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?

So basically because sexism is real we should be allowed to insist we are the opposite sex, but we can’t choose our race because racism?

I do not know what it's like to be trans; I've always been OK about inhabiting a female body. But I'm prepared to believe that for trans people, the clash between their body and their nature is as visceral, as immutable, and at times as profoundly ego-dystonic [cont.]

See, I'm not religious. I am not a Cartesian. I don't believe I am an immortal soul 'inhabiting' an earthly body. I am my body. My body is me.

Believing in 'a clash between your body and your nature' is a profoundly religious, unreal, magical way of thinking. To try to prop this up with word salad doesn't make it any less so. And to invoke 'scientists' in support of such a radically anti-scientific, magical worldview just doesn't work.

Trans is not at all similar to sexuality. In fact it completely negates sexual orientation, and reframes it as gender orientation i.e you are attracted to how a person performs sex stereotypes / clothing / femininity / masculinity / culturally accepted social roles. Except many people don't adhere to gender stereotypes at all and yet other people are still attracted to them.

Sexuality is a spectrum, with many (most) people falling somewhere between the extremes of only straight or gay (which is why I suspect people are getting confused about it).

Sex however is not a spectrum, it is binary, immutable and very scientifically measurable. Genetic disorders of sexuality do not change this. There is no such thing as lady brain (cognitive) or lady feelz (emotional), we are all unique and different and there is no one way to be a women other than to be born with XX chromosomes. Taking opposite sex hormones does not change your sex, nor does having cosmetic surgery. That just enables you to pretend (and deceive) in a more sophisticated way.

You can never know what it is to be the opposite sex, all you can do is imagine. And given the history (and current practice) of men subjugating and exploiting women, for men to impose their idea of what women even are on us, is nothing short of colonization and appropriation. Its offensive.

To your question OP, the only reason the protected characteristic of sex is up for grabs is because some very wealthy and powerful men want it, and have used their vast resources and power to influence culture, society and law to get what they want. I guarantee if it were only women wanting this, it would probably be illegal.

And they certainly know the truth when it matters:

A person’s gender change in the UK does not affect the descent of any peerage, dignity, or title of honor, nor the devolution by will or other instrument of any property that passes along with any peerage, dignity, or title of honor.

www.meritas.org/insight/externalarticle/primogeniture-and-inheritance-the-transgender-angle#:~:text=A%20person's%20gender%20change%20in,dignity%2C%20or%20title%20of%20honor.

Isn't it one of the great conundrums of life that only trans people know what it feels like to be trans and only trans people can talk about the experience of being trans and yet on IWD a man can write a newspaper article telling women, not only what it is to be a women but that women are wrong when we describe ourselves and our own experiences. 🤨

comment “At the root of the current wave of transphobia is an uncritical acceptance of the gender-critical, biologically determinist position, which denies that the socialisation and lived experience of gender is as real as biological sex.”

All «socialisation and lived experience of gender» springs from your biologically determined sex.
You can’t get away from it in most parts of the world

Agree. My lived gender and socialisation experience as a woman will never be understood and lived by a man even if he puts on a dress and makeup and calls himself Sue.

@DeeCeeCherry I really wish I had been on Mumsnet back when I attended Black women's groups because I'd have been able to actually lift these views to better illustrate my points in 'real time'. It's just so patently clear and that many 'don't understand' shows perfectly why Black women should really not waste their time, energy and resources trying to explain blindspots to white women (the term blindspot' carrying the weight of a thousand suns). 99.9% of the time you'll be met with blank stares - been there and done that!!. I like to pop in and out of this board from time to time just to check we're still where we are.

To whoever asked, yes 'If black women can be women, then trans women can also be women' is also massively problematic - it doesn't matter if it's said by the right or left.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the two ideas different?

The OP clearly disagrees with members of a privileged group self-identifying as members of an oppressed group. She doesn’t agree with men self-identifying as women anymore than she agrees with white people (e.g.Rachel Dolezal) self-IDing as Black, or people without disabilities self-IDing as disabled.

Whereas the argument that “trans women are women in the same way that Black women are women” reads to me as jaw-droppingly racist, othering, appropriating the struggles of Black women and reminiscent of the old racist trope that Black women are somehow less feminine than white woman.

Perhaps the OP was worded quite flippantly, but to me, the two arguments feel like opposites.

By the way, I would genuinely like to understand. Through Mumsnet, I have learned more about the the racism that Black people experience in the UK. And yet, I feel as though I know a lot less than I used to! Not only do I not understand, I might never really understand.

The OP clearly disagrees with members of a privileged group self-identifying as members of an oppressed group. She doesn’t agree with men self-identifying as women anymore than she agrees with white people (e.g.Rachel Dolezal) self-IDing as Black, or people without disabilities self-IDing as disabled

Exactly this. I’ve expanded on my OP several times throughout this thread but I think there was some confusion by a couple of posters re what my OP meant, and rather than reading the thread the claim of racism has been lobbed - or at least, no clear explanation has been given.

To whoever asked, yes 'If black women can be women, then trans women can also be women' is also massively problematic - it doesn't matter if it's said by the right or left.

Actually, calling that statement 'problematic' is a humongous understatement. I've never heard it till today and I think it's one of the worst insults Black women can get and that's putting it mildly too. It's beyond despicable. What do Black WOMEN have to do with (male-sexed) Transwomen? 😳

But you don’t like, actually say WHY sex is different to race/disability so any man can just happily claim to be a woman and we’re all meant to go along with it. This is my problem with the trans arguments, it’s just a lot of word vomit. Probably because you don’t actually have anything sensible to say. And because your philosophy is derived from the work of Judith Butler, famously unintelligible

This isn’t what the thread is about @WillBeAbsolutelyFine Rather than scrolling through the entire thread it’s probably easier to pose @Cattenberg ‘s question again to clarify.

The premise of this thread is that I don’t agree with men self-identifying as women (because they aren’t) anymore than I agree with white people (e.g.Rachel Dolezal) self-IDing as Black (because they aren’t), or people without disabilities self-IDing as disabled (because they aren’t). How the hell have we got to the point that sex is no longer a protected characteristic and men (with their inherent male privilege) can now access single sex spaces, eg women who have raped should “reframe their trauma” and accept males into rape crisis centre’s according to the male-born CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre 😡, or rapists should be placed in the female estate where the voice of the female inmates are silenced and are meaningless, but other protected characteristics - rightly so - remain protected from other groups. Is it males simply exercising their power as always over women?

And I see people are again making the argument that to be gender critical = you are racist which yet again there is no explanation for (there never is). I think it’s nothing more than an attempt to make the TRA argument more effective by aligning it with something that is a real struggle. And I agree, isn’t it offensive to black women to say that? As if their womanhood is as questionable as a man identifying as a woman…?

Why would anyone make that statement though? I don’t get it. Black women are women, so how does that mean twaw?

genuinely confused. Anyone explain please?

I wasn't responding to you OP. I made a remark in agreement to a part of a pp's post. I already responded twice or so to your OP.

I agree with your overall views except that unless you're new here, pulling disabled and Black people into this conversation, though you're technically right, is problematic (to borrow that word). This argument can stand on its own without it.

Exactly. I don't get it either.

I (still) don’t get it (and definitely not new here, been on MN pretty much since it started) - why is it problematic to ask the questions I’ve asked?

It's not problematic to ask the questions you've asked, OP. It's problematic to use Black women and disabled people as anchor when you're part of neither group as you've said. Do you fight for or acknowledge the rights of these groups on a normal day or do you only remember them when you're trying to make a point about something that concerns you?

It's also common knowledge that questions phrased that way on MN can often descend into thinly-veiled racist and ableist posts about Black women and disabled people. What's that word - dog-whistle.

Let's just say if you've been paying attention to these groups on MN atleast, you can't be surprised with the pushback you've gotten from them. Unless you haven't.

If you still don't understand, I don't know what to tell you.

The language of identity was used around some things like race and ethnicity and disability before it was for gender. But there was always underneath a sense that the person really had certain characteristics, but might or might not choose to see them as elements of identity.

I'm not sure, in hindsight, that it was a wise approach to the extent that people accepted it. Maybe sometimes things are true or not, and people just need to suck it up in certain contexts?

And then some things, race in particular, are almost wholly constructed socially, to the extent that it can mean rather different things in different countries.

One thing I would note is that the current trends in employment are encouraging some to identify into certain groups to gain advantage. Sometimes in an underhanded way. But also in ways that are a little disconcerting - my university recently hired someone into a position where they were looking for an indigenous person. Unrelated to the job description. The fellow they hired has been quite open with other faculty that he's never really been involved with indigenous culture in a meaningful way or thought of himself that way - but he can legitimately and legally claim that heritage. He did it because diversity hiring is so important now in universities and jobs for scholars so competitive.

Black disabled women happen to have among the worst outcomes in just about any area you can imagine: healthcare, financial, living conditions. These so called highly prized 'protected characteristics' have done absolutely fuck all to protect these women from harm as a direct result of their 'protected characteristics' nor has it improved their material conditions. Black disabled women often experience these terrible outcomes because they are Black and or disabled. White women wielding Black women as a rhetorical device is at best a blindspot and at worst malevolent.

The OP has asked about what she thinks might be a logical contradiction in gender ideology, and whether there is some explanation for why this wouldn't be a logical contradiction.

She's not "using" anyone, and whether she is part of any of those groups is completely irrelevant to whether there is, or is not, a logical contradiction.

Reality doesn't change based on her racial or any other background. What is or is not a rational argument doesn't change. What is contradictory or not does not change. That kind of thinking is part of the problem.

A lot of the TRA argue that if black women are women, then trans women are women because trans is just a descriptor of a kind of woman. They never yes any other example. They are racist, but it’s the TRA who like to throw accusations of racism around. Even the head of stonewall compared lesbians who wouldn’t date males to “sexual racists”. Why is the go to insult or retort always “that’s racist” to women questioning the gender cult. We’re not the ones claiming in any way black women are not women.

Isnt the question simply why is the protected characteristic of sex up for grabs, and not the others. Why cant we identify as pregnant, or older/younger, or can I identify as trans (when I'm not) so I'm a trans trans woman. And not just identify, but benefit, I want maternity leave, I identify as pregnant, I want the state pension, I identify as 75. It would be absurd, except we now have actual men in female sport, prisons and winning women's prizes. Dystopian frankly.

No, it's not "problematic" to use examples just because you don't belong to those particular groups.

As long as the examples and style of argument aren't suggesting anything negative about them, then where is the problem?

There is nothing in the OP argument that suggested anything negative.