From Jenner to Dolezal

[Chiochan]

Interesting if quite high brow article comparing the two.
One of the points he makes quite early on may explain why the policing of public decent from gender idology is so important for their movement.

Hope this link works.
www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/15/jenner-dolezal-one-trans-good-other-not-so-much

Great article

Interestingly article - thanks for sharing - I mentioned the Rachel D case to my husband while trying to explain my current ‘obsession’ with women’s rights but didn’t have the intellectual confidence to push the point but this has helped enormously. He hates talking about the trans issue and doesn’t believe it is as big and immediate issue as I’m making out (he is a lovely lovely person but comes from a good and traditional place and can’t see why men would want to pretend to be women and thinks any examples I give are fringe extremes eg from the gutter press etc). I’m currently putting together a written summary of the situation for him to digest as an alternative approach.

Good article from Adolph Reed Jr.

°the claim that Dolezal’s identity is false and transgendered people’s are true immediately provokes a "Who says?" What makes Talusan’s and other transgender people’s identities authentic is that they believe them to be authentic. We agree to accept transgender people’s expression of belief in their authenticity. It’s fine for Talusan or others to say that they are convinced that the identities they embrace are their real ones in some way that is not limited by their biology at birth. However, the logic of the pluralism and open-endedness of identity they assert would require that they also accept the self-reports of claims to authenticity regarding identities that may diverge in other ways from convention. Certainly, not doing so necessitates some justification more persuasive—and less Archie Bunkerish—than simply asserting "Mine is genuine, theirs is not." The voluntary/involuntary criterion isn’t even sophistry; it’s just bullshit.^

Ugh sorry, format fail.

Have started reading and will finish later. I really love these 'dig deep' pieces, they are so intelligently thought through.

I haven't read the article completely yet but I'll post this interesting YouTube discussion on the subject: Trevor Phillips on identity politics.

In this case, it's a white man identifying as black and who won a £100000 grant set aside for black artists. He claims to be a "born-again African".

The video discussion brings up the old slogan, "race is just a social construct" (and one of the women on the panel repeats). Then as now I think that only the woke white could ever say that, just as only the woke white say "I don't see race" or "I'm racially blind."

The comparison with transgenderism is perfectly valid.

In both cases, only the more powerful group (white people and men) can identify out of their group and be taken seriously.

A black man or woman announcing that he/she "identifies as white" would be laughed out of media and mocked... in the same way that transmen (ie women) don't have any of the clout that transwomen (men) do in convincing the world that they are valid.

Similarly, Dolezal was universally mocked, and her claims rejected -- yet this guy wins a grant by claiming to be African. Oh, the misogyny...

Trevor Phillips is thankfully outspoken on the issue.

Being transgender used to be a mental illness - it was caused by gender dysphoria. You could legitimately say that being trans racial isn’t a condition so isn’t a “thing” in the way transgenderism is a thing. But this paradigm has long gone. Now what makes someone trans is their inner feelings and their personal beliefs about their identity. If being trans is all about letting people “be themselves” it becomes very difficult to rationally justify a limit to this. If I feel black, or French, Or six years old why shouldn’t I identify as these things and get this recognised?

A black man or woman announcing that he/she "identifies as white" would be laughed out of media and mocked...

Why is it that a person with dual heritage, one black parent and one white parent, can identify as black, but cannot identify as white? Is it about society's perception of them? Would it be different if they were in, say, Botswana?

I haven't read the full article yet but the bit about the doctor 'announcing the gender' but not the race of a newborn made my jaw drop.

If you didn't find out the sex of your baby before the birth this will be an unknown. A random, 52/48 chance (I think the figures are). The doctor's announcement or whatever fills in an information gap.
I'm pregnant at the moment and already know what race it's going to be! And Jesus Christ if the doctor announced it in the delivery room how rude would that be?! If it was the race everyone expected then it's just stupid unnecessary information and if it was a complete shock or not what was expected making an announcement of that too would be awful.
I mean Jesus does the person who made that arguement live in the real world? Imagine announcing a baby's race that would just be awful.

@JellySlice

A black man or woman announcing that he/she "identifies as white" would be laughed out of media and mocked...

Why is it that a person with dual heritage, one black parent and one white parent, can identify as black, but cannot identify as white? Is it about society's perception of them? Would it be different if they were in, say, Botswana?

It goes back to the "one-drop-rule". www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-eye-the-beholder/201104/the-one-drop-rule-how-black-is-black

Back in the day, anyone who had even a drop of "black" blood, say, a great-grandmother who was a slave, was tainted and considered black, even if you looked white. It would be a huge thing -- and if it was uncovered that you had such a great-granny, it would spoil your marriage prospects and destroy your social standing. A touch of the tarbrush was the going insult.

In my country, white was the dominant culture, even though they were just a tiny minority, and the superior culture, at the top of the multi-racial hierarchy. But you could not just claim whiteness, and you still can't. I'm not from Botswana, but a mixed-race person in my country cannot just "identify" as white and get away with it perhaps if their skin was indeed lily-white and no-one suspected the touch of the tar-brush it might work.

Growing up in a black-majority country, I witnessed and experienced a lot of this as a child. In a way I did identify as white: all the books I read had exclusively white characters, I knew English and American white culture as well as my own (because of books and movies, which were all about whites), the schools I went to were always majority white private schools (my parents' choice) and I always "felt" I was the same as my white friends, no different at all except for the fact that I carried around a deep sense of inferiority. Because my skin colour still identified me as "other", and I was made acutely aware of this.

In the end you cannot identify into more privilege. That has to be granted you by the privileged group, and that hasn't happened. White is still the privileged group, even 60 years after civil rights struggles.

I haven't read the full article yet but the bit about the doctor 'announcing the gender' but not the race of a newborn made my jaw drop.

Even if doctors/midwives stopped "announcing" the sex gender of a baby, the parents would soon know!!! We all have eyes. We don't really need this announcement -- just that is it's an exciting surprise, or used to be, unlike race.

The "one-drop" rule that could destroy a person's life is nicely portrayed in the 1957 film Island in the Sun. It has several big names: James Dean, Harry Belafonte, Joan Rivers, Dorothy Dandridge. And Harry B. is always good to see and listen to! You couldn't make this movie these days.

On Youtube:

^ Sorry, not James Dean, James Mason.