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.

How are they different though? Race doesn’t exist just the same as gender doesn’t exist - they are both cultural constructs with no inteinsic reality?

Ok, but that’s just as interesting a tool to dismantle the argument - race is based on nothing more than faith, a common shared understanding of a phenomena

your second para seems to make no sense - it would be as if there was another substance that could be transformed and we all believed it to be true.

TWAW may well be faith based for many. So why would transracial stuff not be the same?

Well I never asked them then but I am now 😂

No not at all. There is no such thing as race, there never has been. There are differences in DNA and gross characteristics that broadly can be said to be from areas of the world humanity has been in long enough to develop them, but we all came from Africa and not very long ago either.

I specified call said gender. Not sex. If we say they are different, which I believe we generally do, then the comparison to race stands up much clearer.

race is entirely cultural, that’s why it’s different everywhere. Gender very much appears to be the same. So if you can self identify your gender. You can your race as well.

again. I don’t think people can do either but it’s either BOTH or NEITHER. Not one and not the other :)

As others have pointed out, it makes even more sense to identify as a different race (if you so wish) than a different sex - sex not gender.

And it makes not a lot of sense to identify as a different race

Ive known of a few dual heritage people who say well my dad was black but my mum was white and I only really know my white family so I identify as white. thats their choice of course

Can I identify as Chinese, if my family are traditionally from UK and Ireland?
Can I identify with my Irish heritage even though its 2 generations back?
Can I identify as a difference sex, well just because?

I am a mix, which is whyi personally find it fascinating but I read or was taught that there are 2 more races developed after the walk from Africa. So the original one and then Caucasian and Mongoloid.

I would wager that race or races mix is discernible by tests. They may tell you which nations you are from, and from there you can see the typical racial mix of the nation and extrapolate.

Some Brazilians as an example off the top of my head, could be all 3 due to different mixing from Africa, Europeans and First Nation.

Ooh this has prompted a thought.

If we can't tell what sex someone is or indeed ourselves because of the biological mix and chromosomal.makeup in our bodies which a lot of people have been saying in the wake of Khelif- Lin...

Then how can we say for certain what race or ethnicity we are without testing ourselves? For example, my aunt did one of those history blood tests and found a lot of Spanish lineage. Now my Aunt was born & brought up in Wolverhampton but can she actually now say she's Spanish, start speaking in an accent and start identifying as her blood heritage?

It doesn't matter. They may both be constructs, but there is no logical necessity that they are the same.

So that argument won't convince anyone who does not in fact see them as the same already.

You'll find many people who are into gender ideology are also believers in race as an objective phenomena.

Being isn't identification or wishful thinking. Whilst pretending is merely a game for children.

@TorghunKhan would you say there is no such thing as money?
I'm a bit curious about your assertion that there's absolutely no such thing as race because it's made up. Likewise gender, I guess.
But lots of things we (humans) make up are very real.

I assume they mean, if you grind the universe down to the smallest pieces, you won't find a sliver of "race"

Race and gender both social constructs & identities. But whilst it is quite ok to insult the female sex & gender (women have been bought, sold, treated as second class citizens for centuries) & it continues. cultural appropriation by plaiting hair in a certain style (usually by females), is widely condemned. same way events like darkie day’ (mummers day) in padstow are. Drag queens however are celebrated for being ‘brave’ and true to themselves.

3 races? Phenotypically ? Remind me what they are and their characteristics please.

Bryan Sykes says there are seven mitochondrial DNA variants traceable back to individuals thousands of years ago, makes more sense to define ourselves by that.

What you call a "thought experiment" isn't anything new, every day on Twitter if you read the comments on a trans woman's or LGBT page's post there will be someone posting that hateful image with 2 pics side by side comparing trans women to "blackface".

Why do we have to play word salad?

Why can't we describe it in simple terms at a literacy level that as many people as possible understand?

Here's an alternative description

It's a load of bollocks.

It's a misogynistic load of bollocks.

Dunno if thats going to persuade any TRAs of anything is it?

I applaud exploring options to shine a light on the discussion in different ways, shouting "it's bollocks" at people never changed anyone's mind on anything.

Persuading TRAs? Hmmm. Why not? They seem such a reasonable & thoughtful lot.

Trouble is ‘identify as another gender’ is just an mind game. No one can identify as another gender- they go not have the life experience. Same goes for race/culture. You want to be Spanish but unless you have been born & bought up as Spanish you will never be Spanish, even with a passport nationality change.

no one should be getting any medical care & support for a non issue. If you are a boy & like cooking & clothes does not mean you are a girl. Many of the best chefs & fashion designers are men.

well indeed. But it should be pointed out, they think the same about people who are gender critical?

But people can and do identify as another gender. It just requires them to say the words, and they have done so. It doesn't make them the thing but they can say the words and they are, by any definition, identifying as that thing

Yes. I met a transwomen recently-part if a sport so spent a week in their company. She had a typical female name, painted nails & lipstick. That is where the feminine side stopped. Every single nuance of their behaviour (ignore appearance for now) was male. The way they acted, spoke, behaved was male.

They may claim to identify as female but I can only describe it as a very bad quality fake version.

yeah I was going to say Rachel Dolezal.

I like to identify as a tall chic Scandinavian blonde woman with no cellulite and a high powered job in finance. I also identify as living in Stockholm. Biology tells others I am a 5 ft 1 fat brown haired person of eastern European descent prematurely retired and living not too far from Bognor Regis. But that's just the haterzs innit.

No-one is actually fooled by this bullshit. They just pretend to be.

I was just pondering on role-playing and the success of Harry Potter.

Hordes of youngsters and quite a few adults loved the escapism of imagining they were part of the wizarding world. Some unhappy people might desperately have wanted it to be real. It's quite important to know the difference between subjective and objective reality I think.