Why can't I claim I'm black or disabled, but can claim I'm a bloke?

[SirChenjins]

I'm none of the above btw...

I realise that sounds flippant and I genuinely don't mean it to be. Can someone please explain in simple terms (I'm still very much learning about the whole gender issue so realise I should probably know this) why I can't claim to be any of the other protected characteristics (and rightly so - because I'm not) but somehow we've got to a stage where I can call myself Mr Dave and everyone is expected to go along with it? Are we likely to see more cases of people challenging the other protected characteristics as time goes on?

Nationality is as much a social construct as gender where as race has an immutable scientific basis like sex.

This isn’t as true as you think it is. Race is absolutely not a coherent biological category in the way sex is.

You cannot determine a person’s ethnicity from their DNA like you can their sex. All the services claiming to provide ethnicity estimates are actually just matching your genes up with those found in their reference population.

Skin colour or eye shape or whatever have significant genetic components, but they don’t fall into nice, neat racial categories.

Why? Because the world has gone insane!

Bizarrely enough, you can identify as disabled you aren’t. It’s called being transabled and is much like being transgender in the sense that those who identify as transabled can be diagnosed with BIID (body integrity identify disorder)

Those with BIID claim to ‘feel’ disabled in some way and often feel that certain body parts don’t belong to them. Many seek medical intervention to amputate said body parts
But will use disabled facilities/wheelchairs etc prior to any amputation.

By the same standards anyone could presumably claim to be unable to see or hear, if no medical cause could be found it would be diagnosed as a psychological disorder.

it’s obviously much harder to present as a different race/ethnicity but no doubt there are cosmetic procedures available if people look hard enough.

People are trying it on and the world is saying "yes that's fine"

More than ok apparently. Very fashionable, and marketable. And, of course, stunning and brave

I used to work with someone who was visibly black (mixed heritage) but who felt white because she grew up not knowing her dad, her mum was white, her nan was white, her siblings were white (different dad), she had no black influences or people in her life growing up and didnt really identify with people of colour. That may well change as she goes through life, most of us have different feelings about our heritage.

But there is no difference between someone adopting a completely different /opposite identity in terms of ethnicity/disability to someone claiming they are a woman or a man when they are the opposite sex.

Wasnt there a debate about this on German TV at some point where someone was asking why this wasnt appropriate and claiming the opposite sex is appropriate and the trans advocate couldnt answer that?

I'm fine with a white person identifying as black.

The issue comes when (1) they expect other people to think that they are really black, or things like, (2) they want to be able to lead a black organisation.

Identity reigns, so you can claim to be anything as long as you don't forget to prefix with "I identify as".

That flippant remark won't win the trans debate because of the above.

I agree with this but I don't think race and ethnicity are the same thing. They're different.

People that identify as disabled is an interesting case.

In the right hypothetical scenario, yes, I think it could be moral to cut off a healthy body part. So it's causing them lots of distress, and therapy has failed, there aren’t other known treatments.

But here is the thing: we would never stop looking for new alternative treatments. We wouldn't stop using psychological therapy, even if it didn't have a good evidence base. Rather, hope that someone comes up with a better approach in the future. We would always want to "convert" such people so that they learned to accept their body.

So why not with trans?

It doesnt work like that though. Once the body part is removed, the fixation moves to a different body part. I worked with inpatients who had this disorder, who got to a point of cutting off their own limbs so not in a controlled way but with a long long history of MH issues and therapy and medication etc and as time goes on, they start fixating about the other limbs and how they dont want those either

Or they want to claim services specifically set up by black people for black people. Or have access to grants or awards set up in recognition of the fact that black people have been denied many advantages available to white people.

My real concern though is the number of women that support the erosion of their own rights and the foregrounding of TW in the feminist movement.

@BloodyHellKen i just wanted to say your username has made me smile a lot and for the rest of the day I am identifying as a Victoria Wood character.

sorry to derail

It's very common for people to self identify as autistic. And they do seem to be accepted by many in the autistic community and by professionals and researchers.

I take it you've never heard of black & mixed-fishing. Countless white women have made a fortune, a career and solid following from cosplaying as black and or mixed black women. Indeed many pop artists launched their platform engaging in all manner of black-fishing.

Apart from anything else this is massively offensive to Black women, especially Black disabled women who for all their 'protected characteristics' somehow inexplicably suffer from worse healthcare outcomes, social conditions and employment prospects. But anyway, as you were

It’s because “woman” has been untethered from material reality like biological facts and has been redefined to mean a thought or feeling in the mind. Anyone can have this thought/feeling ergo anyone can be a woman. On the other hand, race and disability are still grounded in objective facts that can be true or false. It’s not just a subjective mental state that’s up for grabs.

a good question would be why only womanhood has become a feeling whereas every other identity is still fact based. and I think it’s because it suits male desires to decide what a woman is, and they dont think women will object. Unfortunately women have been “kind” and allowed this redefinition to happen , whereas other minority groups have strongly resisted any attempt at self identification and have called out such people as frauds (like Rachel dolezal)

The thing is in this country it is incredibly difficult to get the nhs to remove non working body parts when attached to a person, never mind healthy ones. Otherwise I'd only have nine toes now and wouldn't have to put up with the annoying constantly painful tenth one. It's useless. It's painful, the blood doesn't get to it so it always looks like it's about to drop off. But the nhs refuse to remove it. Yet a kid can say they think they are a man and get their breasts cut off no problems (yes I know it's not quite that easy but not far off).

Maybe I should identify as a trans 9 toed person. I can only be my true sekf if I change my pronouns and get my left small toe removed?

Ah, that is cultural. You have Deaf people who are part of the community from childhood and are raised with BSL as their main language. Then you have people who are raised with spoken English and go deaf or hearing impaired when they are older. The second group usually muddle by with a mix of lipreading, hearing aids, subtitles and robust denial!

BSL has been around for centuries (it pops up in records dating back to 1576) but the language was only officially recognised last year.

How fucking offensive can you get? You are welcome to my blue badge, my PIP and my disability. Perhaps making your political point makes it worth taking the piss out of people with disabilities. You are disgusting.

I'll leave it for black people to tell you what they think of your comparison.

Dave Chapelle did an excellent stand up routine on exactly this subject.

I think different races and abilities have more in common than men and women so it doesn't make sense. Surprised identifying as a different age isn't a bigger thing too (though that could be very dangerous if it became widespread)

I think it is partly because the rest are considered minorities. Women are an unusual thing in that we're an oppressed majority. So it doesn't matter because there's plenty of us for some reason? There's probably a psychological answer. I don't agree with it, I don't think you should be able to identify as anything you aren't. It's suggesting a mysterious inner essence is more important than facts

?

I don't think any of this is that clear cut, just like we know what a woman is but an exact definition is hard to pin down, race and disability are the same.

Eg arthritis can be a fairly minor ailment or have life changing impacts, at what point does it 'qualify' as a disability?

If a child is adopted by a family of another race and grows up surrounded by a particular culture, do they really have no claim on it?

Sorry @Quveas that was supposed to have more than a ? Attached I don't know where the rest went. I was meant to say was this aimed at anyone in particular or just in general?

It probably won’t happen in my lifetime but I look forward to the time when classifying people by “race” is consigned to the dustbin of history. Whether it was s.Africa deciding on the exact level of discrimination you faced depending on how “black” you were or nazi germany determining your level of Jewishness depending on how many of your ancestors were Jewish, ultimately I think we will realise quite how absurd it is to separate people according to how their DNA is expressed in skin colour or physical features.