Transracial vs transgender

[samsalmon]

Apologies if this has been covered here before.

I watched the Netflix doc The Rachel Divide on Rachel Dolezal. Very glad I did, there is so much more to her story than I realised, eg awful family background allegedly, the adopted siblings and so on. To this day, she is adamant about her identity, despite the fact that she has virtually no support and it has ruined her life.

As background, I am GC but open to all discussing all ideas, not white and have close friends who are trans identifying or have trans identifying kids. The difference, if any, between the concepts of transracial ( for want of a better term) and transgender if very interesting to me and I’m guessing that as the discussion on this is ongoing in the US, it will eventually reach us here.

The main opinion, certainly as expressed on the internet since the whole Rachel Dolezal affair is that transgender is ‘just how we are’ and that being transgender has a genetic component which is only just being discovered, therefore it’s all OK. On the other hand, race is a social construct that we should be rejecting, and identifying into a race is not acceptable (also as those in some races have no way of identifying out of their race).

I do find the whole notion of being born in the wrong body completely offensive and really very problematic, having said that, I do believe in bodily autonomy as a very fundamental principle. I come from a community where the majority of people are really proud to be who they are and we don’t as a group feel particularly held back. However, there are some, including a close family member, who would be tempted to change their race if they could, if there was a pill, they’d take it. I find that horrifying but that’s how they feel.

My brain is fried over this and I’d be glad to hear any thoughts, there are some really knowledgeable people on here. As I say, I think the discussion if headed our way. Alternatively, if this has been covered before, a pointer to the relevant thread would be appreciated! TIA.

but gender is a social construct invented by John Money in the 1940s.

and what is a gender stereotype varies between cultures, race is also about cultures not just physical appearance.

I see zero difference, if you accept one you must accept the other and then go further accepting those who think their trats align with certain animals more then humans and want to be those animals.

Gender is a social construct too. No difference imo. As pp said, it won't be long before people identity as a certain animal.....oh wait..thats happening now albeit in the fetishism circles

There's no consistent logic here - it's just people working backwards to create a justification for the already-position held by their peer group.

And the different positions require different arguments, or things to be just made up (like "a genetic component which is only just being discovered").

What's acceptable and what isn't - that's a social construct.

My own instinct too is that there is no difference, it’s where my brain goes as a non-white person. What I’m shocked by is how far this debate has got in the US and how entrenched that position is - transgender great and ok, transracial totally unacceptable and offensive. How have they got that far if both gender and race are a social construct? Are we ready to be clear about this when the debate reaches these shores on the same scale?

What interests me also is the almost complete lack of language to describe the transgender and transracial person (aka race faker in the US). We have seen how the definitions of woman become circular, ‘a woman is anyone who says they are a woman’. Insert any other word instead of ‘woman’ and the thing is a nonsense. There is literally no attempt whatsoever to attach any defining features, characteristics etc. From that position, it’s not possible to either have any discussion or make any coherent laws. It’s crazy. Watching Rachel Dolezal being interviewed on panel shows, it’s the same. She feels black but has no other words to take the discussion further. How is this possible? We can discuss the most abstract concepts, anything at all including the existence of God, we can put language to it, but not this. No language means no discussion so where do we go?

Sorry that was a digression from the race vs gender topic. I agree about the working backwards things to justify. On a basic level, I wonder where the hordes of suicidal closeted trans kids were when I was growing up in the 80s.

Thanks to you all for engaging, btw.

What is the ‘genetic component’ to being transgender that is only just being discovered?

There is surely a genetic component to what colour you born are even any judgements and assumptions around that are social concepts.

I also see no difference in the two concepts, and I have yet to see anyone successfully argue why people should be able to identify as any gender but not as any race. It seems to me that, logically, you have to accept both or neither.

Sorry that got muddled. I meant say: there is surely a genetic component to what colour you are born even if any judgements and assumptions based on colour are just constructed by society.

When looking at gender vs sex, what's the race comparison? Is the thinking that race is to gender what, say, ethnicity is to sex? I don't really give a fuck what gender people identify as, but have some very strong feelings when people conflate gender with sex. So is it like saying people can "identify as black"?

I would love to know more about this genetic component. How very convenient that would be, “See, you haters, it’s not my feelingz ,it’s my genez. “

I see no difference between the two concepts either. I can understand why people may feel like they want to 'identify out of' their sex or race, but neither are possible.

I watched The Rachel Divide too and found it incredibly sad. I feel very sorry for her, but also fully understand why people of colour feel insulted and disgusted by her claims. 'Black' is not a costume that you get to put on and take off by changing your hairstyle and your skintone, but neither is 'woman' or 'female' and yet many people expect us to just go along with it

I you aware of the Rebecca Tuval / Hypatia controversy? IIRC, she was a philosopher who wrote on a paper on this very subject - pondering what the difference was - and she and the journal got a lot of flak.

As I understand it the controversy was that she simply dared to raise the question...

Has anyone got a reference to any good articles on that?

@NecessaryScene

I you aware of the Rebecca Tuval / Hypatia controversy? IIRC, she was a philosopher who wrote on a paper on this very subject - pondering what the difference was - and she and the journal got a lot of flak.

As I understand it the controversy was that she simply dared to raise the question...

Has anyone got a reference to any good articles on that?

Yes I read about that and was flabbergasted that she got the grief she did. I guess that is where my question came from, how has the debate progressed this far? That was a community of philosophers who came for her 😮 and I’m glad some others were able to support her.

I will also say that I also don’t want to be ‘working backwards’, ie finding or ignoring evidence to justify my own instincts on this.

I think that on this topic we just need to be very very clear and specific, it’s not enough just to say they are the same and that’s it. We need the language to talk about that. I have seen such detailed discussions on this forum, I am hopeful that we can get there.

The genetic thing, I will try and find links or provide pointers. I have no background in science or research and am not qualified to say what is good evidence but I have been sent a link by a friend with a trans identifying child and also read something yesterday when looking around after watching the documentary.

There is no 'genetic component' or biological component to being transgender. And being 'transgender' is not one thing. It may be a feeling of not fitting the cultural stereotypes associated with your sex, it may be an expression of deep psychological distress (stemming from other causes), it may be a sexual fetish. What it isn't is any kind of innate biological phenomenon, there is no 'true trans', only individuals with different explanations of how they have come to their trans identities.
I find the comparison with 'trans race' fascinating. For one thing, race actually is a spectrum, and is much less easily defined than sex. Its totally illogical that 'trans race' is beyond the pale, while 'trans gender' is
I could imagine different types people coming to want to be 'trans race' in the same way that there are different types of people identifying as trans.
I have a lot of sympathy for Rachel Dolezal, as her feelings are clearly genuine, and stem from trauma. But I also have a lot of sympathy for an effeminate little boy brought up in a homophobic environment (particularly with an abusive, homophobic father) who grows up to be a homosexual transwoman. I imagine there are some black people who would take a pill to make them white, as they can see the world would treat them better if they were white, rather like teenage girls developing ROGD.
And given that males will fetishize anything, there are probably men with fetishes about being black. I suspect if there were more of them, there wouldn't be such a difference in social attitudes to the two phenomena.

theconversation.com/how-genes-and-evolution-shape-gender-and-transgender-identity-108911

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm

Fingers crossed these links work.

This is all a different question to how society is expected to respond and mould to our own internal, individual differences.

Most of the "science" here is basically bollocks. If you find something in male brains, it's not female, is it, by definition?

You can see some variations, but they're correlated with sexuality, not transness. Homosexuality is real cross-sex behaviour. But it doesn't make gay men women.

Where you see an correlation with trans, it's due to sexuality. Control for sexuality, it isn't there.

(This is staggeringly unsurprising to me, as observationally it's clear there is some statistical cross-sex behaviour in homosexuals, but heterosexual trans people couldn't be more extreme in behaving like their own sex.)

There was some stuff on this via Emma Hilton the other day:
twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1496190823226089479

If you ever wanted to know why sexuality needs to be confounded for in studies on transgender individuals, then this study perfect illustrates this

The only time trans people show sex atypical cerebral differentiation is when the cohort is homosexual.

(That got the author suspended from Twitter for hateful conduct!)

Some science stuff on gender dysphoria:

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1496193962901659662

Transgender individuals have been shown to have weaker structural and functional connectivity within the “default mode network (DMN)” of the brain, which is vital in body perception/image and concepts about “the self”.

@NecessaryScene

Most of the "science" here is basically bollocks. If you find something in male brains, it's not female, is it, by definition?

You can see some variations, but they're correlated with sexuality, not transness. Homosexuality is real cross-sex behaviour. But it doesn't make gay men women.

Where you see an correlation with trans, it's due to sexuality. Control for sexuality, it isn't there.

(This is staggeringly unsurprising to me, as observationally it's clear there is some statistical cross-sex behaviour in homosexuals, but heterosexual trans people couldn't be more extreme in behaving like their own sex.)

There was some stuff on this via Emma Hilton the other day:
twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1496190823226089479

If you ever wanted to know why sexuality needs to be confounded for in studies on transgender individuals, then this study perfect illustrates this

The only time trans people show sex atypical cerebral differentiation is when the cohort is homosexual.

(That got the author suspended from Twitter for hateful conduct!)

Some science stuff on gender dysphoria:

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1496193962901659662

Transgender individuals have been shown to have weaker structural and functional connectivity within the “default mode network (DMN)” of the brain, which is vital in body perception/image and concepts about “the self”.

Thank you, I’m going to look into all that when I have more time this afternoon, I appreciate it.

OP
On a basic level, I wonder where the hordes of suicidal closeted trans kids were when I was growing up in the 80s.

well, exactly. This, and the very strange epidemiology of the trans phenomenon (affecting vastly more teenage girls than boys, and yet middle aged female transitioners are very rare), strongly supports that this is a cultural phenomena, not a biological one.

@ReeseWitherfork

When looking at gender vs sex, what's the race comparison? Is the thinking that race is to gender what, say, ethnicity is to sex? I don't really give a fuck what gender people identify as, but have some very strong feelings when people conflate gender with sex. So is it like saying people can "identify as black"?

If gender = stereotypes/a social construct, then surely the equivalence would be sex is to race what gender is to racial stereotypes (which obv vary across cultures and can be positive or negative). So e.g. being bad at dancing/not moisturising ones legs = white. But I think you have to be a bit careful because although a lot of "gender difference" is socially constructed (girls are all sugar and spice and wear pink), it isn't always (women are much less likely to commit violent crime than men) and some of the differences are a little bit down to inherent sex difference and a little bit down to socialisation and people will argue till the cows come home about what is what. So you can get dragged into an endless nurture V nature debate. Whereas with race, there is no inherent difference in (e.g.) propensity to violence etc etc that is down to nature. So the perceived difference is much more socially constructed (basic racism) or maybe culturally specific - white South Africans during apartheid being violent to black men because they could get away with it/thought it was OK. Which in some ways makes it stranger that one can identify as a different sex but not a different race. But also, if you are not careful its the kind of thing that can be twisted round "its racist to argue X race is more violent than Y so its just as prejudiced to suggest men are more violent than women" etc etc.

“@DrDinosaur

OP
On a basic level, I wonder where the hordes of suicidal closeted trans kids were when I was growing up in the 80s.

well, exactly. This, and the very strange epidemiology of the trans phenomenon (affecting vastly more teenage girls than boys, and yet middle aged female transitioners are very rare), strongly supports that this is a cultural phenomena, not a biological one.“

In regard to the trans phenomenon increasingly affecting teenage girls, the following offers some insights into how cultural the influences are on them.

By Any Other Name - by Helena - prude posting

lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name?utm_source=url
lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name?utm_campaign=post&utm_source=url

I went on some training once that talked about race as what is imposed in someone based on their appearance and ethnicity as more like a cultural identity. I think though that your ethnicity is usually closely linked to your race and it is rightly not acceptable to identify as an ethnicity where you don't have that cultural background or experience as being treated as that race/ethnicity.
I'm sceptical about the biological basis for transgender stuff. It reminds me of all those scientists who used to say women's brains were 'hard-wired' for child-rearing/cleaning/ironing.

There is no genetic component.

There are people frantically trying to twist things far enough to find one but the sole aim really is to permit male people to have whatever they want without female people getting to argue back. That's it. That's all. That's the bottom line.

Hold on to your hat for trans-age. It will come. It will be inarguable because of the appalling precedents that appallingly stupid people have permitted to happen on their watch, and anyone who thinks happiness and rainbows and glitter will lie in the future of all this is even stupider than the politicians are.

The difference is that ALL people of colour have gone "whoa, not having that" whereas a lot of women/men have accepted transgender.

Well indeed because if transgender is ok, why not trans anything? Trans age could totally make sense and be explained, probably a lot more easily than transgender. The trans race (or trans ethnicity) is just so mad. Still very confused about the dissonance in the debate in the US and wondering what I may have missed.

I do appreciate everyone’s thoughts. I am going to keep reading the ‘science’ if I come across it, just so I can think about it and rebut more effectively.

I’m meeting up with a young friend who identifies as NB and who has been upset by some of my SM posts, I am looking forward to the chat, because the thing (out of all the things) that pisses me off most about this whole shitshow is ‘no debate’. I’ll debate where I get the opportunity, every time.

There was someone who was trans age. A middle aged man of 6. It was on a thread on mumsnet a while back.