@quetzalcoatl the fact that the target identity (race) happens to be genetically definable doesn't ipso facto say anything about whether a self-asserted transracial person sees their asserted identity as something they have a choice about.
Dolezal may well be physically in a position to cease being black at will, and I can (nearly) fully understand why a black person would find that so insulting, but I'm by no means convinced her physical ability to do so means she is psychologically able to do so, and apparently at least one leading psychologist agrees with me. I wouldn't be surprised if she considered any such injunction to be as much an assault on her identity as asking a trans person to make their gender correspond to their sex.
But where are you going with this? Dolezal is compelled to perform black, so what? I had clients who compulsively exposed themselves. I'm not sure what this adds to our understanding of gender identity.
Re the prison transfer, I think it would be reasonable to ascertain the individual's motivation to ensure there was no ill-intent. However, I think the number of occasions that situation arises are vanishingly small.
It means chopping off a chunk of a post that is significant.
It's usual practice here to quote the part of a post one wishes to respond to in order not to have to scroll through walls of redundant text.
I don't think the part of the post I left out had any logical bearing on the part I quoted and leaving it out in no way changed the import of what you said in the part I left in.
Which was that you are now claiming no special knowledge of transracial people, having blithely asserted upthread that transracial was a choice. It's still not clear to me why you think it's a choice.
Walls of redundant text? Come on, you're having a laugh. Meghan Markle is relevant, as she is mixed race, not a choice, presumably. So how does transrace fit among mixed race, blackface, and black?
Incidentally, quote mining became a hot issue with some creationists, who would favour a "selective" quotation from Darwin, and the like, and left out something important. The famous example is Darwin's point that the eye is difficult to explain, developmentally, but the next para shows how you can, and this is often omitted.
But where are you going with this? Dolezal is compelled to perform black, so what?
What I'm trying to understand is that you frame her behaviour as a compulsion, but don't appear to frame gender self-identity as a compulsion. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you haven't produced a convincing reason yet (so far as I'm concerned). The fact that you're swearing at me and making unflattering comparisons with creationists is not raising my expectations that you've got one.
Meghan Markle is relevant, as she is mixed race, not a choice, presumably. So how does transrace fit among mixed race, blackface, and black?
She is not relevant in that whether or not the target identity (here, race) is genetically definable (in the case of race, it is, in the case of gender, I don't think you think it is) doesn't appear to me to have any bearing on whether the self-identity is sincere and reversible in the mind of the individual.
Incidentally, quote mining became a hot issue with some creationists, who would favour a "selective" quotation from Darwin, and the like, and left out something important. The famous example is Darwin's point that the eye is difficult to explain, developmentally, but the next para shows how you can, and this is often omitted.
If you'd like to explain how what you're describing there applies to what I've done over the past few posts, go ahead. As far as I can see, you're deflecting my questions.
Specifically, why you baldly asserted, on no grounds whatsoever, that transracial was a choice and when challenged to explain yourself, ducked out by claiming you had no first-hand experience. That has nothing to do with Meghan Markle.
Research indicates that the concept of “five races” does, to an extent, describe the way human populations are distributed among the continents—but the lines between races are much more blurred than ancestry testing companies would have us believe
Ultimately, there is so much ambiguity between the races, and so much variation within them, that two people of European descent may be more genetically similar to an Asian person than they are to each other
There is, surely, a major distinction between any discussion on transgender and race. An individual is born with a biological gender identity, defined as SAAB, and most individuals have a subjective notion that is what they, indeed, are. There is no equivalent scientific taxonomy of races. "Race" is not a genetic concept, but a social construct whose scientific foundations have been long debunked. Race, mixed race etc., has no meaning outside a specific cultural context. Its closest equivalent is "ethnic group". Furthermore, individuals are not born with an innate sense of racial identity. Nelson Mandela, for example, claims he only came across the concept of "African" when he went to live in Johannesburg. The only objective definition of race is as a synonym for species i.e. Human Race, whether you believe in Adam and Eve or a common ancestor currently located in the East African rift valley.
If so, that further undermines any attempt to answer the question about whether Rachel Dolezal's self-identity should be taken any less seriously than that of any self-identified transgender person, and if so, why.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not comparing any trans person to Rachel Dolezal or her story. I am probing what I see as possible limits to the principle of self-identity.
@Kwesi as I said to @quetzalcoatl, it's not clear to me that the nature of the target of a person's self-identity (in Dolezal's case, race) offers a prima facie grounds for discounting (or acknowledging) self-identity as something to be respected.
(Rachel Dolezal herself says race is a social construct, indeed she aligns that conviction with her right to self-identify as black).
Host hat on
I appreciate that this thread touches sore places for various shipmates and others, and that it has been going on for a long time and some people are feeling battle weary, and others are feeling misunderstood. Please can everyone try very hard to keep the discussion within the limits of robust debate, to assume basic good faith on the part of other posters, and to consider carefully when posting whether in this heated discussion your post is open to misinterpretation. If shipmates are finding themselves unable to do that, it may be time to take a break, have a cup of tea or make yourself a @mousethief cooler, or if you really need to vent take it to Hell.
I think my queries about Rachel Dolezal are because she is such a troubled individual and from her story there may be psychological reasons in her past that might give her a reason to identify as black: to distance herself from her abusive parents, to identify with the more appreciated foster children, as two ideas that came up last time she was discussed. She doesn't have a story that matches that of many others through history in the same way as there are historically recognised transgender identity issues. If she was one of thousands desperate to do this, there might be a recognition of a need to identify as another race in the same way, but she isn't. Although she may be recognised as having a form of body dysmorphism.
Looking at the research into transgender there are thousands of people so desperate to identify as another gender that they opt for major surgery. And when supported to transition, not all are troubled in the same way. (It's difficult to separate the distress from being made to live in what they feel as the wrong gender.) Gender studies are finding some brain differences - but that's difficult to evidence as brain plasticity means that may be environmental. But we're also finding out more about in utero gender discrimination and finding more and more steps, which suggests the possibility of more missteps in foetal development, which could mean subtle biological underpinnings.
I think my queries about Rachel Dolezal are because she is such a troubled individual and from her story there may be psychological reasons in her past that might give her a reason to identify as black: to distance herself from her abusive parents, to identify with the more appreciated foster children, as two ideas that came up last time she was discussed.
Couldn't similar psychological reasons apply to some transgender people as well though?
She doesn't have a story that matches that of many others through history in the same way as there are historically recognised transgender identity issues. If she was one of thousands desperate to do this, there might be a recognition of a need to identify as another race in the same way, but she isn't.
If someone has a mismatch between their internal identity and their physical appearance, should we really be deciding which one is correct based on how many other people report the same mismatch?
Is truth just a numbers game?
Although she may be recognised as having a form of body dysmorphism.
Body dysmorphism is another interesting issue that touches on some of what's being said on this thread. If somebody truly believes that their (perfectly healthy) arm is not really theirs, then should a doctor be required to chop it off?
I have already said that I believe all transgender people should be supported to help them through transition, or not. And part of support would be to explore whether there are other things going on. Far better do that than find out some time later that they regret transitioning. And in the UK, social transition for a period is one of the stages of exploration of those issues.
Body dysmorphism is something else again and the ethics committees really debate those issues and whether to operate - and the answer is usually not until after other treatment.
I don't think truth is a numbers game, but that sexual discrimation in humans is so complicated with the many different hormones and genes involved that it's not surprising that it may be completed to different stages in different people, hence things like DSD (different sexual development). But having worked with both children who have diagnosed foetal alcohol syndrome and a number of children of mothers who were known to be abusing alcohol and/or drugs during pregnancy whose behaviour showed similar patterns of easy distractibility and hyperactivity, I wonder if like foetal alcohol syndrome, there is a point at where DSD is recognised and a range of differences that are not labelled, and that transgender may fit into this area.
evidence of living as your preferred gender for two years
Is this the catch-22 of the bureaucratic mindset? You need paperwork to live successfully as the opposite gender but they won't give you the paperwork unless you've done so ?
@Eutychus - thinking about the Rachel Dolezal case in comparison to transgender, I believe all people with problems with their identity should receive some support to explore the issues, preferably before transitioning.
[/quote]
AIUI, support exploring the issues before transitioning is one of the compulsory steps here.
Medical support is a necessary step before official transition to gain a gender recognition certificate (GRC) here too, currently. The transgender person needs a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and two medical signatures - one a psychiatrist and another a medical doctor as well as proof of living in their preferred gender for some time (2 years?) and permission from any partners.
Currently there are people living as transgender who are not officially recognised by a GRC because the process is so onerous. This process has been reviewed and is due to change to some degree - the review happened last year and there was due to be a review bill through Parliament in the last few months, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The transgender charities campaigned for self-ID, so my comment was saying that I don't believe self-ID is sufficient for a number of reasons and would like to see some medical and/or psychological support as part of transition.
@Russ - if you read the links from the post you are questioning they give you chapter and verse on how to obtain the evidence.
TL:DR There's a difference between social transition and a transition recognised by a GRC.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
Thanks CK. As a Host, and pursuing my line re repetition, I point out again, this time to Russ, that these facts of UK legislation have been thoroughly explained earlier in the thread.
Medical support is a necessary step before official transition to gain a gender recognition certificate (GRC) here too, currently. The transgender person needs a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and two medical signatures - one a psychiatrist and another a medical doctor as well as proof of living in their preferred gender for some time (2 years?) and permission from any partners.
Currently there are people living as transgender who are not officially recognised by a GRC because the process is so onerous. This process has been reviewed and is due to change to some degree - the review happened last year and there was due to be a review bill through Parliament in the last few months, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The transgender charities campaigned for self-ID, so my comment was saying that I don't believe self-ID is sufficient for a number of reasons and would like to see some medical and/or psychological support as part of transition.
My recollection is that the period here is 12 months, and that medical evidence is required. I'd be very surprised if most, if not all, would need support through that 12 month period as well as before. Certainly all these requirements were in place before the case that I referred to earlier as attracting Zwingli's wrath.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
And posting briefly as a Shipmate, re Rachel Dolezal, I think her personal self-identification claims and any parallels she may personally draw re trans people should be weighed in the balance against her dubious track record of veracity in her other public statements.
While I appreciate there are absolute claims for self-identification for trans people, and while like CK I have reservations about the wisdom of separating from medical opinion and medical support, I think the parallels with Dolezal are not safe for two reasons; firstly their use by anti-trans groups and secondly question marks over the trustworthyness of Dolezal herself.
Whilst I, and I suspect most of you, can see the logic in the consistency argument in isolation, I think we have to be careful in weighing the supporting evidence.
My other problem with the use of Rachel Dolezal is she's identifying with race, when different races cannot be identified genetically and different races have not been evidenced to have any scientific differences, however much different groups have attempted to show that. All that can be demonstrated is that race is a cultural construct.
In sex discrimination however, we are aware of differences or disorders of sexual development (DSDs), not just intersex. I suspect we will eventually find that transgender is a milder form of DSD, not obviously expressed in the anatomical sex organs.
We did discuss this back on page 15 (and a few other times) where Josephine linked this article from Scientific American in 2018 explaining the complexities of sexual determination in utero - and how many steps there are that can be halted at different stages. And there is further research continuing that is just showing how complicated this whole thing is.
But I studied organic chemistry with units on genetics and biological chemistry. Psychological interpretations tend to look at gender identity psychologically. I suspect that gender identity may have a basis in chemistry.
Now if we wanted to look at why there is an increase in transgender diagnoses, I could point to the way we are filling our world with hormone disrupters and other pollutants that could be affecting our development, but that's pure speculation.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
Yup re Rachel D.
And yup re the rest. Nature likes variety. Which tends to play ducks and drakes (whoops, binary metaphor!) with our seemingly inbuilt need to categorise in order to understand.
So are hair colour, hair curliness and eye colour genetically determined, and a whole lot more. But genetic profiles vary wider within so called races than they do between those races.
Interesting stuff about chemical disruptors. A common idea is that gender variation has always existed, but was suppressed for various reasons, and today we are more liberal. Difficult to find evidence for this, except in relation to cross-dressing, which may not be based on gender identity. Also, the issue of "third gender" in different cultures, but difficult to match with trans.
Race as it is currently understood is - rightly or wrongly - defined purely by skin colour. And skin colour is determined genetically. Ergo it is false to say that race cannot be identified scientifically.
Which is all beside the point anyway, given that you seem to be saying that race isn't something an individual can change through self-identification and gender is. Surely that's the wrong way round if gender can be determined scientifically and race can't?
@quetzalcoatl the fact that the target identity (race) happens to be genetically definable doesn't ipso facto say anything about whether a self-asserted transracial person sees their asserted identity as something they have a choice about.
Dolezal may well be physically in a position to cease being black at will, and I can (nearly) fully understand why a black person would find that so insulting, but I'm by no means convinced her physical ability to do so means she is psychologically able to do so, and apparently at least one leading psychologist agrees with me. I wouldn't be surprised if she considered any such injunction to be as much an assault on her identity as asking a trans person to make their gender correspond to their sex.
But where are you going with this? Dolezal is compelled to perform black, so what? I had clients who compulsively exposed themselves. I'm not sure what this adds to our understanding of gender identity.
What is black in America? It is colour, of which Dolezal doesn't have. She is white.
Even though race is not a biological definition, the way black is ascribed in America is by colour, not culture. Hers would seem more a case of disassociation with an unwanted past and a reinvention farther away from it.
ETA: The comparison to Dolezal demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what being black is.
By extension, it would seem to be the same lack of understanding of what trans is also.
Siblings with one melanin-deficient parent and one melanin-normal parent express their melanin levels according to genetics. Are you going to suggest that any or all of those siblings have to identify with their melanin-normal parent, as opposed to their melanin-deficient parent?
Bluntly put, do they tick the box marked Black, or White, and who are you to tell them which is 'correct'?
What is black in America? It is colour, of which Dolezal doesn't have. She is white.
Even though race is not a biological definition, the way black is ascribed in America is by colour, not culture. Hers would seem more a case of disassociation with an unwanted past and a reinvention farther away from it.
ETA: The comparison to Dolezal demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what being black is.
By extension, it would seem to be the same lack of understanding of what trans is also.
What is the justification for saying that whether someone is male or female should be entirely defined by how they self-identify regardless of their external appearance, but whether someone is black or white should be entirely defined by external appearance regardless of how they self-identify?
Which is all beside the point anyway, given that you seem to be saying that race isn't something an individual can change through self-identification and gender is. Surely that's the wrong way round if gender can be determined scientifically and race can't?
No, I'm saying that race is a social construct and that someone wanting to identify as a different race is expressing social ideas of identity. You see white teenage boys in London identifying with black culture, people choosing to identify in different ways. I've worked with a range of people whose chosen racial identity is not necessarily the one they were born with - people opting into Muslim culture, for example, children who are mixed race identifying with the culture of one or other of their parents.
I'm fascinated you see race as in terms of the amount of melanin in skin, because that's not necessarily the way I see it.
I am also saying that gender identity seems to be something that people have inbuilt. Those people who are identifying that their gender is not the same as their sex assigned at birth have been convinced of this, usually from a young age. And there are mechanisms within sex discrimination in utero where maybe their brain or other development was affected with hormones at a certain stage that could have altered their genetic identity.
Siblings with one melanin-deficient parent and one melanin-normal parent express their melanin levels according to genetics. Are you going to suggest that any or all of those siblings have to identify with their melanin-normal parent, as opposed to their melanin-deficient parent?
Bluntly put, do they tick the box marked Black, or White, and who are you to tell them which is 'correct'?
A very good question. Here's some 100% true anecdata. My wife, although her mother is from Worthing and her father from Northern Ireland, is olive-skinned. She is considerably darker than her three sisters. One of our daughters is darker still and she has married a British Asian man. When they go on holoiday, she acquires a darker skin tone than he has, thanks to melanin (after two years in Malta she looked darker than many Maltese).
Now, there is (according to some rough research) some Iberian and Romany DNA in my wife's mother's family. Little Asian (unless you take the Asian origin of the Romany) but, heck, I don't think you can't rely on skin colour to indicate race.
Siblings with one melanin-deficient parent and one melanin-normal parent express their melanin levels according to genetics. Are you going to suggest that any or all of those siblings have to identify with their melanin-normal parent, as opposed to their melanin-deficient parent?
Bluntly put, do they tick the box marked Black, or White, and who are you to tell them which is 'correct'?
What they tick is their business, they will not be lying. But if they appear black, they will have a different experience to a white person. These young ladies are twins. There experiences in life due to their coluration are not the same and will never be the same.
Race as it is currently understood is - rightly or wrongly - defined purely by skin colour. And skin colour is determined genetically. Ergo it is false to say that race cannot be identified scientifically.
Since people who are genetically closely related - siblings, parents and children - can be assigned to different races based on skin color, the relationship of race to genetics is meaningless. Color is determined by genetics, but race is a social construct.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
edited July 2019
How about 'race is a social construct generally based on appearance'? I appreciate it is a tangent from this thread and if you fancy I could split the thread and give you a separate playground? Let's see if it's got legs.
Race as it is currently understood is - rightly or wrongly - defined purely by skin colour.
Someone from southern India is technically Caucasian. A lot of people with quite pale skins are black. Hair and facial shape play a part. But mainly it's a question of how other people perceive you.
I think one difference between sex and race is that there is a developmental stage at which small children assign themselves (probably at least in part in response to social cues) to one gender or the other. (Dafling minor has gone through it in the past year). So there's a stage after which the process has matched up with biological sex or not. I don't think there's an equivalent developmental stage at which people self-identify as a race. (It's hard to see why something like that would develop.) Race doesn't become an issue until society makes it an issue. So it's not obvious that there's a process by which a mismatch can arise in the same way.
Although people do react by thinking other people in news stories could or could not be them. I can see that if someone passes for African in the street (e.g., the police stop them more often than average) and if they see news stories about black people (especially if they've suffered injustice) and think that could have been me, then it might be meaningful to say they're black regardless of their parents. Yet if they could pass for white if they dressed in a particular way, and if their childhood experience was as a white child I can see why black people could meaningfully question it.
(As for Dolezal: I'm not black; I don't know her; I can't speak about specifics about which I don't know.)
The whole point I’m trying to make is around consistency. If self ID is all that’s required to define which gender someone is, then shouldn’t it also be all that’s required to define any other aspects of identity? It’s about the principle of the thing.
I’m well aware that many on this thread aren’t advocating self ID as the only determinant of someone’s identity. But that’s the point that I’m trying to explore here.
The whole point I’m trying to make is around consistency. If self ID is all that’s required to define which gender someone is, then shouldn’t it also be all that’s required to define any other aspects of identity? It’s about the principle of the thing.
I’m well aware that many on this thread aren’t advocating self ID as the only determinant of someone’s identity. But that’s the point that I’m trying to explore here.
All things are not the same. Conflating them is not a helpful thing to ANYONE
I'm not sure you're going to find many, if any, people who are going to say self-ID is all that is required on this thread.
I can find you links that will say self-ID is all that should be required from some of the charities, but personally I'm not convinced and think there should be a diagnosis, which will check to see if anything else is going on, some time living as their preferred gender and hormone treatment, at least, as part of the formal transitioning process.
Race as it is currently understood is - rightly or wrongly - defined purely by skin colour.
I'm not actually sure it is - there is an area of overlap of different colours of skin where race will be 'defined' by onlookers via other characteristics too.
I'm not sure you're going to find many, if any, people who are going to say self-ID is all that is required on this thread.
Colin Smith.
I can find you links that will say self-ID is all that should be required from some of the charities, but personally I'm not convinced and think there should be a diagnosis, which will check to see if anything else is going on, some time living as their preferred gender and hormone treatment, at least, as part of the formal transitioning process.
And I have no problem with that approach, especially if it keeps a genuinely open mind during the initial assessments and isn’t biased towards any particular diagnosis.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
I think that's the point, Marvin. We can argue self ID on its merits without throwing Rachel Dolezal into the picture. She's not exactly the best witness in the world. And personally, I'm singing off the same song sheet as CK. Perfectly prepared to take folks at their word for sincerity. But glad that there is a process of professional confirmation of diagnosis 'to see if something else is going on' as CK puts it.
Is that second guessing someone's sincerity? I'm sure some people will see it so. But given what can be involved in transition, if it were me I'd want both the professional assessment and the support on my side.
And I wish Grayface were here to give us her insight and experience over this question. (And any others too.)
I've just checked to see how transphobic I was being suggesting hormonal transition and apparently it's not unknown for transpeople who would love to transition to be unsuitable for hormone treatment for various health reasons.
I'd say no. What is being second-guessed is people's ability to self-diagnose various other mental health conditions. Conditions which might underlie a claim to be of the opposite gender, that does not arise from the particular syndrome (male brain in female body or vice versa).
We can argue self ID on its merits without throwing Rachel Dolezal into the picture. She's not exactly the best witness in the world.
No we can't. Because self-ID is an extreme position that rules out consideration of whether the person in question is a reliable witness (along with ruling out whether there is any objective reality at all behind the claim.
The more unreliable the witness the better the counterexample that they provide.
(Not making any comment on Rachel Dolezal - just pointing out that your stated reason for wanting to exclude her case makes no sense to me).
I'm not convinced and think there should be a diagnosis, which will check to see if anything else is going on, some time living as their preferred gender and hormone treatment, at least, as part of the formal transitioning process.
Diagnosis, yes. Help with the transitioning process, yes, at the point where the individual has been diagnosed and has been through a counselling process and concluded that living as the opposite gender is what they really want to do. Time living as the preferred gender before surgery (or other irrevocable treatment), yes.
Russ, when you say that letting a person identify what they are, it's rather striking. If it were not inappropriate for this board, I would respond by writing this post repeatedly calling you by a different name and using a different pronoun. I would "accidentally" get other details wrong as well. Probably, you would correct me. I would ask whether you were really sure. For instance, I might say "I mean you seem like a woman to me." In actuality, that sentence does not make any sense to me. But if you found it annoying when I doubted your stated gender and argued that you were wrong, you might see why I find it baffling not to trust people to know themselves. (For the record, I am currently defending the position Barnabas and CK have put forward above re self-ID and not anything more or less extreme.)
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
You misunderstand me Russ. There is no need to bring racial identity into any discussion about the merits of self ID for trans people. And particularly when the example quoted is an unreliable witness.
We can talk about the pros and cons of self ID purely in the context of trans people without bringing wider consistency arguments to bear. Identifying with a race may have some similarities to identifying with a gender, but I'd say the special features of transition for trans people make the consistency argument pretty limited in its value in any case, without the additional weakness of Rachel D's dubious public pronouncements.
And I don't want to give support to biassed arguments coming from anti-trans groups who have used the Rachel Dolezal case for purposes which I wholly oppose. I've only just recently read some of that stuff, didn't like it at all. And I'm careful about the company I keep.
I was saying "something else involved" from experience of a young man who was not only trying to resolve his gender identity, but also dealing with the aftermath of being assaulted. Certainly when I knew him he was identifying as both male and female, but last I heard he hadn't transitioned as he was still working through the assault.
I'm not sure you're going to find many, if any, people who are going to say self-ID is all that is required on this thread.
I can find you links that will say self-ID is all that should be required from some of the charities, but personally I'm not convinced and think there should be a diagnosis, which will check to see if anything else is going on, some time living as their preferred gender and hormone treatment, at least, as part of the formal transitioning process.
Required for what though? It's bizarre to say that I can (approximately) describe my own gender identity, but a trans person can't. I think a lot will seek treatment and transition, as they are in distress. But is this some kind of qualification? For what?
Is there any evidence of people with non-binary gender identities experiencing dysphoria related to the bodies they were born with? Have hormones or surgery ever been prescribed as treatment for such dysphoria?
I'm not sure you're going to find many, if any, people who are going to say self-ID is all that is required on this thread.
I can find you links that will say self-ID is all that should be required from some of the charities, but personally I'm not convinced and think there should be a diagnosis, which will check to see if anything else is going on, some time living as their preferred gender and hormone treatment, at least, as part of the formal transitioning process.
Required for what though?
For the rest of society to (have to?) treat them as the gender they claim to be.
Comments
But where are you going with this? Dolezal is compelled to perform black, so what? I had clients who compulsively exposed themselves. I'm not sure what this adds to our understanding of gender identity.
Small yes, but not vanishingly small.
Walls of redundant text? Come on, you're having a laugh. Meghan Markle is relevant, as she is mixed race, not a choice, presumably. So how does transrace fit among mixed race, blackface, and black?
She is not relevant in that whether or not the target identity (here, race) is genetically definable (in the case of race, it is, in the case of gender, I don't think you think it is) doesn't appear to me to have any bearing on whether the self-identity is sincere and reversible in the mind of the individual.
If you'd like to explain how what you're describing there applies to what I've done over the past few posts, go ahead. As far as I can see, you're deflecting my questions.
Specifically, why you baldly asserted, on no grounds whatsoever, that transracial was a choice and when challenged to explain yourself, ducked out by claiming you had no first-hand experience. That has nothing to do with Meghan Markle.
If so, that further undermines any attempt to answer the question about whether Rachel Dolezal's self-identity should be taken any less seriously than that of any self-identified transgender person, and if so, why.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not comparing any trans person to Rachel Dolezal or her story. I am probing what I see as possible limits to the principle of self-identity.
(Rachel Dolezal herself says race is a social construct, indeed she aligns that conviction with her right to self-identify as black).
I appreciate that this thread touches sore places for various shipmates and others, and that it has been going on for a long time and some people are feeling battle weary, and others are feeling misunderstood. Please can everyone try very hard to keep the discussion within the limits of robust debate, to assume basic good faith on the part of other posters, and to consider carefully when posting whether in this heated discussion your post is open to misinterpretation. If shipmates are finding themselves unable to do that, it may be time to take a break, have a cup of tea or make yourself a @mousethief cooler, or if you really need to vent take it to Hell.
Host hat off
BroJames Purgatory Host
Looking at the research into transgender there are thousands of people so desperate to identify as another gender that they opt for major surgery. And when supported to transition, not all are troubled in the same way. (It's difficult to separate the distress from being made to live in what they feel as the wrong gender.) Gender studies are finding some brain differences - but that's difficult to evidence as brain plasticity means that may be environmental. But we're also finding out more about in utero gender discrimination and finding more and more steps, which suggests the possibility of more missteps in foetal development, which could mean subtle biological underpinnings.
Couldn't similar psychological reasons apply to some transgender people as well though?
If someone has a mismatch between their internal identity and their physical appearance, should we really be deciding which one is correct based on how many other people report the same mismatch?
Is truth just a numbers game?
Body dysmorphism is another interesting issue that touches on some of what's being said on this thread. If somebody truly believes that their (perfectly healthy) arm is not really theirs, then should a doctor be required to chop it off?
Body dysmorphism is something else again and the ethics committees really debate those issues and whether to operate - and the answer is usually not until after other treatment.
I don't think truth is a numbers game, but that sexual discrimation in humans is so complicated with the many different hormones and genes involved that it's not surprising that it may be completed to different stages in different people, hence things like DSD (different sexual development). But having worked with both children who have diagnosed foetal alcohol syndrome and a number of children of mothers who were known to be abusing alcohol and/or drugs during pregnancy whose behaviour showed similar patterns of easy distractibility and hyperactivity, I wonder if like foetal alcohol syndrome, there is a point at where DSD is recognised and a range of differences that are not labelled, and that transgender may fit into this area.
Do they? I don't remember ever having done so.
Is this the catch-22 of the bureaucratic mindset? You need paperwork to live successfully as the opposite gender but they won't give you the paperwork unless you've done so ?
AIUI, support exploring the issues before transitioning is one of the compulsory steps here.
Currently there are people living as transgender who are not officially recognised by a GRC because the process is so onerous. This process has been reviewed and is due to change to some degree - the review happened last year and there was due to be a review bill through Parliament in the last few months, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The transgender charities campaigned for self-ID, so my comment was saying that I don't believe self-ID is sufficient for a number of reasons and would like to see some medical and/or psychological support as part of transition.
@Russ - if you read the links from the post you are questioning they give you chapter and verse on how to obtain the evidence.
TL:DR There's a difference between social transition and a transition recognised by a GRC.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
My recollection is that the period here is 12 months, and that medical evidence is required. I'd be very surprised if most, if not all, would need support through that 12 month period as well as before. Certainly all these requirements were in place before the case that I referred to earlier as attracting Zwingli's wrath.
While I appreciate there are absolute claims for self-identification for trans people, and while like CK I have reservations about the wisdom of separating from medical opinion and medical support, I think the parallels with Dolezal are not safe for two reasons; firstly their use by anti-trans groups and secondly question marks over the trustworthyness of Dolezal herself.
Whilst I, and I suspect most of you, can see the logic in the consistency argument in isolation, I think we have to be careful in weighing the supporting evidence.
In sex discrimination however, we are aware of differences or disorders of sexual development (DSDs), not just intersex. I suspect we will eventually find that transgender is a milder form of DSD, not obviously expressed in the anatomical sex organs.
We did discuss this back on page 15 (and a few other times) where Josephine linked this article from Scientific American in 2018 explaining the complexities of sexual determination in utero - and how many steps there are that can be halted at different stages. And there is further research continuing that is just showing how complicated this whole thing is.
But I studied organic chemistry with units on genetics and biological chemistry. Psychological interpretations tend to look at gender identity psychologically. I suspect that gender identity may have a basis in chemistry.
Now if we wanted to look at why there is an increase in transgender diagnoses, I could point to the way we are filling our world with hormone disrupters and other pollutants that could be affecting our development, but that's pure speculation.
And yup re the rest. Nature likes variety. Which tends to play ducks and drakes (whoops, binary metaphor!) with our seemingly inbuilt need to categorise in order to understand.
Skin colour is a scientific difference - the amount of melanin the body produces is controlled genetically.
Which is all beside the point anyway, given that you seem to be saying that race isn't something an individual can change through self-identification and gender is. Surely that's the wrong way round if gender can be determined scientifically and race can't?
Even though race is not a biological definition, the way black is ascribed in America is by colour, not culture. Hers would seem more a case of disassociation with an unwanted past and a reinvention farther away from it.
ETA: The comparison to Dolezal demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what being black is.
By extension, it would seem to be the same lack of understanding of what trans is also.
Bluntly put, do they tick the box marked Black, or White, and who are you to tell them which is 'correct'?
What is the justification for saying that whether someone is male or female should be entirely defined by how they self-identify regardless of their external appearance, but whether someone is black or white should be entirely defined by external appearance regardless of how they self-identify?
No, I'm saying that race is a social construct and that someone wanting to identify as a different race is expressing social ideas of identity. You see white teenage boys in London identifying with black culture, people choosing to identify in different ways. I've worked with a range of people whose chosen racial identity is not necessarily the one they were born with - people opting into Muslim culture, for example, children who are mixed race identifying with the culture of one or other of their parents.
I'm fascinated you see race as in terms of the amount of melanin in skin, because that's not necessarily the way I see it.
I am also saying that gender identity seems to be something that people have inbuilt. Those people who are identifying that their gender is not the same as their sex assigned at birth have been convinced of this, usually from a young age. And there are mechanisms within sex discrimination in utero where maybe their brain or other development was affected with hormones at a certain stage that could have altered their genetic identity.
A very good question. Here's some 100% true anecdata. My wife, although her mother is from Worthing and her father from Northern Ireland, is olive-skinned. She is considerably darker than her three sisters. One of our daughters is darker still and she has married a British Asian man. When they go on holoiday, she acquires a darker skin tone than he has, thanks to melanin (after two years in Malta she looked darker than many Maltese).
Now, there is (according to some rough research) some Iberian and Romany DNA in my wife's mother's family. Little Asian (unless you take the Asian origin of the Romany) but, heck, I don't think you can't rely on skin colour to indicate race.
These young ladies are twins. There experiences in life due to their coluration are not the same and will never be the same.
Since people who are genetically closely related - siblings, parents and children - can be assigned to different races based on skin color, the relationship of race to genetics is meaningless. Color is determined by genetics, but race is a social construct.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
I think one difference between sex and race is that there is a developmental stage at which small children assign themselves (probably at least in part in response to social cues) to one gender or the other. (Dafling minor has gone through it in the past year). So there's a stage after which the process has matched up with biological sex or not. I don't think there's an equivalent developmental stage at which people self-identify as a race. (It's hard to see why something like that would develop.) Race doesn't become an issue until society makes it an issue. So it's not obvious that there's a process by which a mismatch can arise in the same way.
Although people do react by thinking other people in news stories could or could not be them. I can see that if someone passes for African in the street (e.g., the police stop them more often than average) and if they see news stories about black people (especially if they've suffered injustice) and think that could have been me, then it might be meaningful to say they're black regardless of their parents. Yet if they could pass for white if they dressed in a particular way, and if their childhood experience was as a white child I can see why black people could meaningfully question it.
(As for Dolezal: I'm not black; I don't know her; I can't speak about specifics about which I don't know.)
I’m well aware that many on this thread aren’t advocating self ID as the only determinant of someone’s identity. But that’s the point that I’m trying to explore here.
I can find you links that will say self-ID is all that should be required from some of the charities, but personally I'm not convinced and think there should be a diagnosis, which will check to see if anything else is going on, some time living as their preferred gender and hormone treatment, at least, as part of the formal transitioning process.
I'm not actually sure it is - there is an area of overlap of different colours of skin where race will be 'defined' by onlookers via other characteristics too.
Colin Smith.
And I have no problem with that approach, especially if it keeps a genuinely open mind during the initial assessments and isn’t biased towards any particular diagnosis.
Is that second guessing someone's sincerity? I'm sure some people will see it so. But given what can be involved in transition, if it were me I'd want both the professional assessment and the support on my side.
And I wish Grayface were here to give us her insight and experience over this question. (And any others too.)
I'd say no. What is being second-guessed is people's ability to self-diagnose various other mental health conditions. Conditions which might underlie a claim to be of the opposite gender, that does not arise from the particular syndrome (male brain in female body or vice versa).
No we can't. Because self-ID is an extreme position that rules out consideration of whether the person in question is a reliable witness (along with ruling out whether there is any objective reality at all behind the claim.
The more unreliable the witness the better the counterexample that they provide.
(Not making any comment on Rachel Dolezal - just pointing out that your stated reason for wanting to exclude her case makes no sense to me).
Diagnosis, yes. Help with the transitioning process, yes, at the point where the individual has been diagnosed and has been through a counselling process and concluded that living as the opposite gender is what they really want to do. Time living as the preferred gender before surgery (or other irrevocable treatment), yes.
Don't think we're a million miles apart.
We can talk about the pros and cons of self ID purely in the context of trans people without bringing wider consistency arguments to bear. Identifying with a race may have some similarities to identifying with a gender, but I'd say the special features of transition for trans people make the consistency argument pretty limited in its value in any case, without the additional weakness of Rachel D's dubious public pronouncements.
And I don't want to give support to biassed arguments coming from anti-trans groups who have used the Rachel Dolezal case for purposes which I wholly oppose. I've only just recently read some of that stuff, didn't like it at all. And I'm careful about the company I keep.
Required for what though? It's bizarre to say that I can (approximately) describe my own gender identity, but a trans person can't. I think a lot will seek treatment and transition, as they are in distress. But is this some kind of qualification? For what?
For the rest of society to (have to?) treat them as the gender they claim to be.