# Transgender - transracial. What is the essential difference? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 3, 2021, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117 "2021-02-03T10:45:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/101 "2021-02-04T20:39:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I don’t think these two cases are as distinct as you suppose, especially since they seem to be dependent on the very problematic qualifiers “typically developing” and “in normal development”. > > There are in fact some clitorises on genetically XX individuals that are longer than some micropenises on genetically XY individuals. Fine, if we declare such situations to fall outside the criteria of “normal development”, then we can call penis/clitoris length a “categorical difference” between male and female humans. > > ISTM that all that means is that your definition of “categorical difference” is somewhat circular. By definition anything that occurs rarely is not typical, and DSDs mostly have defined causes and frequently affect fertility. If women were only taller than men when suffering gigantism caused by eg a pituitary tumour, then height would also be a categorical difference. So which did you mean? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/102 "2021-02-04T20:51:08Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > @DemonTree, why do you think this is important? I think it’s relevant to sexism and how we treat men and women in general. That’s why I was curious about @Kimstu’s answer. As @AHunter3 said: > [@AHunter3](#): > > Gender is also a social construct, that’s exactly what it is. If we succeed in establishing a world in which preconceived notions about people’s behavior are _not_ projected onto each other on the basis of our genital morphology, there will most likely be no notion of gender. It’s composed of generalizations — some would say “stereotypes” or even “sexist stereotypes”, but let’s suspend the judgmental aspects for a second. It is possible that male people _in general_ have certain behavioral tendencies and personality characteristics that set us apart from female people _in general_ , but even if that is so, if people are sufficiently conscious of the minority who are exceptions to that rule, including not only the inverts like me but the huge swath of people who fall into the middle and don’t have much more in common with the generalized pattern exhibited by males than they do with that exhibited by females in general — and that consciousness extends to an awareness of the hurtful result of imposed gendered notions and expectations on people who don’t fit the mold — then where and how would gender persist? If there are categorical differences, then there just isn’t a huge swath of people who fall in the middle, and it will surely be impossible to get rid of these preconceived notions, since they will overwhelmingly be correct. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/103 "2021-02-04T21:17:27Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I think it’s relevant to sexism and how we treat men and women in general. But don’t conflate gender identity with gender _presentation_ and gender _roles_. The latter two are obviously largely social constructs, these relate to the question of how we treat people in society. But as I’ve explained at length above in respone to @AHunter3 when he posted this, I don’t agree than gender _identity_ is a social construct. One of the odd things that I see going on here is that the social sciences in the 20th century exhibited a strong ideologically-driven bias toward the _tabula rasa_ model, the idea that there are no innate differences between the brains of (say) men and women. This was driven by a well-intention progressive agenda, but I think it was misguided, and _a priori_ it’s highly implausible. Sexual dimorphism in non-human animal behavior is ubiquitious. At what stage in evolution do the _tablua rasa_ advocates suppose that did our brains magically turned into blank slates with no innate properties - and _why_? So now, we find that the very existence of trans people is extremely hard to reconcile with the _tabula rasa_ model of human nature. Yet obviously any civilized human being wants to great trans and non-binary people with dignity and respect. So I see a lot of progressives quite muddled about what position they should take on this. I think the correct view is that the _tabula rasa_ model was always highly implausible and should be discarded, and we don’t have to insist that we are all absolutely identical by nature in order to advocate for equality and fairness. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/104 "2021-02-04T21:36:24Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > By definition anything that occurs rarely is not typical But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t normal. I still think that your attempted distinction between “categorical” and “non-categorical” differences is fallacious; see below. > [@DemonTree](#): > > So which did you mean? Well, I meant what I said in posts #95 and #99. I don’t think that what I said fits neatly into your desired distinction between “categorical” and “non-categorical” differences, but as I said, I’m not persuaded that that distinction is really meaningful. AFAICT there is a spectrum of “differentness” in human male-female dimorphism, not a neat binary classification. (ETA: Which I think Riemann already pointed out.) Some biological characteristics overlap a great deal between males and females, some overlap hardly at all, and some overlap by some amount somewhere in between “a great deal” and “hardly at all”. I don’t think you can usefully separate those differences out into only two distinct groups with the arbitrary labels “categorical” and “non-categorical”. (Also, not to junior-mod our own conversation, but I’ve noticed that the real mods are especially keen to keep these kinds of threads on-topic, and ISTM we’ve got rather far off the track of specifically comparing “transracial” and transgender identity. I don’t see the direct relevance of your “categorical differences” concept to that discussion.) ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/105 "2021-02-04T22:59:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But race at present is not a category that is generally accepted as having “cis” and “trans” identification options. White people in particular have historically invested so much energy into policing imposed criteria for racial category membership that it is never going to go well when a white person defends deceptive claims about a different racial identification by invoking the concept “transracial”. Sure, but should it? A few decades ago the vast majority of people would have said the same things about gender. You can still find plenty of people who would describe a trans person as someone “pretending that their gender and experience is different from what it actually is”. “Men in particular have historically invested so much energy into policing imposed criteria for power in a patriarchy that it is never going to go well when a man defends deceptive claims about a different gender identification by invoking the concept ‘transgender’.” sounds like something someone might have said about a trans-woman in the very recent past (or indeed, the present, in many spheres). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/106 "2021-02-05T00:15:08Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Sure, but should it? A few decades ago the vast majority of people would have said the same things about gender. I think there’s a key difference in the term “deceptive”. Being a transgender woman, who identifies and presents as a woman, is not “pretending” to be a woman. Transgender women are unquestionably different in some respects from cisgender women, but if another person encountering a transgender woman in everyday life can’t tell that she’s not cisgender, that’s not because the transgender woman is making any “deceptive claims”. She’s just identifying and living as a woman, which transgender women have a right to do. But when, say, a white woman explicitly asserts that she’s a black woman, with all the denial of historic realities of privilege vs. oppression that that implies, that is making a deceptive claim. At present, there is no such thing as being “transracially” black, and IMHO it’s not the place of white people to decide whether that can be a thing. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/107 "2021-02-05T00:41:33Z")
It all seems pretty circular to me. Transgender women aren’t pretending because transgenderism is a real thing. But transracial black people are pretending because transracialism isn’t a real thing. But that doesn’t explain anything; it’s just an assertion. Someone born/assumed to be white as a child who lives as a black person is denying historic realities of racial oppression, but someone born/assumed to be male as a child who lives as a woman isn’t denying historic realities of patriarchal oppression? It seems like a mistake to frame an individual born white who lives black as “white people deciding what it means to be black”. Just as it would be a mistake to frame a transwoman’s life as “men deciding what it means to be a woman”. As far as I can tell, these are individual people interacting with societies and communities in sometimes unexpected ways, not one group dictating the essential nature of another group. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/108 "2021-02-05T00:50:47Z")
A person may be what they wish to be. Their choices may confuse or alarm other people, but generally it is their own business. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/109 "2021-02-05T00:53:24Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > It all seems pretty circular to me. Transgender women aren’t pretending because transgenderism is a real thing. But transracial black people are pretending because transracialism isn’t a real thing. I think it’s not really as parallel as you make out. Transgender women acknowledge that there are differences between transgender and cisgender women (and I for one would not support attempts to deny that). They openly support rights for transgender women and push for more societal acknowledgement of the existence of transgender women and their identification as women. But AFAICT, white people presenting as black (at least, all the ones I’ve ever heard of) are not advocating for the societal recognition of “transracial blackness”. They are simply pretending that they as individuals have specific black heritage which they don’t actually have. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/110 "2021-02-05T00:54:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, this is where science comes in. We as a society accept transgender (to some extent) because there is strong evidence that perceived gender identification is a particular neurobiological phenomenon, and that transgender identification is a natural variant of that. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s why most people accept transgender, and knowing how harmful and wrong lots of science around race and gender was in the past makes me pretty wary of using science to decide what rights people should have. I accept transgender people because they are people and because none of who they are or what they do is harmful to me or others. I’m inclined to accept people who claim to be transracial for the same reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/111 "2021-02-05T01:00:23Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s why most people accept transgender, Probably not on an emotional level, no. But I don’t think we’d have as much official societal recognition (such as it is) of transgender identity and transgender rights as we do have, if we didn’t have some scientific and medical backing for the basic claim that this is a natural and not unhealthy (though not at all common) way for human beings to be. I think the same is true for the official societal recognition that we have for homosexual identity and gay rights. Wouldn’t exist without the scientific and medical confirmation that yeah this is actually okay. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/112 "2021-02-05T01:08:08Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m not sure we should be so certain that someone cannot be “the wrong race”. Can someone have the wrong eye color? Or height? Or “I am an innie person in a body with an outtie?” Gender identity is integrated into the brain; race is not. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/113 "2021-02-05T01:08:24Z")
I think the causality runs the other way. But science and medicine routinely classify uncommon normal things as disorders until society is sufficiently accepting of them. The best science of the 19th century sure was racist, just like the best medicine of most of the 20th was pretty homophobic. Those ideas didn’t change because we got better science. The scientific consensus was a reflection of society. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/114 "2021-02-05T01:18:21Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Can someone have the wrong eye color? Or height? Or “I am an innie person in a body with an outtie?” Given that people can and do seek cosmetic and surgical remedies to all of those things, the answer is clearly “yes”. Is a blue-eyed person who wears brown contacts being dishonest about who they are? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/115 "2021-02-05T01:19:22Z")
> [@mr\_jp](#): > > Maybe it wasn’t clear, but I was arguing specifically against this: > > > [@](#): > > > > From what I’ve read (and I’ll admit I’m a layman) scientists have found evidence that the brains of transgender people often are more similar to the gender they identify as rather than the gender they were assigned at birth. > > I think this is not true, in the physically measured traits we have at this time. That’s all. It’s only true if the time you are talking about is the twelfth century. Scientists have plenty of ways to measure a brain that are a lot more sophisticated than a tape measure. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/116 "2021-02-05T01:28:09Z")
Sure, people look in the mirror and decide they would rather have brown eyes, or curly hair, or have a nose job, or get a tattoo. But in those cases your brain and glandular system doesn’t predispose you to feel like you are locked in the wrong body. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/117 "2021-02-05T01:31:13Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > The best science of the 19th century sure was racist, just like the best medicine of most of the 20th was pretty homophobic. Those ideas didn’t change because we got better science. The scientific consensus was a reflection of society. It goes both ways (more circularity). Yes, over the years there has certainly been a lot of bigoted science, but science helps change society as well as vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/118 "2021-02-05T01:47:49Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s why most people accept transgender, and knowing how harmful and wrong lots of science around race and gender was in the past makes me pretty wary of using science to decide what rights people should have. I accept transgender people because they are people and because none of who they are or what they do is harmful to me or others. I’m inclined to accept people who claim to be transracial for the same reasons. Then on what basis can you dismiss the stupid transphobic trope “I identify as a helicopter”, that weak attempt at a slippery slope _reductio ad absurdum_? We surely cannot shy away from distinguishing between _genuine_ and _objectively real_ assertions of identity, and fantasy or pretence. > [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > The best science of the 19th century sure was racist, just like the best medicine of most of the 20th was pretty homophobic. Those ideas didn’t change because we got better science. The scientific consensus was a reflection of society. I don’t agree. I think bad science and bigotry were replaced by better science and better morality in tandem. I think you fail to respect the dignity of trans people if you suggest that their gender identity is qualitatively no different from any other potential assertion of identity. It is not a slippery slope where I can claim _anything_ about what I am and that makes it real. And I don’t see how you can make that distinction clear without considering the science. For example, consider otherkin, who strongly identify with non-human animals, some so strongly that they claim that they _are_ (in some sense) non-human animals. Now I’m completely supportive of respecting their chosen identity and preferences. But as an objective matter, I’m not going to accept that any human _really_ has (say) the brain of a cat. Because whatever they claim, however they feel, as an objective matter it takes a cat genome to grow a cat brain. Whereas it is very much consistent with scientific knowledge that a trans woman _really does_ have a brain that in certain key respects is more similar to a typical cis female brain than a cis male brain. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/119 "2021-02-05T03:11:28Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > But in those cases your brain and glandular system doesn’t predispose you to feel like you are locked in the wrong body. I’m not sure it’d matter if it did. The entire flaw in talking about someone having the wrong body is that it implies there is a “right body” that an individual is supposed to have and that deviating from that ideal form would somehow be deceptive. I say a person’s right body is the one they feel most comfortable and self-actualized in, and they’re under no obligation to justify that body to anyone but themselves. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/120 "2021-02-05T03:25:07Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Then on what basis can you dismiss the stupid transphobic trope “I identify as a helicopter”, that weak attempt at a slippery slope _reductio ad absurdum_ ? I’m not totally sure about that. I agree that it needs dismissing, and I don’t have a great answer. I hope that in this discussion I’ll find my way to one. My current best approximation is that we dismiss it the same way we should dismiss the argument of a man who decides to pose as a woman as a ploy to get into a women’s locker room and claimed that there was nothing more substantive with transwomen. The difference is at least partly one of time, investment, sincerity, commitment. Trans people have those. Helicopter-guy and the creep above don’t. Show me someone who actually wants to get surgery to install a rotor and spends years in court battles with the FAA trying to get an aircraft registration number and I might think differently. But of course there is no such person. Whatever is going on with people like Dolezal, they seem a lot more like transgender people than they do like helicopter guy. She spent years deeply involved in the identity she chose. > [@Riemann](#): > > We surely cannot shy away from distinguishing between _genuine_ and _objectively real_ assertions of identity, and fantasy or pretence. I agree with this, I’m just not as certain as you are which side the claimed transracialists are on. > [@Riemann](#): > > I think you fail to respect the dignity of trans people if you suggest that their gender identity is qualitatively no different from any other potential assertion of identity. I disagree with this statement in a number of ways. I don’t think the second clause is an accurate representation of what I’ve said, and I don’t think that the first follows from it even if it did. I also think that it’s a pretty toxic idea to suggest that someone can’t be a _true_ trans ally unless they _also_ reject some other class of people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117.md?page=7)