To be fair though, there is a difference—although not always a very robust difference—between bigotry per se and disagreements about classification criteria.
For instance, Jews of different denominations may disagree about what’s required “to be truly a Jew” without either one of them being antisemitic. A friend of mine considers her young cousin overseas, who has US citizenship via her American-expat grandfather but has never lived in the US, to be “not really American”, which I don’t think qualifies as bigotry. Similarly, admitting that you’re habituated to using conventionally feminine traits in appearance as classification criteria for the category “woman” isn’t necessarily transphobic.
The bigotry comes in when someone starts using their habitual criteria to gatekeep such a category while disregarding the feelings of the people being unwillingly excluded from it.
But if your friend, who you know has only dated and had sex with guys, told you he now identifies as straight, would you just go along with this? Or would you ask (at the very least) what is going on to make him come to this realization?
If he said, “Well, I still think guys are hot, but I have a crush on you and thus that means I must be gay”, I think you would disagree with that reasoning, correct? And you probably would still see your friend as gay because his reasoning doesn’t jibe with your understanding of what constitutes “straight”. Do you think this would be evidence of your hatefulness?
The bigoted thought “This guy is saying he’s gay but he doesn’t look gay so therefore he’s not gay” is bigoted because gayness has nothing to do with appearance. Or manner. Or anatomy. The “gay look” is a stereotype. People who think there’s a “gay look” are stupid.
But it is not stupid to say “Grace Jones looks like a dude.” Saying that someone looks like a dude does not require one to buy into stereotypes, but rather social norms. Which means sense, since gender is a social construct.
I’m not talking about telling anyone anything. But sorry, I disagree with you that telling someone they are not in the club is inherently bigoted. I would not be a bigot for telling Rachel Dolezal she’s not black (which I would only do once she showed herself to be an obnoxious twat, as she did when she called fellow faculty members out for not being black enough and appointed herself “Rachel Luther King”). I might not be very nice person to deny someone their negro card. But no, I’m not a bigot just because I refuse to go along with someone’s delusion.
I’m pretty sure if I walked into a shul and told everyone in the room I’m a Jew because I love my some Yentl, they would not hesitate to set me straight. Treating me like a Jew wouldn’t take anything from them, but I would still expect Jews to have negative feelings about me claiming kinship to them based on my love for a movie. Because Jewishness is a thing–a thing with rules. I don’t get to come up with my own rules for what Jewishness is and then insist everyone follow it.
But as a I said, I’m not talking about getting up in people’s faces and telling them they aren’t in the club. I know that would be wrong. I’m talking about feelings and thoughts primarily. I’m talking about asking probing questions to understand where someone is coming from. But I’m not talking about “GET OUT OF HERE, YOU FRAUDSTER!” I would never do this.
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to an elderly friend of mine. We met through yoga years ago and I really like her. She’s cool. But she has always struggled with my racial identification. Anyway, we started talking about Trump (as we usually do) and that got us talking about racism. I told about my concerns about the current racial climate in this country (I was thinking specifically of my nieces). She stops me and says, “I really don’t see you as black, my dear. You could pass as white, you know.”
This irked me a whole lot because I’ve already told her that I don’t like when she does this. It is disrespectful for her to remind me that I’m “really black”.
Do I think my friend is a bigot? No, because I would not be friends with her if she was. She’s not the most PC person in the world, but what can I expect? She’s 82 years old. She’s trying the best she can for someone who grew up white in the Jim Crow South. Our politics are pretty dang similar despite the forty-year gap between us.
She would be a bigot if she said something hateful like, “I’m glad you don’t look black because then I wouldn’t like you!” That would crush me so much. But she’s never said anything like that, so I give her a variance on her questioning of my identity.
I could see my friend telling a goateed linebacker who is complaining about life as a modern woman the same thing she told me, except it would be “I don’t see you as a woman, my dear. You really do look like a guy, you know.” I can see how this would be more cringy than what she said to me. It would definitely be tone-deaf and make her deserving of a lecture. But I don’t see the bigotry in such a remark. It’s just really unPC, IMHO. I wouldn’t find that remark indicative of transphobia.
In your mind is it bigoted for an Orthodox Jew to refuse to accept, according to Orthodox and Conservative Judaism standards, as Jewish someone with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother raised with a Jewish identity, Jewish by Reform rules and who strongly identifies as Jewish?
Is it bigoted for a feminist group consisting of cis-women to refuse to accept a person with XY chromosomes who “probably experienced different cultural expectations and socialization” as a member of their group?
I do not think the first is bigoted at all and am very hesitant to label the latter as bigoted per se, even if I think human decency would mandate accepting them as members of the broader umbrella group “women” even as their differences are also acknowledged and respected. (Of course bigotry can be a motivator, it just is not necessarily the motivator.)
But I do have a problem with the argument that categorically an individual’s self-perception take precedence over all others’ definitions of group identity membership, that members of the group, the tribe, the religion, the club, do not have the similar rights as citizens of a country do to decide what the rules for being recognized as a citizen are.
BigT virtually NO ONE self-identifies as a bigot or would accept someone else’s assessment that their beliefs represent bigotry … except perhaps for the least bigoted who recognize that despite their conscious thoughts they have some implicit beliefs which impact their behaviors as well. Pointing out those who you believe have bigoted beliefs but whose actions are not at all bigoted is NOT what I think most of us are interested in. You are mistaken if you think that. We are interested in preventing actions that cause harms, whether the individuals think that they are bigoted or not. This is not saving souls by getting someone to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior before they die. (Although it is true that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!) It is about our behaviors and how those behaviors impact our fellow humans.
If a blonde haired, blue eyed child of two Nordic parents from a long line of Nordic people announces that they are—in spite of their heritage, phenotype, upbringing, and 23andme sequencing results—a black person…then me and other black people would be raising eyebrows at this claim. It would be socially permissible for us to question the validity of this claim. Calling us bigoted or racist wouldn’t even make sense.
Now switch to gender.
If a biological male who presents as male and has always presented as male announces that they are—in spite of their phenotype, upbringing, and 23andme sequencing results—a woman…then me and other women would be labeled transphobic and bigoted if we dared to raise eyebrows at this claim. It would NOT be socially permissible to question it’s validity, not even within the confines our own private minds!
Because there isn’t an objective basis for determining who has legitimate claim to a gender identity, there’s no allowance for skepticism or questions when presented with a claim. You either have to blindly it accept it or not (and be excoriated). As a scientist, I find this problematic. And as someone skeptical that gender identity is even a real thing, I am concerned that we might actually be going backwards as a society. The more focus society puts on gender, the more important it becomes for individuals to conform to what is imagined for that gender. Historically, this focus has only hurt people who couldn’t conform without sacrificing themselves: gays, feminine men, and masculine women.
Asking him “huh what why?” is perfectly reasonable if we’re having that conversation. Telling him “Well as far as I’m concerned you’re still gay unless you can make a more convincing case for your new orientation” would seem rather disrespectful. Even thinking that to myself and not saying it would seem rather disrespectful. There’s a difference between “huh what why?” and “nuh-uh, you gotta prove it”.
Um, did you mean to write “thus that means I must be straight”? Because otherwise I am soooooo confused.
And I don’t know about “disagree”. I wouldn’t consider my own sexual orientation to have changed just because I had one crush on a person of a different gender from my usual crushes, but I wouldn’t venture to make that call for anybody else.
Why would I do that, though? I would definitely still see my friend as someone with a long history of being a gay person, which his new declared change of orientation would not erase. And I might not feel personally convinced that his declared change of orientation would end up being permanent, just as I might not feel convinced that another friend’s sudden conversion to a new religion would end up being permanent.
But I don’t feel I have anything psychologically or cognitively invested in “still seeing my friend as gay”. I see him as someone I’ve always known as gay but who is now suddenly identifying as straight. I have no problem living with that as a category in its own right that pertains specifically to this particular friend.
Again, it’s an issue of classification criteria. It’s not bigotry to tell Rachel Dolezal “You do not have any detectable African-American ancestry, you were not raised in a culturally black family (except for your adopted younger siblings) or community, and many of the things you have claimed about your ancestry are straight-up false”.
That’s different from telling a light-skinned black person who has frequently passed for white that they’re “not black”.
Sure; like I said, classification criteria. The issue is who has the right to determine classification criteria for which category. As per DSeid’s remark above, even the people in a particular category frequently disagree about what count as valid classification criteria for it.
I don’t think you have to think your friend is a bigot, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to acknowledge that she can express some bigoted ideas. Yes, it’s disrespectful of her to tell you that your black identity is something that she “doesn’t see”. And it’s bigoted, even though she doesn’t mean it that way, to imagine that her ability or lack of ability to “see” it is more important than your personal claim to it.
If she were saying instead something like “I know you’re black, but I have a hard time remembering that because I’m so used to assuming that black people are always darker-skinned and couldn’t pass for white, whereas you could”, I wouldn’t find that bigoted.
As with the above remark about race, I think the way to remove the somewhat bigoted flavor would be to acknowledge her perception as her own limitation, rather than implying that the other person just doesn’t properly “qualify” for the category in question.
Yes. And I used science to back it up. That portion of my post is a factual argument. Your rebuttal is merely an appeal to incredulity. Such is a fallacy–that you find something incredulous does not make it not true.
I have also pointed out in my previous reply that this is how bigotry is conceived in general. It is a mental process that results in actions. I can’t remember anyone on this board ever treating bigotry like just actions without also being about the thoughts.
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Your post only makes a modicum of sense if I thought non-women were horrible creatures not worthy of respect. But I don’t elevate “woman” over “man”. Apart from pronouns and subtle differences in expression of friendliness, I treat women and men the same.
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No, all it requires is that one doesn’t respect trans women. And such was the premise of the post I was replying to, where you were arguing that one could be transphobic in thought but not in action.
And note I said “one” there, to make it clear I was replying to your second paragraph where you were not talking about yourself, but a general principle. I apologize if this was unclear.
I don’t believe anyone has been saying that gender isn’t important. It’s clearly very important to trans people, or they wouldn’t insist that you refer to them by the right gender. They wouldn’t feel gender dysphoria–distress about about their gender identity not matching their sex–if gender was not important.
What people are arguing is not important is you being able to look at someone and determine their gender. It’s not important that gender be defined in any objective manner. It is not important for people to be able to catch someone who is lying about their gender.
Your beliefs about the importance of gender seem to come from a sample size of one. You personally are not very strongly gendered: you do not have a strong gender identity. It sounds like, from what you’ve said about your gender identity, that only reason you identify as female is that your sex is female, and the default is that your gender identity matches your sex. And that’s perfectly fine.
My beliefs on the subject come from listening to trans people in various ways–from talking to them to reading articles and blogs to watching videos, and so on. I’m essentially echoing the things they have said about what they want. Trans women want to be accepted as women, no questions asked. Same with trans men.
But acceptance and tolerance aren’t the same thing. Doing the actions is tolerance. Acceptance, on the other hand, is at a mental level. So your hypothetical person who dose not actually mentally respect trans women but acts as if they do is not giving them what they want.
Well, for one thing, the hypothetical transphobe who is trying to respect trans people would still commit microaggressions, which are subconscious actions based on bigoted beliefs. If one believes that a trans woman is not a man, they will, for example, wind up accidentally leaving her out when talking about the women. Since pronouns are automatic, they will wind up slipping and using the wrong pronoun far more often than someone who believes she is a woman. As I said, one’s beliefs will subconsciously affect one’s actions.
The belief I have understood you to have is that they are wrong about who they say they are. You presumably do not consider yourself to be wrong about saying you are a woman. You hold their belief about who they are as inferior to yours–even though they are the ones who are trans and you are not.
That contradicts your previous posts. For example, you said “I gotta say that I would have a hard time not rolling my eyes at a biological male who looks like that one proclaiming they are a woman.” Surely I don’t have to explain that wanting to roll your eyes at someone’s statement means you think the person is wrong (among other things), and not merely that they are different.
Of course someone who has characteristics that are different from you are themselves different from you. However, in this case, she says she is a woman, so she is a woman. If you deny that, then you don’t merely think she is different from you. You think she is in fact a man–that she is either lying or delusional when she claims she is in fact a woman.
I have no objection to the position “Women who look like a man to me are different than women who look like women to me.” How else could I have said there is a difference between saying “you don’t experience misogyny because you ARE a man” and “you don’t experience misogyny because you look like a man”? But that “women” part is important.
Still, this is different from where we started, where you just wanted to roll your eyes as such women.
Nothing you have said in this paragraph is wrong, either. Thinking a black person is different from you is not racist, and thinking a trans woman is different from you as a cis woman is not transphobic–as long as you accept that she is still a woman, no matter how she looks to you. Same as it’s okay for a white person to think that a black person is different from them, as long as they accept that they are still a person.
I have not once talked about being enlightened or woke, and I definitely have not lectured you for having an unenlightened thought. I have continually tried to respond to the questions you have openly asked, while trying to get to the bottom of why you are having difficulties with certain concepts. I have, in fact, gone out of my way to not use the more bombastic style I usually use about bigoted topic.
Yes, behaviors do influence thoughts. But note that the people you described want to change their thoughts. They want to stop thinking they are of low value (i.e. increase their self-esteem).
You were arguing that it was okay to believe that a trans woman who does not look like a woman to you is not a woman. (That was the first thing in this thread that I disagreed with you about.) So, sure, you could refer to her as female, but in the back of your mind, you’d still constantly be thinking “he’s really not female.”
Thinking “she is different from me” isn’t a huge problem, though I would encourage you to also notice how she is similar to you. Like, for instance, if she says she is a woman, she has faced at least some misogyny. Or that she walks in a way that gets her mistaken for a man.
Which is why I have went out of my way to avoid shaming you. Rather than shame you, I have argued why your beliefs are wrong, in response to you saying you were confused about the topic, and in a forum that is specifically about debating beliefs.
Surely you have noticed that I have switched to my more explanatory style, and not my bombastic “How dare you!” style of posting.
That’s because I have never actually argued that you were. I have at most said that one of your beliefs is transphobic–one that you seem to no longer be arguing. But mostly I’ve just been arguing that you are wrong about certain things.
I have never argued that you are a bigoted person. It’s like how I can say that something someone said is racist without saying that they are a racist person.
Now, granted, that has been my initial kneejerk reaction, but I’ve always waited until that cooled to post. And then went back through the post to make sure that I’ve removed any residual hatefulness.
Though I do admit that your making an argument from incredulity kinda pissed me off. I hate when I take the time to make an argument and it is just dismissed, whether with incredulity or ad hominem. Hopefully, however, I have successfully removed the anger from the reply to that paragraph.
Finally, I’ll end with the reminder that this is about trans people, not about you or me. It is about what is best for them, which means listening to them. It is never about how it makes the majority feel, but the minority. And, since we are both cisgender, we are both in the majority.
Well, as I keep saying, it’s all about classification criteria. It is of course not bigoted for an Orthodox Jew (or anybody else) to make the factually accurate remark that the Jewish-identifying person in question doesn’t meet official halachic criteria for Jewish identity. Would it, on the other hand, be bigoted for the Orthodox Jew to tell the other flatly “You’re not a Jew, your claim to any kind of Jewish identity is utterly invalid”? Yeah, kinda.
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Is it bigoted for a feminist group consisting of cis-women to refuse to accept a person with XY chromosomes who “probably experienced different cultural expectations and socialization” as a member of their group?
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Well, what’s this particular “feminist group” about? Is it about sharing experiences as cisgender women who have always been socialized and perceived as female, and translating those specific experiences into feminist perspectives and activism? If so, then no, I don’t think it’s bigoted to limit the group membership to cisgender women only.
Is it a different kind of group that isn’t specifically about cisgender women’s experiences and expectations? If so, why exclude the transgender woman?
[QUOTE=DSeid]
But I do have a problem with the argument that categorically an individual’s self-perception take precedence over all others’ definitions of group identity membership, that members of the group, the tribe, the religion, the club, do not have the similar rights as citizens of a country do to decide what the rules for being recognized as a citizen are.
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Well, IMHO it depends on the category involved and what sort of “recognition” is being sought.
National citizenship, for example, is an official category that has a very explicit set of official rules to qualify for membership. Same for categories such as Native American tribal membership, or an actual club with official by-laws. But I don’t think that members of a less formally organized category such as sexual orientation or gender are entitled to, or can plausibly claim, the same enforcement authority when it comes to determining who qualifies for that category.
Would they be likely to get the shit kicked out of them for making that claim? Is there a space that they need to go into when they’re in public where that claim puts their safety in question? Where they could be arrested for going?
Would they be likely to get the shit kicked out of them for making that claim? Is there a space that they need to go into when they’re in public where that claim puts their safety in question? Where they could be arrested for going?
The two questions have very different answers. A white person can play at being black in our culture with very little fear of consequence. A man who plays at being a woman takes a very serious risk in doing so.
A person who presents as white who claims to be black might be making the claim recreationally. A person who presents as male who claims to be (and lives as) female is either a 4chan troll, or is willing to take a very serious risk to make that claim.
That difference means you should not treat the two claims as analogous.
Actually, let’s go a little deeper into this claim. It’s wrong.
Chad smirks, says, “Yo, bros, I’m a lady!” and marches into the women’s changing room at the gym. “Hey, fellow ladies!” he says. “I’m a lady, I belong here!”
You think you can’t raise your eyebrow? You think anyone’s gonna call you a bigot for telling him to get out of there?
If this is Chad’s first claim to being a woman, if he’s never made such a claim in any other circumstance, of course you can call bullshit.
What’s the difference between this scenario, and what actually happens with transwomen?
And this discrepancy is because race and gender are not directly analogous. Racial dysphoria is not a thing. Racial identity is not distinct concept from race.
Race, unlike gender, is defined by being treated as that race–including being discriminated for being that race. Gender roles are also defined that way. But gender identity is not–it is defined by what the person says they are, and has the psychological data to back it up. The only way gender dysphoria can exist is if there is some sort of gender identity that can contradict with one’s gender role. And gender dysphoria is in the DSM-V
Yes, but only after the science has shown that gender identity is a concept that exists.
To have the belief that gender identity is not a thing, you must either believe that trans people are lying or delusional. You have to ignore all the studies done on gender identity.
You have to cling to old, outdated concepts like gender critical feminism, which has been disproven long ago when children were raised without gender expectations but still wound up having gender preferences.
Only if they have a poor understanding of gender. The focus on gender with trans people has allowed them (male, female, or nonbinary) to escape the confines of their gender role. The idea that accepting that someone might not be the same gender as their sex is the ultimate form of denying gender essentialism.
You can either update your idea of gender, or you can go back to the ideas we had before we knew trans people existed. You can update your ideas with new information, or you can cling to the old.
Hell, gender critical feminist is merely a euphemism used by TERFs now. I implore you to read up on the subject and learn about all the stuff since at least the 1990s that you have missed.
He only takes a risk if he actually presents as a woman. If he dresses like a woman, behaves in a “woman” way. If he goes around “doing” woman, his life is at risk. Non-hateful, non-bigoted, well-intentioned, non-TERFy women will accept such a person into the club because that person is “doing” woman even if she is not a type specimen of “woman”.
But a biological male who makes no apparent effort to present as a woman but claims “woman” isn’t at risk of a damn thing.
Now as long as everyone refers to the biological male, male-presenting woman with the feminine pronouns and let’s her pees/shit where she wants, why the fuck should anyone care that other women don’t see her as a woman? And why should this bother you, a person who isn’t even in the club?
Transgendered women live a life of danger and risk. But I don’t think gender queer people necessarily do. When someone can wake up one day and decide they are going to tell people they are women because screw it, then we’ve moved away from an existential crisis situation and more into a “I’m fucking with gender norms” situation. I can respect transgendered folks and their fears while also being aware that there are folks out there who are playing games and treating gender like it’s an experience more than a permanent state. As long those people are out there, I think people should reserve the right to raise their eyebrows and be critical. I think transgendered folks most of all would appreciate this, because most of them go through great pains to conform to gender norms. Not flout them.
I also don’t think women should be guilted for not seeing a transgendered woman exactly like that transwoman sees herself. I have a transwoman coworker. She came on board four years ago and it took me awhile to see her as “woman”. But now I do and we get along well. I was able to get there through interacting with her, calling her by her preferred pronouns, and hearing others refer to her with the preferred pronouns. I have no way of knowing if my perception of her mirrors how she sees herself, but I fail to see why it should matter to her. I’m sure her perception of me falls short of my perception of myself. That’s why it’s a good thing no one can read minds.
The white-presenting person who claims to be black might actually be black. Just like a male-presenting individual might be a woman. These situations aren’t as different as you are making them out to be.
At any rate, once again just for emphasis, not classifying someone mentally into a group (your group or someone’s) is not tantamount to hate or violence. It is disingenuous for you to pretend it is. The safety of my coworker does not hinge on everyone’s ability to see her as “woman”. Her safety is dependent on everyone’s ability to see her as a human being deserving of respect, regardless of who she is or what she claims to be.
I don’t know what you do for a living, BigT. But let’s say you were to tell me you’re a scientist.
I’m a scientist too. I have a definition of what that means in my head, so I ask you what kind of science you do.
Your response is the opposite of what I would expect a scientist to say. I ask some more questions and determine that you aren’t a scientist according to my framework.
But I don’t tell you you’re wrong.
I don’t roll my eyes at you when you tell other people you’re a scientist.
I don’t avoid you.
I just don’t see you the same way you see yourself. I just don’t see you as belonging in my group. But that doesn’t mean I see you as inferior to me, because I don’t think my group is all that. I get along well with non-scientists. In fact, scientists get on my nerves. I just have a set definition of scientist in my head and your definition just doesn’t agree with mine.
I don’t think my disagreement with you would indicate that 1) I think I’m better than you, 2) I think scientists are better than non-scientists, and 3) that I’m especially territorial over the word “scientist”. It just means that I’ve got lifelong programming that tells me that “scientist” means something. You don’t resemble that something, so it will likely take a while before my mind is convinced you are what you say are.
I don’t know how you can assume I’m a bigot just for having a classification scheme. And I don’t think my classification scheme is so crazy. It’s just that I’m not afraid to say I have it and that I don’t think it is going away anytime soon.
I don’t see the relevance of these questions. But okay, I’ll play. Yes, it’s possible that violent things could happen if a Nordic person took certain liberties only granted to African Americans. Like addressing a black friend as “my nigga” casually and very loudly, in a public place where other black people are present. Nordic guy could claim until he’s blue in the face that he’s black and so it’s not big deal, but that won’t stop fists from flying if a violent offended person is in the crowd.
A biological male that presents as a male even though they identify as a woman doesn’t have to go to a women’s restroom. You realize that, right? If they went to a men’s restroom like biological men have been doing since the dawn of civilization, it would be of zero consequence to anyone else. No one would know their identified gender unless they’re wearing a sandwich board.
Are we at the point that its considered a gross indignity that a biological male who presents as male might be expected to use a restroom based on apparent sex rather than self-identified gender? If so, I don’t understand the logic. I thought bathrooms were segregated based on sex (because of different anatomy) not because of gender (social construct stuff).
I’ve always considered my attitude towards sex-segregated restrooms to be on the meh side of blasé. Now I really wish we could do away with the whole concept and move towards unisex bathrooms. That will make this gender vs sex stuff moot at least in this domain.
How does “a man play at being a woman” when they present as male as stated in my hypothetical? Did you miss this part or are you ignoring it? And how is in the phrase “playing at being a woman” NOT offensive to trans? Your own words cast this as an act they are doing, not as them simply being. And you refer to this person as a man. Not as a woman.
This is the first time anyone on your side of the argument aisle has said that this is OK. So there’s no need to gaslight up in here.
But I’m gonna be you for a second and say that your scenario is “profoundly unlikely”. What would be more likely is the scenario that I presented earlier, where a potential edgelord garners attention in a conversation about sexism by claiming a “woman” identity. You never told me how you would handle that situation. Would you advocate more than eyebrow raising in that situation?
Another situation (I’ve been thinking about it all day):
Let’s say I’m seeking another woman to share an efficiency apartment with. I get a response from a 300lb linebacker with a full mustache and goatee. Am I a TERF if I decide to keep looking? Perhaps the most diplomatic thing to do would be to invite the linebacker over and listen to her story. But I wouldn’t do this with a clearly female-presenting ciswoman or transwoman. Does this make me bigot? Inquiring minds want to know.
(This isn’t a gotcha. I’m really curious what the ethics are. I wouldn’t want to share a room with straight male, but I’d be OK with a gay guy. So really, I could see me seeking straight women and gay guys, not just “women”. But just because that’s how I would do it doesn’t mean I think women with a different preference are wrong. I don’t know if a woman would be a bigot if she decided to keep her search to ciswomen roommates. It kind of feels like she could be, but I don’t know. Maybe in ten years it won’t be so ethically ambiguous for me.)
How would I know whether it’s Chad’s first claim to being a woman if he’s a complete stranger to me?
And why does the number of his claims even matter? There’s a first time for everything. Maybe he only recently felt ready to come out. I have a coworker who came out as trans at the age of 60 something, after presenting as 100% male until then. Calling bullshit would have been inappropriate at any point.
If Chad didn’t smirk or say anything at all, what then? They just walked in and said nothing, taking it as matter of course that they belonged with the other undressed women. Is having the wrong facial expression the thing that makes it okay to question someone’s self-identification now?
The difficulty in nailing this down is why I think that, when it comes to personal belief determinations, it should be okay for individuals to use their own judgement. There should never be the expectation we turn off our brains and blindly accept as truth what someone unfalsifiably declares. There are some people who would gladly call themselves a woman if they thought it would give them an upper hand in some shape or form. Whether these people are trans remains unclear to me because thats subject to self-identification too.
I hope you understand by now that I’m not saying we should be telling anyone they are wrong. But what I am saying is that you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t instantaneously change your mind about your friend’s sexuality, based solely on his word. You might feel guilty if you slip up and forget. But you are under no obligation to feel guilty because you can’t help stuff like that. And most importantly, slipping up and forgetting isn’t a sign of you being hateful or homophobic. It just means you’re imperfect.
Yes, that is what I meant.
I don’t consider thinking to myself “Hmm, that’s a strange definition of ‘straight’” to be making a call for someone. It’s just saying that a particular idea is strange.
Why would you do what? You’re basically saying everything I’m saying. Your friend could tell you he’s straight, but you would still not fully accept that he was straight because you’re used to seeing him as gay. And all of this would be completely unintentional on your part.
Well, I kind of think gender and sexuality are different in a key way. I don’t think of my friends’ sexuality either. But with people, our language varies according to gender. That forces the gender issue to the forefront of the brain. Like, I’m have to remember that you’re a woman when I reference you to others in this conversation. If I were used to thinking of you as a man, then I would probably have some anxiety as I try to remember to use the right pronouns.
Well, I kind of beg to differ as someone who actually is a light-skinned black person. To me, it depends on who is denying the negro card and why. If I was the leader of the KKK, I really would hope that someone would revoke my negro card.
I have no problem with black folks ripping the negro card from Rachel. I do think it would have been wrong to do so just on the basis of zero ancestry and no cultural ties, but that’s not why it was done. It was done because she was being obnoxious and hateful AND those others things.
But even after all the kerfuffle, Rachel still claims to be black. She still has a circle of black friends and associates (apparently she is really skillful at hair-braiding and to that I say “good for her”). So even when you have a club card revoked, you are still free to make up another one. To me, snatching a club card just means you put someone in check in the strongest way possible. It means telling someone to pump their brakes and look in the damn mirror. Card-snatching is just metaphor for who gets to be speak on a particular experience and who doesn’t.
I guess I have a different definition of “bigotry”. Yes, she’s got some old-fashioned, not very progressive notions about stuff. And I’m guessing she does have racial hang-ups (I personally believe everyone does, though). But I don’t think my friend is a bigot.
I would find it unnecessary for her to say all of that, though. I know she has a hard time remembering. Really, the problem for me isn’t that she has a hard time remembering. I just wish she would shut up about it. I don’t need to know that she doesn’t see me as black (or “all the way black”, she puts it). She should just keep that to herself, just like I keep to myself all the weird unPC thoughts I have about her.
Yes it is all about classification criteria and who gets to decide. Often without any enforcement body setting up rules.
To return to our fair featured woman born of at least one parent who self-identifies as “Black.” The average Black American has 25% European ancestry, individuals vary, lots by geography. Of course some people are more than half European ancestry and carry “Black” identities. Did they make that decision in a vacuum? Did they necessarily make the decision? Was that decision completely them stating this is what I feel I am and realistically expect the rest of the world, both family and beyond, to respect that choice? Or was it partly made by consensus with the rest of the world? Does anyone have enforcement authority on this? Could Obama have comfortably embraced a white identity and had that choice respected, embraced as that by others, as he did a Black one? Our society throws a lot of variety into that Black identity.
In short identity is a complicated thing, a dance between how we see ourselves, how others see us, and how they treat us independent of how they see us. Who embraces us as part of their group and who does not? Who do we culturally feel are our people? Do they agree? For most issues of identity the process is not exclusively one sided.
So yes for issues of identity it is who gets to decide. An individual who has persistently and pervasively felt that they are of a different gender than their sex chromosomes and gross anatomy should get to decide how they are treated in terms of that identity, in general. They do not get to decide how others classify them in the privacy of their minds, including those who feel possessive of the specific gender label so long as those others do not behave in hateful ways based on those beliefs (intentionally referring to someone by an unwelcome pronoun, knowing such is hurtful, for example) that is their private business. And that private classification may change over time … but not by virtue of others calling them bigots. Let me correct that - it HAS changed fairly rapidly in recent years for many … and not because people changed by virtue of being called out as bigots, told that if they did not change their private classifications they were transphobic.
If the bar for being transphobic is as low this thread is making it seem, then word will soon lose any power. People will cease to care if they are called that.
Um, did you mean to write “thus that means I must be straight”? Because otherwise I am soooooo confused.