I’m no expert on either topic. But I believe humans basically start off as female in the womb, and either become male or don’t. And there are many intersex conditions. The body responds to hormones typically associated with either sex. So gender is fluid in a biological sense. If someone transitions to male, female or nonbinary, they already kind of contained that potential.
However, race is a social construct, usually based on heritage as well as biological appearance. So it’s hard to say how much biology is really involved. Does the human body contain the ability to be any race? Or to cultivate an appearance that prompts other humans to socially categorize you as one race or the other?
Maybe for people who are mixed race, there is a sort of spectrum available to them. They likely know how to present themselves in a way that gets them categorized as one race or the other.
But otherwise, not really. If you’re White, and you say, “I identify as Black,” the question might be: do you have Black heritage? If you don’t, you can’t really create it out of thin air. There wasn’t a situation while you were in the womb where various hormones could have influenced you to appear more Black than you do. If your parents are both White, they were going to have a White baby, no matter what.
If you’re assigned female at birth, and you say, “I identify as male,” then cool! Your body already has the capability to become hormonally male. You can socially identify as male. Any human, of any race, has this potential. Any two parents could have a baby that is any sex or gender, depending on various factors.
SaltSong@startrek.website 1 month ago
So, as a white person, I cannot pass as black, so I can never expect people to treat me like I’m black?
Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea is silly, but all the arguments I’ve seen in this thread are a word-swap away from being a bad argument against transgender people.
What’s the essential difference?
Ledericas@lemm.ee 1 month ago
how is this even close to be about transgender/phobia, were talking about white people trying to pretend to be another race, because they have have x amount of checks on the checklist.
amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
maybe stop comparing race and gender then. trans women only pass because we’re women. you can’t pass as Black because if you told them that they’d think you’re a dipshit
SaltSong@startrek.website 1 month ago
Isn’t the entire premise of the post that someone is seeing parallels here, and would like to understand why the similarities are not meaningful? As I said, I agree that transracial people are being silly, but I haven’t seen an argument here that can’t be used against transgender people.
But there are plenty of transwomen who don’t “pass” despite being women. But they should still be treated as women. Hell, there have been at least a few reports of ciswomen who couldn’t pass as women, at least to sufficiently assholish observers. On that basis, I don’t think we can use “passing” as a factor to determine people’s identity.
amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
race doesn’t work that way though, does it? it’s impossible for Black people to not pass as Black because it’s been proven they experience racism based on an immutable characteristic.
gender identity isn’t based on appearance, race is strictly appearance based. the fact you’re bringing self-identification into this makes it sound like you’re arguing in bad faith and trying to diminish Black people’s experiences.
seralth@lemmy.world 1 month ago
SaltSong@startrek.website 1 month ago
Some of this makes a bit of sense, but it still leans heavily on perception by others, rather than respecting what people know about themselves. This does not seem to be what many transgender persons want.
I’ll think about it.