Submitted 9 months ago by Tiffany1994@lemmy.cafe to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
The correct response is to consider what the correct way to synthesize the positions is, and go with that. There’s nothing wrong with thinking a little in response to a question.
Typically, the assumption is that this is an argument that transgender is invalid. Perhaps there’s another way of looking at it.
“Shut up.”
The best way is asking: what’s your point? Is it that transgender shouldn’t be accepted or that transrace should?. And proceed from there to either defend transgenderism or criticize transracism accordingly.
First let me start by saying I strongly dislike the race therminology, but I’ll use it here for consistency, although normally I would call it ethnicity.
The difference between those lies in that gender is a social construct, and race is not. Race has some biological meaning, just like sex, people can’t change their sex (yet), they can’t change their race (yet).
Gender is a social construct, it’s things that have nothing to do with biology but that we as a society attribute in general to a specific sex. A similar concept for race would be culture, a person can be of the sex male but prefer to wear clothes usually associated with female sex, just like someone can be of the white ethnicity but prefer to hear music usually associated with black ethnicity. I wouldn’t call Eminem or Michael Jackson transrace, what would that even mean?
I genuinely don’t know enough about what people who claim to be trans racial are even saying and why they’re saying it to form an opinion on it. My gut feeling is that it isn’t valid and they’re bad actors, but my gut has been wrong before.
So if someone told me “trans racial is just as valid as trans gender” I’d either not respond or just say “I don’t know about that.” and leave it at that.
Gentle reminder that if you believe someone is a bad actor and using dog whistles there isn’t a point in responding to things like this because you aren’t going to change their mind.
Does it really matter if someone is either
This thread clearly shows that people are naturally bigoted. There is trace community on reddit. There are a lot of trace people who are also trans. They have dysphoria. They are suicidal. The hate their body. They are not accepted by society. They get death threats. Arguments used against trace people are the same as arguments against trans people. So, we are actually the same.
Why not ask more questions about it? And if they insist it does no damage, it wouldn’t matter either way
I don’t know anything about this issue but apparently the presumption here is that your view is the right view and you’re just asking how to splain it to the person. My question is about the “I’ve already blocked this person…” Instead could you possibly just limit your conversation to other subjects? It keeps looking like we’re all getting more and more isolated from each other and developing such extreme aversion to anyone not having our exact POV about everything, it reminds me of survivalist bunker mentality.
Depends if I have time and I want entertainment at that moment, I know they are trolling and don’t care and usually people just want to get me angry at them so I calmly responded to everything they say as it’s a real legitimate question, treat every question as if there truly caring about it. Most people will just back off after a bit because they can’t get me all angry and pissed off. It’s quite entertaining watching them get angry and wound up because I was trying to answer them honestly and nice way. Doesn’t always work but it’s just something I do I learned really pisses off those kinda people
The differences between the sexes is much less than people like to pretend. Every cell in your body has different modes it can operate in. Many, perhaps most, cells have estrogen-dominated and testosterone-dominated modes. If you change the dominant hormones in the body, every cell in the body switches between these modes. Trans people who medically transition are simply taking advantage of the body’s existing mechanism of secondary sex characteristics.
Ultimately, any person could have a male- or female- typical phenotype. If you put the right hormone injections into a fetus at the right time of pregnancy, an XY fetus would be born with a vagina and a uterus. And the opposite is true as well. These conditions sometimes happen naturally with intersex conditions. Every human body has the potential to develop along a male- or female-typical path. It’s just a matter of what hormones are passing through the body at what stage of development.
But race? There’s no comparison. Cells don’t have different expression modes that correspond to different racial phenotypes. There are no “black hormones” that a white person could take to gain many of the characteristics of black bodies. There is simply no equivalent to the medical transition process many trans people undergo. There is simply no equivalent to the fundamental rewiring of the body that occurs on a cellular level with trans medical treatments.
Are you saying hormone injections or other medical measures are necessary for you to consider someone transgender? I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t agree with that. Correspondingly why would that be required to be transracial? TBH it sounds the same as the anti-trans argument that goes like, “cuz it just don’t make sense.”
Those who seek outrage will find it every time. Yes, obviously there are some trans people that don’t seek out medical transition. That’s why I said “trans people who medically transition.” But language can be overly inclusive. We don’t need to start every single writing on trans people with three paragraphs describing every exception and caveat. Obviously when you talk about a group, any group, you have to talk in generalities. If you insist on starting every comment about trans people with paragraphs of caveats and provisos, you make actually getting to the point impossible. You water down the language to the point of uselessness. At at time when trans rights are under assault on all sides, I don’t mind focusing most trans discussions on the material realities and needs of most trans folks.
Most trans people want to medically transition. Are those that don’t somehow invalid? No. But we also don’t need to start every discussion with a thousand caveats describing every sub-category within a group. There are atheist Jews and there are gay Muslims. That doesn’t mean every discussion of those faiths is centered around these rare exceptions.
Yeah fuck it, it’s 2025
No race, no gender. No problems.
Gender anarchism and race anarchism. People be just people. Social constructs shall not be a dividing reason, let everyone behave however the hell they want as long as they don’t hurt others and be happy.
This is exactly why I think “transgender” does more harm than good and I’ll die on this hill. What’s the point? The people who are going to accept the way you express yourself aren’t going to care if it conforms to gender stereotypes, and the people who aren’t won’t suddenly change their minds if it does.
All it does is reinforce the very same stereotypes that gave you gender dysphoria in the first place. It’s saying that gender norms are valid, you just got assigned the wrong ones. Live your truth, express yourself how you want, alter your body however you want, but don’t validate oppressive stereotypes in the process.
This reeks of, “I don’t see color,” which is bullshit racists say to justify ignoring the plights of people of color in the US.
We need to see color if we ever want to possibly attempt to correct the deep, systemic problems we have with racism.
Also US race concepts are kind of weird in general. I suppose the history of slavery and segregation did a number on people’s perception of race.
There is no “did” here, it’s ongoing.
I get your point, but you’re missing the point of what the person is saying. They said that if no one cared about gender or race transgenders or transrace wouldn’t be an issue, it would be seen similarly to people who dye their hair or undergo plastic surgery to change something they don’t like on themselves, i.e. cosmetic changes that society in general doesn’t give a crap.
If society treated race the same way we treat shoe sizes, i.e. they exist, we recognize them when it’s needed but understand that outside of picking a shoe you don’t care about it (there are no toilets for people who use size 6, or a special door that only people with size 7, and people certainly don’t require your shoe size in your CV and use that as a decision point as to whether they will hire you). IF we could get everyone to think like this, then we wouldn’t need to worry about the plights of any group because they would be in the past. That being said, this is not realistic because people are habit creatures, and if you grew up being taught to be racist and are never confronted about it you will keep those beliefs, that’s why it’s important to break stereotypes, that’s why affirmative actions are important, not because it helps the individual break through a societal barrier (although that’s important as well) but because they help society break from the preconceived notions that have engrained in most people’s minds through centuries of oppression.
The ideal future is one where gender or race doesn’t matter, but the road there goes through recognizing the plights that each gender and race has to face and adjust society to compensate for them so they can live “similar” lives and that on the long run society walks towards a more diverse and inclusive group. It’s easy to have a prejudice against someone different from your “normal”, which is why it’s important to break “normal” views and extremely important to normalize taboo behavior.
This is absurd talk. I don’t want people generalizing me for my race or gender, and I wouldnt do it to someone else either.
You must go around treating every minority as if they are a victim of something. I’m sure they greatly appreciate your refusal to see them as an individual.
This race/gender anarchism would help trans people as the general public would stop giving a shit how people choose to behave and what they are interested in.
Literally the only rational answer. Stop giving a fuck about what people look like unless you’re explicitly looking for someone to fuck
Look, understanding and relating to someone of a different race is one thing, but if you think that you somehow are that race then there’s something wrong in your brain, one way or another. It’s better than being like “I’m really a wolf” or similar nonsense, but only because at least you’re not claiming it believing that you’re a different species. Instead you’re on the sliding scale of delusion/dog whistle and either way I’d rather just not be around you.
Makes sense on the surface, but people have reacted exactly the same way the whole transgender concept. “You can be in touch with your feminine side but your still male” or whatever.
It’s nonsense because race is a social construct.
But so it’s gender, so this isn’t really a good argument is it?
white people, we learn one sociological term and run it into the ground. it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
“A social construct is an idea, category, or framework that gains meaning through collective agreement within a society”
The racial lines of division are arbitrary and different in each society. Therefore, a social construct.
Remember, it wasn’t THAT long ago that Italians weren’t considered white. Now they are.
someone said that in a thread on lemmy early, i cringed. it seems the only people that think transracial is a thing is primarly done by white people. i wonder if thats the same person were talking about.
and yes i was thinking about rachel dolzal.
Transracial doesn’t exist because “Race” in the context that they want to use it doesn’t exist.
Genetically there’s only one “race”; that’s the human race. If they want to identify as a different culture, it’s purely a cosmetic cultural thing, not biological or genetic. Whereas as being Transgender is biological. Therefore, you can safely tell people like Rachel Dolezal to fuck off and go back to fifth period science class.
Gender isn’t biological. You’re conflating with sex
gender identity has biological components:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25667367/
Well trans people, if they medically transition, quite literally change their sex.
white people stop acting like we live in a post-racial society challenge!
also, being trans was never biological, that’s called bio-essentialism
Saying that race isn’t real is not the same as saying that we live in a post-racial society.
Is there something like “trans smart”?
If there I’ve definitely seen some “trans-dumbasses” as well as “cis-dumbasses”
Did they say that they define as dumbasses?
Walk away.
People want to troll. Don’t feed trolls.
there were surprisngly a number of articles that came up over the years, rachel dolozel, the white chick that dint even know she wasnt black, so a reverse rachel dolezol. and a white guy pretending to filipino.
“You are wrong. Gender and race are two different things. Transgender people have been around since time began, transracial was invented few years ago to appropriate and diminish transgender people’s experiences. ciao”
but tbf it seems like that person’s tryna start shit so I’d just block em
Transgender is more comparable to Naturalization.
You can become an American, British, Canadian, German, Japanese, or Chinese, in terms of Citizenship/Nationality, but you can’t just magically change from White to Black or to Asian, or vice versa.
Step 1: Change skin color to Green via DNA editing
Step 2: Build a flying saucer
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Y’all are all my subjects, kneel before me, fithy earthlings.
I’d respond, “Rachel Dolezal was never shot by the police” and “Michael Jackson did not become an honorary white person just because he tried to be one.”
ironically the assumption that Michael was trying to become white is both racist and ableist. he was suffering from vitiligo which led him to use skin-lightening prescription creams to cover up the uneven blotches of color caused by the disability.
And the wigs? Vitiligo means uneven splotches. He was fully white from head to toe from bleaching.
Just don’t have conversation about this stuff at all. You can rarely change a person’s mind.
I used to try talking about politics and things in my rural town but it’s pointless. In America it’s more like a drug people use, they like the rush they get from the drama. And most the time no one is saying anything original, it like they just spout of market sound bites.
It might sound counter productive to not fight for something like that. Just live your life and understand life an humanity is chaos, to try to change people is like trying turn the sun into an icecube. You can’t fuck with the universe.
Don’t waste your time, if someone is claiming transracialism then they are way too far gone and it’s not your job to understand or fix people that can’t be fixed or understood. Every interaction with that person will equate to a net loss on your life and time, they will hit the wall of reality eventually or die a joke.
“No it’s not, and you know it”
Feel free to throw in some "dickhead"s as well, if they’re gonna come in bad faith you don’t have to be polite. Talk garbage, expect pain
Sounds like someone just looking to pick a fight. Disengage.
That said, I reckon as long as they’re not hurting anyone, people can be whatever they like.
Their argument indirectly hurts transgender people. It’s akin to when BLM (the movement, not the corrupt organization) was big and to counter it, conservatives parroted All Lives Matter. I’d say using the term transracial is arguably worse, because it’s all bullshit, while technically All Lives Matter is true, but it’s bad faith argument. I personally feel it’s the duty of rational people to fight against that sort of speak.
And you don’t engage with bad faith arguments. Just tell them to fuck off and grow a brain.
I would say never disengage. We’ve all lost so much disengaging especially if the argument is difficult. It leaves the argument unchallenged and if you can’t answer it and you feel strongly about trans issues what did you think someone casually viewing it would think.
We need better arguments and we need honesty. If it’s a good argument, it’s a good argument denying it out of feels only weakens the entire thing.
You can't rationally debate someone out of a position they didn't reach through rational consideration.
My second paragraph covered that, I thought.
Race is an extremely unscientific way to catagorize human beings, and it’s no wonder these people claim to be trans racial instead of trans ethnic, the more scientific, cultural, and hereditary definition of ethnicity means they’d have no real arguement to claim an ethnicity they were born and/or raised in but the loose political definition of race gives them lots of wiggle room.
white people stop pretending like we live in a post-racial society challenge
tell them race isnt real
Regardless of culture/ethnicity: two asians have a baby, you get an asian baby.
Regardless of culture/ethnicity: two slavs have a baby, you get a salvic baby.
Race is most certainly real.
Do you know what an actual scientific attempt to define races would look like?
Let’s say you wanted to scientifically define races. Instead of using subjective things like facial structure, you look at actual DNA and the groupings among populations. Let’s say we want to group humanity into a half dozen races, and to avoid bias, we do it based on some statistical analysis of DNA patterns.
You know what you would end up with? The computer would spit out that there are five racial groups represented the population of Subsaharan Africa…and one racial group representing everyone else.
The vast majority of human genetic diversity lies within Subsaharan Africa. If you tried to rationally define a list of ‘races,’ you would end up with a bunch of African racial groups and then one group for literally everyone else.
This is what people mean when they say race isn’t real. Our culturally-defined racial groups are completely unrelated to the actual diversity and distribution of human DNA patterns.
To quote the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on Race (human categorization):
Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.
You conflate being Asian (a resident of a continent) with Slavic (a cultural group). So what is race? A coordinate, or a cuisine?
Race is so unreal that you can’t even keep the lore straight in your own head.
Slavs are not a race, but ethnic group.
Two Koreans have a baby, the baby is Korean. Indian and Japanese have a baby, and you got something wildly different from either.
Sure, a Black person looks different from White, but within both there is so much variation that it doesn’t make much sense to group them so roughly.
As someone who isnt qualified to answer any trans related question: just let them be as long as they’re not being a jerk
There are bigger fish to fry. There probably are people out there who fully think they’re a different race. Who’s to say their feelings are invalid while others feelings are.
Either people can express how they feel or they can’t, and I’d rather people be able to express how they feel
You don’t. That’s not even a dogwhistle, it’s outright racism and transphobia, and isn’t worth responding to any more than the normal flavors of racist. Report, block, and (for mods) ban.
Gender is mutable, race isn’t
I am not saying they are equal, but I don’t understand the difference since gender and race are both social constructs that start with physical differences.
gender identity has nothing to do with physical appearance. it has to do with what you identify as. a Black trans woman can choose to transition socially but can’t “transition” into being white. she’d have to do a body transplant for that since race is strictly based on perceived phenotype not self-identification. the reason why whites can’t transition races is because the racial oppression only goes one way, like a pyramid. white people invented the racial caste system so it’d be impossible for us to oppress ourselves
TheFANUM@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Transracial isn’t a thing. You can scientifically change your gender. You can’t change your race