Transracial vs Transgender?

[ANewNameANewDay]

I've been on MN for yonks but haven't wandered across this board too much, so apologies if this has been done before.

I recently saw a video of a podcast where a Black woman is interviewing a "transracial" White man who has altered his physical appearance to look Asian. The man fully identifies as the latter ethnicity, complete with monolid surgery and braided hair (?) to authenticate himself.

The woman openly states that this is problematic in that it undermines the struggles of minority ethnicities by glorifying what is merely a caricature of their identities. I absolutely agree with her.

So why are we openly accepting transgender ideology whilst simultaneously recognising that transracial ideology is absolutely nuts - despite the foundations of both being identical? Why are more people not drawing the same comparisons? (If they are, help me find them!)

The comments of the video agreed wholeheartedly with the woman on the podcast however no one seemed to be questioning the read-across in the trans debate (fear of being "cancelled" perhaps)? Is this just the world we live in now?

And where do we draw the line? Is the University of Cambridge obligated to give me a degree because I identify as a doctor of medicine? Can I pick up someone else's child because I identify as their parent? Rock up to the euro finals because I identify as the England captain?

It's nuts. I'll definitely be spending some time reading through the wealth of threads on this board to educate myself further but holy smokes has this pissed me off!

I will wait with you OP. This oft asked question has not been answered outside of ‘it just is’ or shaming the questioner in my experience.

Is the person you are talking about Oli London?

There are several threads about Oli. here is just one.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4287703-Transracial-Oli-London

So why are we openly accepting transgender ideology whilst simultaneously recognising that transracial ideology is absolutely nuts - despite the foundations of both being identical? Why are more people not drawing the same comparisons? (If they are, help me find them!)

People now are vacuous.

There are different types of 'trans' people trying to gain legitimacy, but currently only one type has managed to obtain wholesale blind acceptance and reverence in a way that isn't warranted considering how the other types are treated with disbelief, mockery and contempt.

There are people who profess a deep need to identify as a different age. See Stefonknee Wolscht and some other guy who went to court whose name escapes me right now.

There are (perfectly healthy) people who profess a deep need to identify as amputees/disabled. The phenomenon is known as apotemnophilia.
Read this article about them - www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/

As you mention there are people who profess a deep need to identify as a different 'race' like Oli London and Rachael Dolezal.

And of course there are those who identify as the opposite sex.

There are also some that identify as a different species.

The irony is that 'transracial' is the only category out of all the above that is the most believable or more likely to be legitimate. Your age, sex, species and presence/absence of body parts are purely objective, easily verifiable facts about oneself.
Race, on the other hand, is very much an arbitrary and artificial notion. While sometimes it is obvious certain people are clearly not the 'race' they claim to be - white European ancestry but trying to pass as South Korean or black - it can actually be quite a difficult claim to refute because human ancestry is very mixed and diverse. It is far more ambiguous than any of the other types.

I’ve just looked at the Twitter link above and surprisingly, if you scroll down a bit, he appears to be on team 🦖.

Because Transgenderism is largely based on societal expectations of what a man or a woman should be or how they should act, so it follows that people feel alienated by stereotypes and assume they're something else. Obviously that's a generalisation, but there are certainly deeply ingrained social structures that would lead to people feeling trapped in the wrong 'gender' or in fact sex. We also know certain things about hormone levels etc that can effect how masculine or feminine an individual feels. So wether we agree with it or not, we are somewhat aware of what has caused this phenomenon. Trans racial is just daft, as there is no societal structures that would lead someone to believe they are a Nigerian trapped in a Slovakians body.

Transracialism and transgender is absolutely the same thing.
Drag is also Womanface

"people feeling trapped in the wrong 'gender' or in fact sex. "

I thought we weren't allowed to say "trapped in the wrong body" anymore.

If we can, I am 1960s Sophia Loren trapped in the wrong body.

I am not talking about the 'costume' to appear as another.

Women are not functionally different from any other man on the planet. Neither are men functionally different from any other man on the planet. Whereas women are functionally different from men. And, vice versa. This is the whole raison d'être of there being two sexes.

On the other hand, many people have mixed and varied heritage.

I would genuinely like to know if it's possible to identify as European. I was raised European, I feel very strongly that I am still European, I did not consent to now being identified as not European.

So, with that in mind, can I have my European passport, right to work and freedom of movement back please?

First line correction: Women are not functionally different from any other woman on the planet.

Trans = womanface?

I think there's been a lot of fuss about race also. With race there's a lot more history and facts to back up a solid argument people definitely are vocal about cultural appropriation but to claim Transracial is the last straw (literally).

Lot of British people have passports from EU countries. Mixed and varied ancestry, or/and residency.

Feelings by themselves don't cut the mustard, though.

Northern Irish people are eligible for an Irish passport in a way those in GB aren't; subject to terms and conditions, as they say.

Totally agree OP, I've often wondered this. It's madness.

@GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal Britain is still part of Europe, just not in the EU anymore so you are still European.

Feelings by themselves don't cut the mustard, though.

but apparently we are supposed to believe that feelings are enough to allow people access into spaces into which they do not belong.

money is a social construct, as are age and race. If gender is also a social construct, why are people allowed to change gender but not age or the value of money. If I feel like a millionaire, am I entitled to claim my money is the value I say it is, whatever reality says?

I've heard gender identity theorists say that the opposite sex claim is legitimate because "trans people have existed through history". They usually use examples of people who dressed in traditionally opposite sex clothing as proof. Disregarding the obvious fact that historically society was much more regimented. Joan of Arc wasn't "really a man" because she wore short hair and trousers. They never mention that she wouldn't not have been allowed to do what she did if she didn't "dress like a man". But I digress.

The same people who point to an imagined longevity of trans will often alo point to the medical industrial complex and argue "look at all these treatments, it must be legit. Drs don't make billions from do trans race treatments so that must not be a thing".

The other argument I've seen is around oppression. White people are the oppressors and we oppress everyone else. We therefore aren't allowed to say we're a different race because we would be claiming oppression that does not belong to us. It doesn't seem to occur to them to take that thought process to its logical conclusion, and consider how oppression works between the sexes and whether someone in the oppressor class can elbow their way into the oppressed class (or vice versa). I've never heard them try to explain why a person with black or brown skin can't be white.

Some will argue that sex categories are so fuzzy that we can't possibly define them. The same people never seem to explicitly explain why that means trans-race can't be a thing. Even though those categories can be genuinely fuzzy and hard to draw a clear line around.

Tldr: they will say there's a long history of trans. Medicalisation makes transgender legit. White people oppress other races (I assume they don't believe women as a class are oppressed by men as aclass). Sex is hard to define (presumably they think race is easy). Sorry I can't reference this, it's just what I've seen over the last few years I've been reading up.

I've started re-reading Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay's "Cynical theories". It's a useful insight into the mindset of those who believe that humanity is nothing but a hierarchy of various identities of different degrees of marginalisation. There are rules about who can identify as what. They are quite complex and they are essentially theological, not scientific or philosophical. And they change all the time, with the volatile capriciousness of fashion. They depend on beliefs about power, about language as a tool of oppression, about knowledge as a construct in the service of power. The criterion of rightness is strategic utility, not anything as wishywashy as reason, sufficiency of evidence or anything like that.

"Identity" as a concept has no precise, identifiable meaning. While everything OP says is true and well expressed, in the extraordinary dreamworld of identity politics it has no value.

If you're a minority race, you're taught from a young age to be proud of it and defend the struggles of your ancestors, and rightly so.

If you're a woman, you're taught to be kind and accommodating and aware of/put the needs of others first.

That might be oversimplified, but I really think that's the crux of it. Transracial will never gain traction because its rightly seen as highly offensive, and people of actual minority race defend their history of oppression very strongly. Women as a whole do not and its seen as okay to mock, roll your eyes and threaten women who try.

"Feelings by themselves don't cut the mustard, though."

But why not, if a man's feelings that he's actually a woman are enough for him to be recognised as one and get access to women's spaces? I have more claim to be European, surely, as I was, at the time of my birth, European?

Why can't I be transeuropean? (Tongue somewhat, but not entirely, in cheek).

It's simple

The transracial issue affects men as well as women

The transgender issue affects women's rights, mostly

Women's rights are not as important as rights of men who want to be women.

But with trans racial rights it is different men can be affected by this, and against it, too

So that won't be allowed

there is no societal structures that would lead someone to believe they are a Nigerian trapped in a Slovakians body

Plainly wrong. Nationality is a social construct. Of course a Nigerian can become a Slovakian. The 'societal structures ' you suggest don't exist are things like language, culture, dress, mannerisms and religion. All of which can be learned, changed, etc

That's such a good point. Trans anything other than gender impacts male people.

It's probably a numbers thing too.

People who identify as a different race / age or as disabled really are a tiny minority and it's unlikely anyone has come across these people IRL.

People who identify as a different sex were a tiny minority until very recently.