Another problematic addition to the forums!

Days ago, a story berating a (now former) George Washington University professor named Jessica Krug for faking a number of black identities over the course of her life and career and using those fake identities to actively deny actual black people social and career opportunities appeared in my daily email from Digg, indicating it to have been among the most popular articles of late among Digg's heavily liberal user base. This recent revelation appears to have taken the left by storm, prompting renewed sanctimonious condemnations of what apparently is a small phenom known as "transracialism" where ethnically white people (mostly women) opportunistically pretend to be black for advantage in like black studies departments and black activist groups and circles, sometimes by claiming that they're "psychologically black", whatever that means. Another famous example of this phenom would be, of course, the case of one Rachel Dolezal, an ethnically white woman who wound up presiding over a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for some time until, when revealed to have a purely European ancestry, she claimed to "identify as black" because of her lifestyle (e.g. liked hip hop music and other stereotypically "black" stuff) and was promptly drummed out of the organization. Anyway, the liberals and the progressives have of late spent much time and energy condemning this stuff anew because of the new, high-profile case of Jessica Krug.

Personally, I find this a fascinating position for such incredibly woke people to take. A question immediately forms in my mind. That question was aptly articulated by Meghan Murphy in a recent article on this subject for her web site Feminist Current:

"I am...amused when it comes to the obvious questions around why it is appalling for a white person to adopt the identity of a person of colour, but not for a male to insist he is female because he prefers a dress to pants or because he enjoys the sense of power he feels waltzing into the women’s change room, knowing that if any woman dare protest, he is completely within his rights to accuse her of a hate crime.

The very same people who believe women like Krug and Dolezal should be tarred and feathered, who complain that to identify as something you objectively are not constitutes “gaslighting” and “violence,” will, with a straight face, insist there is such a thing as a “female penis” and that “men menstruate too.” Not only that, but these very same people would not hesitate to cancel a friend or colleague who dare ask what the difference is between a white person who claims to be black and a man who claims to be female."

In case you didn't catch it either here or in the thread title, the question is: if transracialism is bullshit, why isn't transgenderism? What is the essential difference between these phenomena that makes it okay for say a biological male to "identify as a woman" but unacceptable for an ethnic Caucasian to "identify as black"? Why do Western leftists regard the one thing as a parasitic, exploitative form of cultural/identity appropriation, but not the other? What is it that makes the one thing here more real than the other? Sincere question. I really would like to see what kind of mental gymnastics are required to reconcile the two obviously contradictory positions.

Time.  Not enough of it has passed for a statistically significant number of people to be able to articulate a well-reasoned position that is persuasive enough to make it palatable for those who haven't reached the same conclusion.  In time, that may change.  At present, the general point of view is that the two concepts are so different they are unworthy of being held in the same esteem, to such an extent that some would feel like further elaboration would be akin to explaining at great length that rocks are hard.  Will you be the one to change that point of view?  Only time will tell.

This goes back to the gay question: Are you born gay or do you choose to be? If believe born, then by proxy you also believe that its possible for somebody to truly feel like the opposite sex.

You kind of sort of answer - when revealed to have a purely European ancestry, she claimed to "identify as black" because of her lifestyle (e.g. liked hip hop music and other stereotypically "black" stuff).

Now compare.

EDIT: I do believe that it is totally possible to identify as another ethic group, but it goes beyond "because I like Snoop Dogg".

While I belive both are bullshit. I belive the main problem they see is while someone could claim to be black, they don't look like it and never will so people will treat them just like any other white person wich that group considers that to be still privilege. While if a man considers himself a woman, the resulting interactions would be of a woman or a gay man wich both are considered protected groups. So because they would still have one victim point they will not receive the backlash.

You also need a year round tan.

This thread is not going the way I thought it would.

Actually, I don't know what I was expecting.

I don't see what's so much of a stretch about having brain chemicals that are more oriented toward the opposite sex; then with surgery and hormone therapy and such, you can pretty much claim to be the gender you so choose. I have no problem with that (not that anyone was waiting for my say in the matter).

I think the idea of "transracial" is, in itself, a racist premise. I have no interest in showing how tolerant and liberal I am, as I am of course anonymous here, so it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of me in those terms, but I genuinely do not identify with my race... nor any other, for that matter. I'm just a person. By saying you think you were born into the wrong race or whatever implies that there's some tangible difference which isn't really the case beyond pigment and superficial physical feature and the like. I don't see anything wrong identifying with a particular culture more than your own, but that's purely a social fabrication that actually has nothing to do with race.

They're both silly but the clash between freedom and order is forever inevitable.

As aiwass said before, the idea of "transracialism" is fundamentally racist, and very much a US American concept, because it assumes that people have different cultures depending on the colour of their skin. Ethnicity has been historically linked to skin colour, but now that the world is so small it has a broader meaning. An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other because of culture and common descent, independently of appearance. Therefore, it is not something assigned at birth, it's something you yourself identify with. If you grow up with in Japan, for example, you'll identify as Japanese when you get older, no matter if you were born in Japan, Austria, Brazil or Namibia, and no matter if you like things from other cultures, because your fundamental values and traditions are Japanese. Of couse cultural borders are getting blurrier with time, but I'm going on a tangent now.

It's really nonsensical to compare the two things. Gender dysphoria is a very real psychological condition, where someone's gender identity doesn't match their sex assigned at birth. There's no such thing as racial dysphoria.

A sincere question, yet you've already declared any opposing viewpoint as mental gymnastics? Yeah, I'm doubting your sincerity here. And to be transparent, that kind of thing makes this seem the topic is made in bad faith.

As for the topic, there are a lot of differences. First off, we have a pretty good way to determine ethnic makeup (although I don't know if we necessarily should, but that's besides the point). Ethnicity is fairly easily determined, and we can pretty reliably determine where your ancestors were from based on your DNA. I am factually not Chinese. I can identify with asian culture (I was an honorary asian in high school) but that's quite different from actually being asian.

In comparison, we don't have a similarly reliable way to determine gender. We tend to identify sex by XY or XX, but that's not an accurate way to determine sex or gender. 

https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/advice/a5183/woman-with-male-chromosomes/

For instance, some people have androgen insensitivity syndrome. This causes a genetically male (XY) person to develop fully functional female genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. The person themselves may have no idea they are not "genetically female". So, this goes to show that neither genitals nor chromosomes can be a reliable test for gender.

The issue of hormones in general makes the subject tricky. There is a wide variety in how much of certain hormones are produced, and how much the body reacts to them. Those with different hormone levels may feel more like one gender or another. 

There are also differences in brain structure between cis-males and females (and obviously a large variety among those within the categories). Studies have shown that those who identify as trans tend to have brains that are more similar to the gender they identify with. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm

Other studies have shown that trans people have brains that are distinct from either cis-males or cis-females.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain/

And there are species where sex is determined by external factors. http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/im-xy-know-sex-determination-systems-101/ Not saying this applies to human, but environment can maybe have an effect.

The TL:DR version is that we have a pretty clear understanding of ethnicity. Rachel Dolezal has no reason to genuinely believe she is black as we define it. A genetic test could pretty easily confirm whether or not she has any relatives that were from Africa in the past few hundred years or so. If she says she "feels" like she's black, that's ridiculous, because where her ancestors came from is a fact that is relatively easily justifiable. If she says she likes black culture, than whatever.

On the other hand, we cannot do the same for gender. Gender is not well defined, and if you have a foolproof way to determine gender, then share it. The characteristics we associate with biological sex (primary sex characteristics, secondary sex characteristics, hormones, brain structure) often do not all agree. Since I don't have a good way to identify gender, I'm going to take someone at their word, because as far as I can tell they genuinely feel that way, and there can be a physiological basis for that in their hormones/chromosomes/brain/genitals that I do not have access to. They are in a better position to determine their gender than I am, although they are not necessarily infallible either, so I'm going to follow their lead.  

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1207834357639139328.html

Even shorter version, I genuinely believe that most trans people are accurately conveying to me what they believe to be true. On the other hand, someone like Krug was knowingly lying. That's a pretty clear difference. No mental gymnastics required.