LBC now - topic is questioning whether transgenderism is logically the same as transitioning from white to black

[chocciechocface]

Just letting you know ....

It's all about the chromosomes!

www.goodreads.com/book/show/42042093-superior The return of Race Science.

And also www.goodreads.com/book/show/31869108-Inferior, How Science got Women wrong

On my list of books to read..

Is there an actual biological difference between races?

I think this is quite good on race:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4tLGJxdLg1zxKYl5v5B9wPc/five-racist-myths-debunked

If men and women were treated exactly the same, and there was no such thing as patriarchal control, there wouldn't be such a problem.

I don't think that is true.

Men just don't need things that women need like contraception. A man has always been able to deal with an unwanted pregnancy by simply walking away.

I can imagine a world where race is completely irrelevant. I can't imagine a world where sex is completely irrelevant.

Sex is analogous to human geographical variation. Gender is analogous to race.

So there is variation between people based on where in the world there ancestors are from.

There are differences in skin tone based on climate. This gives people with darker skin a greater risk of vitamin d deficiency and people with lighter skin a greater risk of skin cancer.

There is a genetic difference that makes some groups more prone to sickle cell anaemia but less prone to malaria.

There are genetic differences in South America which mean that some groups can carry a baby to term at altitudes at which European ancestry women would miscarry.

This is different to being able to put people into distinct racial groups. Hence the constant confusion between race and ethnicity and different cultures having different groupings for race and ethnicity.

An issue online is often that European ideas of race and ethnicity are different to American ones, which causes arguments online, because people view their social constructs as universal, when they are not.

An issue online is often that European ideas of race and ethnicity are different to American ones, which causes arguments online, because people view their social constructs as universal, when they are not.

We also tend to talk about race in general terms like 'Black' and 'Chinese' as though 1.4 billion Chinese people and everyone whose ancestors come from the African continent is genetically homogenous.

23 and me add to the confusion by implying that they are tracing your genetic history, when in fact they are just comparing your DNA to other people who are alive now and grouping it accordingly.

You can be mixed race
(half Jamaican, half Indian)

You cannot be mixed sex
(if you have a Y chromosome you are not female)

Yes, both of those are really good point.

People want to believe in 23 and me and similar companies, because it is a vanity product. But it is giving a really false idea of ancestry and ethnicity.

There is massive variation between people from different parts of Africa, far more than between Europeans, but they all get lumped together as black.

Yes and 23andme only have data from other people who have chosen to do the test so in some areas I expect their sample size is very small.

Well, not exactly - 23 and me and other such companies (Ancestry.com etc) began with ancestry marked dna sequencing in the public domain. Really good representative Scientific studies. And They are constantly updating their data with new studies.

Ancestry Estimates from these companies are based primarily on these “gold standard” data rather than self reported “race“ Of participants and largely agree with academic research. sometimes they don’t agree on details as they may put different data into their models.

Also Ancestry studies now include Evidence from long-dead humans which largely validated prior ancestry inferences from living human genomes.

Then how are these companies able to tell people they have Irish or British DNA when the two nationalities are not genetically distinguishable?

@Datun

Isn't the main similarity the oppression aspect?

If men and women were treated exactly the same, and there was no such thing as patriarchal control, there wouldn't be such a problem.

The same with racism. If it didn't exist between blacks and whites, the power dynamic, which in this case allows a white person to identify into the oppressed group, wouldn't exist.

It's less to do with proving the actual, physical differences, than understanding how the differences manifest in a power dynamic.

Everyone is extremely aware of the power balance in racism. It's an incredibly prevalent topic. Hence the outrage of people like Rachel Dolezal.

And although the power dynamic between men and women is, of course, recognised, it's not got the traction that should have, and it's in the interests of half the population to keep it going. By normalising it.

It's interesting in this case re oppression. The woman involved is Jewish. A very oppressed group over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. She's white but not all Jews are. They have genetic susceptibility to certain illnesses - whatever their skin colour (not all Jews are white). There was a Mumsnet thread a while back (either AIBu or coronavirus) discussing whether Jewish people are BAME or not. It's worth noting that many far right racists don't see Jews as white.

Thanks for the BBC link @merrymouse
What it says makes a lot of sense to me.
Like it says, we human beings are likely to be mixed race wise over thousands of years. I think it's less clear biologically, certain going by skin colour only, than sex.

I'm not defending this woman taking funding aimed at supporting black people btw. It's just confusing seeing the outrage over this but not over gender identity. If someone can be trans gender, surely someone else can be trans race?

@merrymouse

If men and women were treated exactly the same, and there was no such thing as patriarchal control, there wouldn't be such a problem.

I don't think that is true.

Men just don't need things that women need like contraception. A man has always been able to deal with an unwanted pregnancy by simply walking away.

I can imagine a world where race is completely irrelevant. I can't imagine a world where sex is completely irrelevant.

Yes I agree the biological differences are relevant in terms of the actual biology. Which is why I said there wouldn't be such a problem. I don't think all the problems would disappear.

But many of them would. For instance the positive discrimination that women require in order to gain the same power that men have.

It's a moot point, really, because I can't see it happening. But many of the issues with men identifying into womanhood arise because of the power dynamic, rather than the actual biological differences.

Sexism occurs because of the power dynamic.

Which is why sometimes, for me, talking about the difference in the biological sexes, chromosomes, hormones, etc, isn't the issue. It's the problems that arise out of those sex differences.

Well, not exactly - 23 and me and other such companies (Ancestry.com etc) began with ancestry marked dna sequencing in the public domain.

It's still based on comparing your DNA to other people, not tracing your ancestors. They can't check whether your great x 10 grandmother was a Viking. All they can say is that your DNA is similar to that of many people living in Scandinavian countries now.

Genetic inheritance doesn't split equally as you travel along the family tree. We know that Obama is related to the Queen and Brad Pitt, but that doesn't mean it would be possible to prove that with a DNA test because the common ancestor is about 10 generations ago.

On the other hand DNA tests have shown some white supremacists that their ancestry is not as 'pure' as they thought, and we know that the nature of slavery means that its not unusual for descendants of African American slaves (including Michelle Obama) to have white ancestry.

Like it says, we human beings are likely to be mixed race wise over thousands of years

It depends on what you see as "race". I don't think that these days, we would count the French, Spanish, Belgians, Italians, British, Irish as being different races. They are all considered "white".

But "white" isn't a race. Most European white people are probably mixed race if you go back far enough,

My DCs are half Welsh, half Irish, so technically, mixed race. But I wouldn't class them as mixed race on any form, I'd tick the "white-British" box.

People send off dna samples to try to find out about their 'race', or their dog's breed ... but afaik they don't seem to need to do this to work out what sex they are.

@ChattyLion

Do they have listen again links on LBC? These are important and revealing questions.

I had a listen this morning (here in Texas). I was disappointed in the callers. They didn't seem to have thought about the issue deeply, which made the discussion very repetitive -- except for "Phoebe" towards the end. Applause to you if you're reading this!

The issue isn't necessarily about every biological detail of difference but the fact that people are discriminated against on account of a biological reality ie race and sex.

That is why claiming you are a woman because you "feel" you are has no equivilance to women growing up and experiencing daily reactions and treatment of them because of their sex. And ditto race.

To have someone who is part of the oppressing group claim that just through identifying they are somehow not part of the inherent privilege of being part of the dominant sex or race class is dishonest and a fabrication.

This was really interesting. To me the callers highlighted just how little people understand JKRs argument. Most people haven't explored the issues and acknowledged how complex it is and instead they've just accepted the line that JKR is transphobic. The problem with this whole issue is that if very so full of nuance and many people like to sort things into easy to understand black and white boxes that don't allow for that. Often I guess because they don't have the time to research it properly.

To have someone who is part of the oppressing group
Slight derail but sort of relevant. She's (now identifying as) Jewish. A group (that includes all skin tones) very much an ^oppressed group over thousands of years. She's also currently identifying as a woman. Again, an oppressed^ group over thousands of years.

I and my siblings are white skinned, although our great great grandmother was black. Despite my skin colour, the official law in other times and places would have forbidden me to own land or to marry a white man, because of that evidenced heritage. I certainly have an interest and romantic fondness for this ancestor of mine and what her story may have been, and I know of some members of the family in previous generations who rejected her memory and tried to cover up her existence, including destroying pictures and records.

Do I have the faintest idea of what it is to be alive in a body that isn't white? No. Not the foggiest. I've never experienced racial prejudice in my life and never will, because the plain fact is I am white. That is my fact, it is what it is.

I could, theoretically, explain that my race is on a spectrum, and I could explain my sense of identity as a black person inside, and my feelings and other things that are all about me and the importance of me- and whatever germ of reality may be in that, it would be outrageously insensitive and offensive to someone who is black and whose reality is living in that body without it being a choice under their control, and who has the lived experience that white people cannot share in. They can read about it, think about it, emotionally get involved with it, embrace the language and culture they feel connected to, but it's a romantic third hand experience of what they believe it may be like.

Incidentally the choices around race often appear to be 'I want to be part of', more than 'I want to suppress and replace'. Which sometimes is not the case around sex. Interesting to reflect on.

As a side note: if race and sex are choices, age will have to be too. That is inevitable.

Sheep interesting indeed.

There are ethical questions about whether it should be acceptable to identify into a group that cannot choose to identify out of their oppression.

Trevor Noah made some interesting points about Kamala Harris not being 'black enough recently....

twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1296282569953234945?s=20

If we're unhappy about letting people identify into a group that can't identify out of their oppression, them m to f transition is problematic as well as white to black.

If self ID is acceptable for sex, it follows that race and age should be next. Ultimately, anyone could self ID into an age, sex and race group that qualifies them for special consideration for job interviews, for example or educational scholarships. What about mediocre athletes using self ID to compete in Paralympic games? What's to stop them once that self ID door is kicked in? If one group can have special privileges or exemptions because of a particular characteristic, why can't we all?

The sooner the whole thing implodes under its own weight, the better.

Think of the craziness that kicked off with people taking 'therapy' animals onto planes: pigs, peacocks and probably peccaries too for all I know. The airlines had to call a halt because it became a challenge to some people to see how far they could push the thing.

A thing like this peaks when enough people are brave enough to say, "You're taking the piss now - enough!'