftit (had to play the video)

Was a fascinating read. To my mind transracial is more believable than transgender.

I am black. Not trans black, but black parents black.

Rachel Dolezal was peak trans for me. When I honestly couldn't answer how trans race was any different, as my friends lambasted her for "appropriating the trans narrative", i began to see big big holes.

Rachel D loves black culture, Africanism and Black history. She sees herself with dark skin and braids, dates black men and women and wears dashikis. Is this what makes someone black? Does liking dresses and Sex and the City, wearing make up and being a feminist = woman?

Lots of white people tell me I'm not "very black" because I don't fit a stereotype in their head. Yet the thing that makes me black is my skin tone, my heritage, my parentage. Rachel Dolezal was born of two white parents. How can she be black?

Additionally, how you are treated by the outside world affects how your identity is shaped and how you connect with your community. I was aware that I was black, and the weight that carried, from I was jusrt out of toddlerhood. I learned the significance of the NF graffiti on our wall. A kids in my reception class wouldn't touch me, told me I wasn't good enough because I was brown. I didn't see many children like me on the television so I was white in my dreams. With long blonde hair and blue eyes. I used to put a towel on my head and pretend it was my hair. Later, so many other young black girls said the same. I was studious and well behaved to a fault, but teachers immediately pinned me down as naughty. I had a white best friend and we were equally clever and very similar in temperament. A teacher told me I'll never get to (friend)s level and I should be okay with that. I developed an eating disorder on the back of learning that everything I am is the antithesis of beauty. As I grew older and found a voice, I realised it was always the same story with young black women. Our personalities and life made us different but what united us was our pain.
NOT dashikis, which I've never worn. Not braids, which girls with less curly hair may never wear. NOT our love of black history, or culture which is diverse throughout the diaspora.

Rachel Dolezal is a white woman with no idea what it means to be black. If our struggle makes her angry then GOOD. But that's all it is because she's never felt it as we truly have. If she found things she could "identify" with, someone's poor Southern upbringing because she's rural, that does not make her black. Blackness =/= poverty. She has no fucking idea.

And can I reliably be trans white? If I dye my hair red, bleach my skin and listen to Taylor Swift can I join team white? When people call me racist names, can I say "ahem, i'm trans white!" Can black guys use it when the police stop them for driving too nice a car? Can I be trans asian? Or is it just for confused white people who are obsessed with our cultures?

When I began to see the double standards in the trans activists saying just how compleeeetely different transgender was to RD, that's when i began to pick the whole thing apart.

And to a pp who said a black man can say something is cultural appropriation and be listened to - sorry but i laughed. That's the funniest myth on mn that racist always gets listened to. Trust me, racism is just as ignored and shut down as misogyny.

It was actually Rachel Dolezal that made me reassess my feelings about transgender.

Thanks fauchevalent
One of the things that drives me insane is its usually white people that bring up "cultural appropriation" linked tenuously to something. It's bullshit. How would they know?
(I am not talking about wearing Indian headdresses to festivals).
The more I read libfem stuff the more I think it's designed to be confusing and benefit the patriarchy. Getting people to talk about random, extreme examples of appropriation (such as, is eating curry appropriation?) Is a massive distraction from the systematic racism in society.
Grrrrr.

It is completely correct that if being transgender means that if you feel like a woman then you are a woman, it must also be true that it is possible to be born into the wrong race and if you feel like you are black then you are black. Biology either matters or doesn't matter.

But both concepts are bollocks.

It's fine for her to adopt every cultural and behavioural trait that she wants to. Just like it's completely fine for a man to wear dress, makeup and heels and ask people to use female pronouns and a different name. It only becomes a problem if she starts applying for scholarships etc reserved for people with BME backgrounds, just like trans women are doing no harm until they start taking things that are, with good reason, reserved for women.

Actually I think there is a difference between race and sex in this regard. Race isn't as binary (not that sex is totally binary but is more so). It's a spectrum whose range passes through a grey area where one's race is hard to determine.

The similarity though is that people treat you according to how they perceive you. If I ID'd as a man tomorrow it wouldn't stop people treating me as a woman. My father and his brother are well brothers but would be classified as different races and have been treated slightly differently in their lives.

You don't get to choose how other people treat you. Unfortunately.

"trans women are doing no harm until they start taking things that are, with good reason, reserved for women."

Exactly this!

And Fauche, she was also essentially 'blacking up' the Guardian article refers to her sunbathing and using bronzer to darken her skin when her tan faded, and given the published media photos of her in her late teens, she's clearly also either wearing a wig/extensions or perming her hair to make it look plausibly Afro. That's pretty problematic, given the history of black-face. (And reversible, as others have said she was already identifying as black, wearing her hair in braids and dressing in African prints, and, crucially, being mistaken for a black woman by others, when she married a black man who didn't like that, so she reverted to looking white for as long as the marriage lasted.)

It seems to me the ultimate in white privilege (and cultural appropriation) that she sees no problem with helping herself to a minority identity, because her 'identifying' as black trumps black Americans' experiences of discrimination and institutional racism. She was taught at her historically black university that race is a colonial, artificial construct, designed to justify white colonial power, and for her this was an opportunity for self-justification/self-inclusion, rather than an appalling historical fact.

Then does MtF drag have the same implications in the gender paradigm as blackface has in the race paradigm? I think it does.

"
Then does MtF drag have the same implications in the gender paradigm as blackface has in the race paradigm? I think it does."

I agree, in effect by altering your appearance to mimic real or supposed traits associated with another group of people you are caricaturing them, and in the process diminishing them to nothing more than a visual stereotype.

It's interesting to me that in her deceit (& sorry, it was deceit) she was doing a good job representing the interests of black people and fighting for their rights. She wasn't Caitlin Jenner saying 'the hardest thing about being a woman is deciding what to wear'.
It's from the moment she was rejected that the fight becomes about her right to pretend to be black and expect people to accept this.

What so often irks me about the trans agenda is that they fight for the right to be seen as women. If more of the energy went to fighting on behalf of women then I'd be so much more supportive.

This gives the transcript of the judge's verdict when she sued her college.

The judge seems pretty clear that the college did no wrong. For one semester, Rachel didn't apply for a teaching position in time so wasn't considered for one. She was paid her teaching position salary anyway despite not teaching for that semester.

Her scholarship funding was slightly delayed due to the fact that she hadn't applied for it in time. She got the scholarship funding anyway, although it was slightly delayed due to her not following the process.

The court ordered Rachel to pay the college's costs. She appealed and the initial ruling was upheld.

I am completely confused by the whole trans issue..I am close to someone who identifies as gender fluid. This means, for them, switching from masculine to feminine as they feel. They have talked at length about their confused feelings about this, their desire to stop, feelings of powerlessness, deep shame etc. I feel.a lot.of empathy for them and for their pain.

However, I find the whole concept of transgender (gender or race) to be utterly confusing. I am a woman. I know own I am a woman. But I don't feel that is my defining character. I am a person who is female. I cannot understand what it means to feel me gender unless I describe it in terms of biological functions or social roles. I fee the disadvantages amd advantages or being female- but they are social/work based for the most part..I dont really 'feel' my race or ethnicity, probably because I have white privilege so don't notice. So what the heck does it mean to feel an identity that is differnt to ones biologo?

What I do object to, after having spent time with people who identify as transgender, is the narrow definition that they place on what it means to be a woman. By this is mean i have met very few pre and post transition people but lots of gender fluidity or crossdressers and drag artists. For most CDs I have met, the presentation of female dress varies from glam to slutty, and is often more slutty. The behaviours they perceive as feminine are shopping, gossiping, bitchy comments and very sexualised..favourite conversation I overheard was how feminine one feel s when sitting with legs crossed allowing one high heel to almost fall off and to swing the leg. As women do. What fricking women do this in real life. Also many cds temd to be very passive when prrsenring female, to be helpless to some extent..I have also heard them being so happy with being patronised because it means they actually pass. It is quite insulting to see my gender reduced to trite stereotype. Vacuous is not a synonym for female.

Given all of that l (and I have not even started on the narcissism and selfishness of the treatment of loved ones) it is difficult to support trans.

The trans issue also reinforces gender as a binary and forces these gender scripts because 'I am am woman if if we're x and do y' is a very reductive treatment of gender. I presume the same is true of trans ethnicity?

My hesitation with dismissing trans outright is that it is real for the person experiencing their identity..so I end as confused as I began!

Excuse the million typos

What Rachel didn't do was argue that her interpretation of "black" was more valid than those "cisblack". She didn't dominate the narrative, threaten, have lobby groups back her. She, in her own offensive way, was trying to help and support the group she identified with. She didn't attemp to tear them down, nor did she make their needs and thoughts subservient to hers.

That's where her cultural appropriation differs from the gender appropriation which is dominant at the moment.

Yes @suenahmi, I personally find that reductive steriotype of women as offensive as blacking up and jazz hands.

"She didn't 'pretend' to be black to steal a job. "

She wore fake tan and permed her hair!

Interesting. I started a thread about this a couple of years go. The general feeling was that I was not only transphobic for questioning whether people could change their sex but also racist for comparing it to wanting to change be your race, which was judged to be impossible and deeply offensive.

She didn't attemp to tear them down, nor did she make their needs and thoughts subservient to hers.

Not she didn't. But she did lead them to believe she understood their experiences. Which she didn't.

@kateDaniels2, I agree, her behaviour was awful. I just don't get why she has been treated this way, when other people who are going down the self identify route, but for gender are lauded. Despite horrific behaviour. She was wrong, but she isn't being handed women if the year awards despite killing someone in her car.