Why is it seen as acceptable for a person be born the wrong sex but not the wrong ethnicity?

[goldtinged]

I saw a somewhat recent article about Rachel Dolezal, the caucasian American woman who identifies as a black woman, and it made me wonder. Why is this clearly wrong but it is (largely) socially acceptable for a man to identify as a woman? She says she has always felt she was a black person from a young age, and she was denounced for this. But if you denounce a man for saying he identifies as a woman, you are a bigot?

Sorry if this is a thick question, I really don’t understand why one is wrong and the other isn’t (I know it is wrong to GC feminists but I mean widely speaking it isn’t seen as wrong). I understand why it is wrong to pretend to be a black person, just in case that isn’t clear.

But it's not seen as acceptable for a person to be born the wrong sex, is it. Because it's ridiculous, nonsense. Isn't it?

You can't change sex. Fact.
Your second point about ethnicity is even more ridiculous.

There is no logical reason why it’s ok to identify as a different sex but not any other inherent characteristic. It was this realisation that finally peaked me.

https://sex-matters.org/

Succinctly put.

People are sold all these different ideologies as if they were a coherent package of be kind / right-think and mostly don't notice the inconsistencies until something like Queers for Palestine or Rachel Dolezal shows where the cracks are.

Because it's all bullshit and nobody is actually "born in the wrong body".

Although the idea of having a soul of a different ethnicity might be older than you think: Lobsang Rampa - Wikipedia

The race thing - I do genealogy and an awful lot of surprises and coincidences turn up after DNA analysis. I would guess that if someone feels as if they're a certain ethnicity then it's possible that there is some of that ethnicity in their ancestry.
I do understand though why it's contentious to identify with the struggles and oppression when you haven't experienced those struggles.

I do understand though why it's contentious to identify with the struggles and oppression when you haven't experienced those struggles

Women have been oppressed and have struggled and continue to do so. Yet some men identify as women and apparently this has to be ok.

Because Rachel Dolzeal (sp?) is a woman and the AGPs are men.
If a man does something it's brave and stunning. If a woman does something it's an outrage.

I think power and sexual desire are incredibly motivating concepts and I don't think there's a huge amount of power or sexual gratification to be gained from adopting a race that isn't your own. I think examining why people transition goes some of the way to explaining why it's accepted in a broad way. It's all part of the same rich tapestry that meant we put up with being whistled at and having our bottoms patted. I think it is all linked into inequality and fear. Of course, in the same way that women would go out seeking attention from the knuckle draggers, some women also transition in the other direction. It's a coping mechanism. We constantly budge up and make ourselves smaller so that men can play out their desires. It's always been safer to avoid it than risk personal safety. People co-opting other characteristics can more easily be called out as inappropriate because half of society aren't afraid of the repercussions.

But historically racial passing in the pre-civil rights US was overwhelmingly people trying to identify out of an oppressed group into a relatively less oppressed group. Light skinned African Americans passing themselves off as Italian, that sort of thing.

These days it's people from relatively privileged backgrounds identifying into underprivileged groups, and sometimes gaining a position of privilege within that group.

Interesting that it seems to be mostly women doing it. Maybe the difference with transracialism is that it's women doing it for social credit, rather than men doing it for their boners.

There was a thread on the black mumsnetters forum a while ago talking about why this kind of comparison is inaccurate and harmful to black women. Of course, you might not agree with points they raised but do you not think you should at least listen to women of colour on this subject. I would have thought they would be best placed to talk about the issue given that that they are impacted by both misogyny and racism.

See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Owl

I am a woman of colour. I don't believe people can change sex. That doesn't mean they should be treated badly. They just can't walk into safe spaces for women.

I found it:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/black_mumsnetters/4956869-gc-white-women-comparing-being-transgender-to-someone-white-claiming-to-be-black

However I am not a white woman and I am questioning this…so where does this leave me?

I'm glad you are on this thread as I think your take on the similarities and differences between transgenderism and transracialism will be much better informed by your life experience than the majority of the posters on this thread.

It doesn't leave you anywhere. I'm saying we should talk less on the subject and listen more to you.

I have been watching appalled as Mridul Wadhwa ruined the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre and treated survivors like dirt.
If I am raped I absolutely want a woman, any woman, to help me rather than a brown transwoman ( or rather, a man). Sorry.

I guess my point is it isn’t just white women who are wondering why this is the case. I will read through the thread you mentioned (thank you for highlighting it) to see if I can gain an insight into why it is viewed differently.

I value the input of everyone on this subject, no matter their stance, or ethnicity, because I am really trying to understand this. For me, as it stands, what makes sense to me is you can either be trans anything, or trans nothing. I can’t see why one is given the green light while others are off limits. The only conclusion I am at right now is that transgenderism is ok (as in the accepted social view / disagreeing means you are a bigot) because it has been linked to sexuality and therefore the associated oppression and bigotry that non-heterosexual people have faced (and continue to face).

By the way I am very much not very well-versed on this topic as many in FWR are so these are just my own thoughts, apologies if I say anything wildly offensive.

There was also that frenchb(I think) bloke who identified as younger than his age. Court threw it out as ridiculous. Don’t know how it’s different, they’re both about choosing to believe something that defies biological fact.

After fully reading the thread on the Black Mumsnetters board, what I have gathered is that the issue being raised with equating transrace to transgender is that it is white women appropriating racism to make points about transgenderism, and that that is offensive, because white women have no idea how it feels to have someone parody their race. Also, by using it as a gotcha, it minimises racism.

If I have incorrectly summarised that, my apologies, but I think/hope I got it right.

But as I brought up earlier, this isn’t a gotcha for me. I do know how it feels to have people parody my ethnicity, to hurl abuse at me, to make me feel othered for not being white. I also know how it feels to be subjected to misogyny. As an aside, I personally have no issues with anyone of any background discussing this, but I can only speak for myself. To me, both transrace and transgender are appropriations of a lived experience that can never be understood as an outsider. You can only make guesses based on stereotypes and assumptions.

Yes, that was the specific case that peaked me. He was Dutch iirc

I agree it doesn't make sense. My husband is mixed ethnicity, had a lot of cultural influences, he is dark skinned so not seen as mixed necessarily. Our son is very light skinned. People wouldn't immediately know his ethnicity. I have no idea what he will identify as. It's a much more nuanced thing than sex which is binary.

But we’ve legislated to enable people to change their legal sex and birth certificate

So why have we done this?

It’s like someone who is 55 declaring they are 11 and the law saying ok