Is it normal i see a clear parallel with transgenders?

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20 Comments

Am I the only one who sees a parallel between white Rachel Dolezal changing her appearance and passing herself off as black and transgender people who change their physical appearance and then describe themselves as being another gender?

Apparently Rachel's justification is that she felt discriminated against as a white (!) and now says that her culture is black. I find this very similar to transgender people stating that they're trapped in the wrong body and know they're in fact the other gender.

It's impossible for a white person to be culturally black because s/he hasn't grown up in that culture, just as it's impossible for anyone to know they're the opposite gender, because they've never been that gender.

Rachel can IMAGINE she's black culturally and transgender people can IMAGINE they're another gender in the wrong body, but in both cases this imagining is often based on stereotypes anyway. For example, if men born male want to wear dresses and makeup and act in "feminine" ways as men, why don't they? The fact that they have such feelings proves to me that what's commonly accepted as masculine or feminine is socially constructed to a very great extent.

I'm totally opposed to discriminating against transgender people, I just don't believe taking lots of dangerous hormones and altering one's body surgically turns anyone into another gender except in relation to external appearance, which is not all we are, surely?

I've been getting into trouble for years for the following analogy, which I know may seem frivolous and not 100% analogous: If I genuinely believed I was a chicken trapped in a human body, would you feel OK about me having surgery to change my appearance into that of a chicken, or would you suggest I have therapy to rid me of my delusion? Would you relate to me as if I were a chicken or as if I were a somewhat eccentric fellow human?

changing her appearance to appear

Voting Results
47% Normal
Based on 17 votes (8 yes)
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Comments ( 20 )
  • thegypsysailor
    8 years ago

    I don't see it at all. The trans changes themselves for themselves and the woman did it for a career and money.
    That woman has no moral code, her only motivation was greed.

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    • Couman
      8 years ago

      I guess it depends on how much (if at all) you think she's telling the truth. She claims she really believes herself to be Black. I think she said at one point she felt that way since she was five.

      If true that would put her very much in the same category. Of course it could be a pack of lies, and I really have no way of knowing.

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      • thegypsysailor
        8 years ago

        As I said, I believe she has no morals at all, so it would follow that I don't believe a word she says.
        IMO, she intentionally perpetrated a hoax for profit and notoriety.

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      • Ellenna
        8 years ago

        It doesn't matter what she "felt" herself to be, she's still white! I felt fairies and santa and the tooth fairy were true when I was a child too, doesn't make it so

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  • CountessDouche
    8 years ago

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was pretty much proven that race is nothing more than a social construct, having no more biological significance than hair and eye color, but gender has more to do with hormones in utero??

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    • Ellenna
      8 years ago

      Of course it is, and so is culture, but I strongly believe it's dishonest to appropriate the culture of another group and say you belong to it when you don't, especially if you're doing it for personal advantage and have never experienced the oppression of that disadvantaged group.

      Who knows to what extent gender is determined by hormones? If there's ever a culture where children aren't treated differently because of gender then I'll believe the differences are hormonal, but we ain't seen that yet, have we?

      The arguments about female and male brains are ridiculous if you know anything about neuroplasticity.

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      • CountessDouche
        8 years ago

        I find the concept of race to be interesting. Biologically speaking, it's irrelevant...there is less of a genetic difference between a black person with the same hair and eye color as a white person that there is between two white people with different hair and eye color. It's a construct that only matters because it has been awarded social significance, probably because it's a huge visual difference.

        The whole notion of "black culture" exists as a result if subjugation, as a side effect of being defined as different, but it nonetheless exists. I'm sure if all brunette people were defined separately, they would have an according culture. Now it's a matter of recognising and respecting a separate culture whilst pretending it doesn't exist...it's sort of a PC cyclical catch 22.

        As far as gender goes, I agree that there are definitely cultural components, but there are genetic components as well. There are countless people who identify as transgender before pubescence, males with estrogen specific features who exhibit more stereotypical feminine traits, differences in brain chemistry (for eg, females release oxitocin after orgasm, men don't)...

        There's so much evidence supporting each side of the nature vs nurture argument...it's hard to weed through all of it.

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        • Ellenna
          8 years ago

          Present day black culture may be a result of subjugation, but African peoples had distinct cultures before white contact, as did Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals and of course countless other indigenous peoples.

          I don't get your Catch-22 reference: surely it's possible to respect something which you believe has been socially constructed? That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

          What do genes have to do with when transgender people identify as another gender? None of them have grown up in a society without distinct constructed gender stereotypes. The oxytocin reference doesn't seem relevant to me either, that's like saying men are different because they produce sperm: we know that, it doesn't mean that there are huge or indeed any differences in brain chemistry.

          I'm sure you know all the rubbish that's been believed in the past about gender differences: that men provided the foetus and the woman nothing; that women had wombs that wandered all over our bodies; that men can't be nurturing and all women are maternal ........ don't start me!

          I don't see what's so threatening or radical about people being whoever they are without labelling certain characteristics feminine or masculine. I don't believe I'm either, sometimes I'm into cooking and craft and being bossed around in bed; other times I enjoy splitting firewood and being a strong leader. I can argue logically with the best & worst and also cry my eyes out over nothing much.

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  • Couman
    8 years ago

    Yep. I don't really understand why some people find that comparison so offensive. Well, I have my suspicions: In a word, politics.

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    • Ellenna
      8 years ago

      Which politics do you mean? If it's now considered politically correct to accept whatever anyone says about themselves, that's not what it originally meant: it was about treating people with respect, not accepting whatever bullshit they dish out

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      • Couman
        8 years ago

        Nah, they aren't nearly that consistent. They hate when people reuse PC arguments to support something that isn't currently popular. They invariably see it as an attack and assume any comparison was made in bad faith.

        For instance it's been pointed out that most arguments for gay marriage work for consanguineous marriage too. But if you mention this around PC folk, they will assume you're anti-gay marriage and trying to discredit them. Because apparently it's too improbably that someone ACTUALLY believes "love is love" etc.

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  • VirgilManly
    8 years ago

    I'm Samuel L. Jackson in a white guy's body.
    Now get me a mother-fuckin Royale with cheese and a tasty beverage before I strike down a furious anger upon thee.

    And while you're at it, get these mother-fuckin snakes off this mother-fuckin plane.

    Now where'd I leave my Kangol cap, damnit!

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    • Ellenna
      8 years ago

      I didn't understand about half of that but it still made me laugh - thanks!

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  • default28
    8 years ago

    I see a parallel too, they are all fucking crazy.

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    • Ellenna
      8 years ago

      Maybe not technically insane, but certainly deluded, which I don't believe should be encouraged.

      Both issues expose the danger of relying of feelings to determine actions, rather than using one's brains to work through complicated personal issues, not that feelings aren't important but we do have brains as well

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  • wistfulmaiden
    8 years ago

    She's a poser with a really bad perm.

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  • NeofelisNebulosa
    8 years ago

    I saw the interview that she did last night- she seems delusional to me. She even went so far as to say that her birth parents might not be her real parents. The picture of her as a young girl clearly shows she is white. Then she admitted she was discriminated against by Howard University for being white. So perhaps she "changed races" because she believed it would help her get an advantage?

    Race isn't a biological concept anyway. Scientists know that there are negligible genetic differences between the "races." It's more of a cultural thing. All I know is she is being a liar about all of this, and I don't think transgender people do what she is doing. I don't think trying to insert yourself into another culture is wrong, but lying is wrong.

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    • Ellenna
      8 years ago

      Maybe she's fucked her own head up with all the lies she's told and now she believes them - that's common with liars, otherwise how could she possibly have thought her parents weren't going to say "Hey, our daughter isn't black".

      The parallels I see with trans people has nothing to do with lying, it's to do with self-delusion, supported by shrinks and surgeons and hormone manufacturers.

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  • dom180
    8 years ago

    Lots of people around me want to talk about this situation, but I don't think there is much to talk about. No matter how much we might like to pretend, we have no idea why Dolezal is claiming to identify as black. Only Dolezal themselves knows whether they honestly identify as black or not, or whether it's all a lie. I feel like people who believe it's all a lie are jumping the gun a bit - we have literally no evidence by which to make that claim. I also see a lot of arguments being made against race-transitioning being basically the same as arguments targeting transgender people ("race is biological!", "they will always be white really!", "pretending to be black is insulting to people who have really grown up with/still experience racism!"... etc.). These arguments only hold water if you assume Dolezal is lying or "pretending", for which I haven't seen any evidence.

    I also feel like the cultural discussion around this situation is far too much about Rachel Dolezal. I think it's a bit of a waste of time. Before last week I had never heard of Rachel Dolezal. Practically no-one had ever heard of Rachel Dolezal. I do not care about Rachel Dolezal. A better discussion would be wider, and would focus less on the personal history of Rachel Dolezal and more on the idea that, no matter how important race and identity is in our society, it is a fragile social and linguistic construction.

    None of this is to explicitly say that the anger anyone might feel (*especially* the anger of people of colour) is wrong or misplaced, because my reading of the Rachel Dolezal story is just one of many possible readings. I'm also not academically or experientially educated about race and racism.

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  • Ellenna
    8 years ago

    Should've known you'd pick me up on any inconsistency - thanks!

    However, the motivation may be different but both attitudes are still delusionary in my opinion. I don't object to people having delusions, I've had a few myself at times, but I don't go around calling myself something I'm not and expecting others to just accept it without question.

    We've had similar imposters for greed in Australia: a white man who wrote a book of so-called Aboriginal stories and gave himself an Aboriginal name and a white woman artist who painted in the Aboriginal dot style and exhibited and sold as an Aboriginal.

    Bullshit artists, the lot of em .....

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