Thought Experiment: If you can identify as another gender, you can identify as another race and you should be given affirmative medical care to back that up (skin lightening, eye shape surgery etc)

[TorghunKhan]

This is a thought experiment designed to poke holes in the idea that people can identify as another gender. I am looking for arguments to use with people who think putting on trousers makes you a man, but don't think listening to hip hop makes you black.

To be very, very clear. Very. I don't think you can identify as another race, or indeed gender. But writing it down like this makes the whole thing look so insane.

It's not quite short and pithy yet, but maybe someone out there can use this approach with the next person they have the argument with?

1.	<strong>Social Construct Paradigm</strong>: Both gender and race are social constructs without rigid biological foundations. If society recognizes that gender identity can be self-determined and supported through medical interventions, the same principle should apply to racial identity. Since neither gender nor race is strictly biologically determined, both are open to personal interpretation and expression. Therefore, individuals should have the right to self-identify and be recognized as the race they identify with.
2.	<strong>Subjective Experience and Self-Identification</strong>: The subjective experience of gender identity is affirmed through medical care, such as hormone therapy or surgery. Similarly, those who identify with a racial group different from their assigned race should be able to access affirmative medical care to modify their physical appearance to align with their racial identity. This might include procedures like skin darkening or lightening, nose or lip adjustments, or hair texture changes, paralleling how society supports gender transitions.
3.	<strong>Fluidity in Identity Constructs</strong>: Both gender and race have demonstrated fluidity across time and cultures. Just as gender-affirming care is available to help individuals align their physical appearance with their gender identity, race-affirming care should be offered to those wishing to align their physical appearance with their racial identity. This acknowledges the fluid and constructed nature of both identities.
4.	<strong>Intersectional Identity</strong>: Recognizing the fluidity and intersectionality of identity implies consistency in how society addresses all aspects of identity, including race. As medical interventions support gender transitions, similar options should be available for racial identity transitions. This ensures that all facets of an individual’s identity, including race, are respected and affirmed.
5.	<strong>Cultural Immersion and Identification</strong>: Identity is shaped by cultural immersion and personal affinity. Individuals who deeply identify with and have lived within a particular racial or cultural group should be able to access medical care to embody that identity physically. Additionally, their self-identified race should be acknowledged and respected in societal and legal contexts, similar to how gender identity is respected.
6.	<strong>Eligibility for Affirmative Action</strong>: If society accepts that individuals can self-identify with a different race, then it should also extend the benefits of affirmative action laws to these individuals. For example, a person who identifies as Black should be eligible for affirmative action programs designed to address racial disparities in employment or education. This inclusion ensures that all individuals who identify with and experience life as a member of a particular racial group can access opportunities intended to rectify historical and systemic inequities.
7.	<strong>Consistency in Rights and Recognition</strong>: To be consistent in recognizing personal identity rights, society should validate both gender and racial identities equally, including through medical care and legal frameworks like affirmative action. Just as gender-affirming procedures are recognized and supported, and gender identity is respected in legal contexts, so too should race-affirming procedures and racial self-identification be acknowledged. This approach guarantees that individuals’ rights to express and embody their identity are fully respected across all dimensions, including race, and ensures they can benefit from laws and policies designed to promote equity and inclusion.

In summary, if society accepts and provides medical care for individuals to align their physical appearance with their gender identity, it should also accept and offer similar care for those seeking to align their appearance with their racial identity. Furthermore, those who identify as a different race should be eligible for affirmative action programs designed to correct racial imbalances. This comprehensive approach ensures consistency in how society respects and affirms individual identity across all dimensions, including both gender and race.

I am currently identifying as a table lamp.
(I am also in completely denial that this doesn't actually make me a table lamp.)

I admire your attempt, but no. Logic isn't allowed in this particular argument.

No, there is absolutely no difference and in fact the self-identify as x race argument make far more logical sense*, but also no, you're not allowed to think it and you're an awful, awful racist transphobe. Soz.

*Also, to be perfectly clear I DO NOT THINK that white people can self-identify as black, no matter how much they feel that they actually are so.

I'm currently identifying as a sloth. Don't you dare deny my existence by reminding me I've got housework to do.

I do think race and gender are different. However although I'll acknowledge people can be any gender they want they can't really identify out of their sex. Its similar to race/nationality you can be any nationality you want/can get but you can't identify out of your race.

Some distinctions include that your thought experiment doesn't skew to youth nor the typical claims about self-euthanasia if the identity isn't supported.

However, I am interested to monitor how far plans to support fully fledged reproductive justice progress using comparable considerations.

It might interest you to know that this argument was the exact cause of a substantial controversy in a feminist philosophy journal. The author agreed with the similarity between transgender and transrace, but bit the bullet and said we should be accepting of the latter. This didn't go down well.

(Here's a link: Hypatia transracialism controversy - Wikipedia)

Transage is the other one. Mostly it's men saying they're kids (). But while they bend over backwards to #bekiiiind to males saying they're women, I doubt my HR team would have much truck with me identifying as being old enough to claim my pension. Can't think why.

James Lindsey did a youtube video on why you can id your sex but not your race (according to the new ideologies)

Basically its all nuts.

Well that was a depressing read. Apparently transracialism cannot exist because black people are oppressed, and they weren't consulted. Erm, hello?

A very special highlight was the idiot who thinks it's transmisogyny to suggest that a transwoman can ever have benefitted from male privilege.

You have no hope of convincing them, because they're mad. And time travellers, apparently.

Its interesting perspective though because it was what, ten years ago that there was that woman in the US who claimed that she was a Black woman (I believe her name was Rachel someone) and she actually became president of a Black community. But in actual fact, she was a white woman born to white parents. She chose to curl her hair and deliberately pass as a Black woman. There was huge judgment of her (and rightly so) and global outrage that she couldn't just "identify" as a different race.

There was also the hilarious case of Alec Baldwin's wife who spent over a decade telling the entire world she was Spanish, when in actual fact, she was born in Boston to American parents. She claimed that she identified with Spanish culture and as such, she "felt" Spanish.

So there are examples of people identifying as different races/nationalities and being ridiculed for it. Yet I'm not sure I can reasonably understand how identifying as a different sex is any different....

woman in the US who claimed that she was a Black woman (I believe her name was Rachel someone)

Dolezal with a name change to Nkechi Diallo.

I saw her speak at an event last year with a new political activism slant. (Before her job loss as a teacher for having an OnlyFans sideline).

I would be more willing to engage with this thought experiment if the OP wasn't a load of AI-generated 'thoughts'.

I definitely used it, but I'm not a bot, I wanted to make sure the argument was as free from my own biases as possible and couched in the terms and language that would be used by those I wanted to engage with. AI isn't an instant black mark you know :)

It's nonetheless good practice to mention when it's used as it makes it easier to know how to deal with hallucinations, out-of-date information etc when someone acknowledges the AI assist rather than negotiating this with a human.

It's really not. I've used ChatGPT daily for 18 months and I assure you, that you digested hundreds of pieces of content that were created / polished / filtered / compared by AI, just today.

You don't get a mention of that every time it happens.

Lets not derail the discussion however, I am more interested in using the argument to poke holes in other daft ideas, if you have thoughts I'd love to hear them

Just 18 months? It's delightful that you're so impressed by yourself, Eliza.

I assure you that I review many documents and it's good practice to acknowledge it.

Many of the reports and proposals I read have a standard section in the template where the authors are asked if they used AI in the preparation.

Ah how laughably naive.

I agree with Stick that it is bad form to not mention AI use on a forum post, especially when you are asking for people to take the time and also the mental effort to refine your arguements.

It's as if some posters think we don't recognise attempts to build out from Chat-GPT to improve 'their' essays and self-aggrandisement.

It's an interesting side-shoot from the whole Aston linguistic corpus debacle.

This, the post stinks of AI.

I don't think this will be as effective as you'd like. The thing is - since they are different, it does not necessarily follow that if you can identify into gender, you can identify into race.

Race is interesting because there are actually contexts where we accept that self-identification is important. Mixed race people may choose how they identify in many cases. Race can be divided and perceived differently in different countries too. It really is in many ways a constructed kind of identity, even more so than ethnicity.

Sex on the other hand, is a definitional, material, binary category, much less flexible than race.

So, the premise of your argument doesn't really hold up, even if both a in fact equally dumb ideas.

Isn’t it a case of looking one way, with makeup and surgery but if you do a dna test, the ancestry would be revealed. It would be what you actually are as opposed to what you may look like. What complicates it is there are 3 races in theory but many people are a mix because many nationalities are in themselves a mix.

I've just been deleted for saying that we stopped asking these kind of questions back in 2018 when it became clear that there were no rational answers to any of these issues, just feelings and swerving.

I think the structure of the conversation has the problem of not recognizing that TWAW is actually a Profession of Faith.

The whole OP is like saying, “If priests can turn water into wine, why can’t we go and get pissed on it, with a nice Chianti?” Followed up with Hannnibal Lector noises.
It’s Richard Dawkins style acting the Twat.

TWAW is a faith based position, and for those who adhere to that faith, any perceived disrespect is framed as equivalent to antisemitism/Islamophobia/‘Suppressive’.