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?

The answer is simple. It is Sex, advantage and sheer force of numbers. There will always be a few white people who want to identify as black or able bodied people who want to identify as disabled for a range of reasons. However, not that many. And it doesn't benefit anyone that much to do this beyond their own personal motives. But LOTS of men find it sexy to identify as women and they are the ones with the power.

It is therefore easy for people to quite reasonably say that it is unacceptable to identify as something you are not when it comes to race or disability, but when it comes to sex, there is a huge number of people with the inclination and the power to push this agenda. Then add in the element of homophobia, the number of people who have a vested interest in making money from medical transition and others who want to trample women's boundaries and you have a very large number of people who are pushing their agenda onto others, despite it being just as ridiculous as any other identity.

I didn't notice anyone in the thread "take the piss" out of disabled people. You seem to be getting worked up for no reason.

As for black people, I'm guessing many of them will agree that it's a fair example to bring up in this context.

There is a bloke already identifying as a disabled woman.

www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/23101806.issue-day-able-bodied-norwegian-identifies-disabled-woman/

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

Because White Male Born & Socialised Privilege trumps all, which you all studiously choose not to mention in the endless posts and discussions on this topic.

Black is a protected characteristic? Really? Have you never heard of excessive stop and search, police brutality, institutional discrimination, the Windrush scandal, and more? You know...all the nasty insidious tentacles of racism?

As for 'Disability' - disabled people are almost invisible in this society. It's not made easy for them to move around, access employment etc

All these flippant 'yeah but if I were Black/Disabled' style posts lead me to believe there's no real point to make.

If the elephant in the room can't or won't be seen then what's the point, really.

@DeeCeeCherry yes. And I've been thinking a bit more about it. It's also control. The powerful group can discriminate against a less powerful group. They can exclude them or in extreme cases want to get rid of them. However men and women need each other. Men have to acknowledge the power women have as their mothers, the mothers of their children and they also desire women, so they have to control them in a way that they don't need to control any other group. Some men feel frustrated by women's power over them.

I'm not saying for a moment that all or even most men think like this but it's what occurs to me when I think about the need of some to take on the identity of another group.

Gender ideology is another way for men to own women by owning womanhood.

There was a documentary on Netflix about a white woman who identified as a black American woman.

Having a sunflower lanyard conveys no special treatment or consideration. It is meaningless.

They’re not the same thing.

Race is more problematic as a concept. It’s a set of social categories that the Victorians organised hierarchically to pretend there are subspecies of humanity. There aren’t.

Race is not a coherent biological category. The genetics and physical characteristics vary far too much, and tend to have evolved in various ways in all sorts of different places and groups. The genetic variation within racial groups is greater than any differences you might find between the groups. There are no genes that are specific to any race.

Whereas sex has an obvious biological component, that you can find in every single cell of the body.

I am old enough to remember a time when if people claimed to be something they were not, the answer would have been to have a mental health check because they were considered delusional...

As in: if someone suddenly woke up one day and claimed to be a different race/age/gender or consider themselves to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra, the practical assumption would be that something had gone wrong and that they would need a health check, not that everyone else should join into the delusion.

That said, I have no issue with people who cross-dress and/or want to make their appearance/body closer to what they see as being feminine (which is usually a cliched/exaggerated version of what they consider a woman to be) and I would not want anyone to be discriminated because of it or face any kind of aggression.

But I have an issue with them then demanding that I then consider them to be a woman, as I am, and that they should have access to women's spaces.

If you were born a man and have a penis you are not magically going to become a biological woman one day.

I think people's tolerance snap when they are asked to believe the unbelievable and start being demonised for having different views.

There are no genes that are specific to any race.

If a ‘race’ looks different then there will be genes that control that. There are also other genetic adaptations eg. to high altitude. There are genetic diseases specific to certain races or population groups, eg Gaucher disease, and propensity for (or higher protection from) other diseases. Of course, unless they are a very isolated race these genes will have spread into the wider population at much lower levels.

The genetic variation within racial groups is greater than any differences you might find between the groups

That would depend on how you classify a racial group and which group you chose. Many small Isolated populations have very limited genetic variation.

But crucially, in all the research, any specific genetic modifications are not unique to that group. They have evolved in other populations and in other places for various reasons.

There are tonnes of genes involved in skin colour. Or nose shape. Or whatever physical characteristic we might want to use to biologically define a group. But you’ll find those genes all over the place. It seems obvious to us that there should be a clear biological distinction, so we insist there really is.

The inaccurate idea that some races are biologically just different of at the basis of loads of racist practices.

Humans are sexually dimorphic for reproductive reasons. Anything we might want to call race is an entirely different thing, with completely different biological parameters and an entirely different social context.

Weirdly, the deep seated idea that race is more biologically real than sex lies at the heart of lots of racist and sexist practices. We are desperate to affirm the fussy and problematic biological difference that underpins racial identity and deny the much clearer biological difference that is a problem for gender identity.

The aspects that we might call ethnicity - shared culture, shared history, shared oppressions - are much more important to understanding racism and race identification than any biology. The biological differences are at least as important as that in understanding sexism and misogyny.

The answer is, the world has gone completely mad.

“Gaucher disease is considerably more common in the descendants of Jewish people from Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi), although individuals from any ethnic group may be affected.”

Not unique to any group.

The marriage practices of Ashkenazi Jews are likely to be the reason a genetic variation has become more common in that group. But it can emerge in any group.

Sometimes by acting as if race is real we create the effects that convince us we were right all the time. It doesn’t mean races are like genetically distinct almost subspecies of human.

There are white people who pretend to be ethnic minority. They get vilified when found out. So I agree with what you say.

Race and species differ. Other hominid species went extinct 40,000 years ago. Humans have always interbred between communities whenever they met so the fact that a specific gene appears in low numbers in other populations does not rule out population groups having a distinct genetic makeup. At times that can be important - eg when considering disease risk, or looking for donor organs. Ignoring differences in genetics between population groups in medicine is a bit like using men as the default model for medical treatment including treatment of women.

It's not enough for them to say you are thin, they have to believe you are thin. That's what does my head in.

I suspect it comes down to the fact that drag has become ever more acceptable to the degree it is now mainstream; with the queens being referred to as " she" even when off stage. Gay men have been appropriating womanhood in the service of their 'liberation' and expression for a long time.

Add to that the increasing visibility of cross dressers such as Eddie Izzard - and then the expanded trans umbrella which suggests that both of the above examples come under the label of 'trans' ( which is why Eddie Izzard is now suggesting he 'came out' as trans 15 years ago). The 'queering' of society, basically.

I honestly don't have a clue what point you are trying to make here.

Disabled people are "invisible" so it's not a relevant example? What?

Yes I have heard of racism. It's still the case that race is a protected characteristic.

Yes, Rachel Dolezal ( 'The Rachel Divide'); and there is also german woman, Martina Big (though she is clearly disturbed and has obvious mental health issues)

I was going to say this.

It must be very frustrating for people who really need these accommodations and who may be taken less seriously because of the above.

This.
Because we are just one species - one human race. We exterminated or absorbed all the other humanoid species on the planet: neanderthal, denisovan, florensis and so on.
Here we can talk about phenotypes (if I remember my basic biology right):
blue eyes vs brown
Dark skin vs lighter skin.
ears with flips or without.

»race» today are external charachteristics brought on from largely environmental adaptions and/or sexual preferenses (possibly mixed with faint features from the other humanoids thrown in the mix though the latest occurrence of that seems to be at least 15 000 years ago).

My children can identify as nearly any «race» they like: asian, white-European, arabic, and Black too of you go a fair distance back.

Having said that; I understand that after the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the European Colonialism there are layer upon layer of hundreds of years of abuse that mainly white people have heaped on mainly Black and coloured people,
so that they are weary of that is perfectly understandable.

They - poc
I couldn’t write we because
I am a mix of many things, but mainly white European as far as I know.

The latest argument I’ve heard, is that trans people are intersex, as there is an area of the brain which is sexually diamorphic (the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc)) and trans people have one that is typical of the other sex in terms of size and number of cells.

That said, further research is needed on this as the evidence is limited. And it in no way justifies allowing trans women to compete in female sports categories.