Edit for context:
My view is transracial isn’t valid and this person is trying to dogwhistle. I’ve already blocked this person, and now they’re going after my friend saying my friend is transphobic because they disagreed with them about transracial being a thing (they’re purposefully leaving the context out so my friend looks transphobic when what my friend really said was transgender is valid but transracial isn’t)
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
Well trans people, if they medically transition, quite literally change their sex.
If they don’t, they’re still transitioning their gender. Exactly how much they decide to change themselves doesn’t matter. That’s the point of the term.
Trans people transition BOTH their sex and their gender. The term “transgender” is a broad umbrella term. But most people under that label do seek to physically change their bodies. You’re arguing semantics, I’m arguing the lived experience of living breathing human beings.
The it sounds like you should be arguing for different semantics. Ones that match the experience of living breathing human beings.
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.
it is actually because how could racism exist without race? the only people who claim race isn’t real are white
I don’t really think I can come up with a more concise way of summarizing the idea than anthropologist Audrey Smedley did on the first result of the Google search “race social construct”
Race is a culturally structured systematic definition of a way of looking at perceiving and interpreting reality.
I would recommend you read something like “Feminism and ‘Race’” from Oxford Readings in Feminism or some of bell hooks’ work to understand the idea better.
extremely simple question for you, if bell hooks believed race isn’t real then why does she call herself Black? do you seriously believe she means that in a “race doesn’t exist” way? 🤦♀️
You do not need to believe race is a biological reality to acknowledge that the perception of others as you (+ your ancestors) being a member of a race has materially affected your identity
so I never said it’s a biological reality, just that it’s real because white supremacy is real. seems like we agree
“Race” was invented by racists. There was a lot of fake science here in Germany in the 30s to “prove” that not only “human races” exist, but even so that they have different worth.
So this is what I always still hear when someone is using the word - and commonly they are racists.
I do understand where you’re coming from, and I totally agree that there are a fucking lot of supremacist people and yes - if I had been a teenager in the 30s, people would have seen I’m blonde, blue-eyed and tall. So I would have that privilege and still it is a privilege in the modern world.
Prejudices about skin color exist, I absolutely agree. Racists exist, I agree. Just “race” - every time I hear that, it’s like something out of the Nazi textbooks my grandfather had to use at school.
OK, so at least you’re conscious that the word race makes you uncomfortable. and I’ll ask this in good faith, why do you think that is? maybe because acknowledging that your white phenotype, something you have no control over and could never change, gives you privilege over non-white people?
I promise you that the words you use or don’t use won’t make racism go away, confronting internalized racism will. and that’s what white privilege is, the opportunity for us to go our entire lives without ever having to acknowledge race still exists, white supremacy is commonplace, and we’re part of that system because of societal brainwashing that begins at birth and is lifelong unless we deconstruct said programming.
If the earth isn’t flat, how can there be flat-earthers?
Race can be pseudo-scientific bullshit, and still have a bunch of racists around. The idea of race is, at its core, a racist idea.
If you’re actually being sincere, you might want to ask people how to articulate your view, you’d have to let them know what your view is though. Or ask for peoples opinion on the question.
My view is transracial isn’t valid and this person is trying to dogwhistle. I’ve already blocked this person, and now they’re going after my friend saying my friend is transphobic because they disagreed with them about transracial being a thing.
Block them.
This person is not arguing in guys faith and is just looking to make trouble. Engaging with people like that is as frustrating as it is futile.
I’m confused. Wouldn’t transracial just be “mixed”? Like one parent is white, one parent is black.
Mixed baby.
Never heard someone refer to it as “transracial”.
Transracial in this context is people identifying as different races, like Rachel Dolezal
Never heard of that name before, so I googled it. Holy shit. Guys, if you haven’t heard of Rachel Dolezal, google it. It is a WILD read.
It reminds me of this local wrestling character. “Malcolm Farrakhan”. A combination of the names Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan. Played by a 90lbs 5’2 white guy, who surrounded himself with a group of big muscular black guys. One of which you might remember from WWE in The Nexus as “Micheal Tarver”.
Well, Malcolm Farrakhan was as white as could be, which was the whole joke. He didn’t do blackface (thank god), but his whole schtick was screaming “I AM A VERY LIGHT SHADE OF BLACK!!! I HAVE BLACK HERRITAGE!!!” meanwhile the crowd laughs at the absurdity, as a group of 4-5 black guys all act like they fully believe him.
Wrestling is weird, and not meant to be taken seriously.
But this Rachel Dolezal essentially did the exact same thing a decade later, except in real life. Just less cartoonish about it.
Which is pretty fucked up.
They don’t appear to understand the difference between cultural and gender identity. I’d try this:
“If a white person of european descent were raised from birth by a Sentinel Island tribe, would they be culturally european?”
The answer is obviously no, illustrating that the cultural identity of a person depends on the culture the person was raised in. I don’t know how gender identity works, but clearly how someone is raised has little to do with it.
Edit: Disclaimer that I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.Problem is that “race” isn’t just cultural. How you will be treated definitely depends on how other people perceive your “race” and subsequently it will shape your life reality.
That person you gave as an example? In the US, Canada or most European countries he will be treated better than an actual Citizen born and raised in the respective country who is perceived as “black” or “brown”.
Problem is that “race” isn’t just cultural. How you will be treated definitely depends on how other people perceive your “race” and subsequently it will shape your life reality
But surely how you will be treated definitely depends on how other people perceive your “gender” and subsequently it will shape your life reality?
Everything you described up there sounds exactly like “cultural.”
That makes gender more like “ethnicity”/“race” rather than “culture” don’t you think?
I’m advised that there is no scientific or genetic basis for race. I’m a little unclear on how “ethnicity” is different from “race.”
All of them seem to be social constructs.
social construct isn’t a synonym for “doesn’t exist”. just because scientific racism is illogical it doesn’t mean that white people don’t behave as if we’re superior to others, whether consciously or not. you can’t say racism is ethnic oppression because even comparing between white Latino and Black Latino there’s a statistical difference in police brutality based on anti-Blackness
culture and ethnicity have nothing to do with race. race is based on perceived phenotype
I’d say that a lot of race is based upon shared experiences with other members of the group, and being seen as part of the group. Many people from the Middle East and North Africa see themselves as white. A lot of white Americans and Europeans disagree. I would say that being perceived as a member of an in group is more important than actual color. For example, some lighter skinned African-Americans were able to be perceived as white, thus being treated significantly better. Were they black? Of course they were. They made a conscious decision to pick which experiences and culture they wanted. But they definitely had experiences where they didn’t pass, and had experiences according to their given race.
what you’re talking about is proximity to whiteness. AFAIK passing was not a choice which makes Dolezal’s actions even more violent. lighter Black people benefit from colorism but they’re still at risk of lynching because of their race. white people doing blackface is a way to mock that powerlessness felt by victims of white supremacy and make money from clout.
as for non-white SWANA people assimilating into whiteness, that’s a way to harness the colonial power structure to their own benefit by distancing themselves from Black people. this is all a trauma response and survival mechanism from centuries of European genocide like colored South Africans with the same phenotype as indigenous Africans claiming they’re not Black.
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. Race is a social construct, but it’s based on appearance and heritage. It’s about belonging to a group, not about being an individual, the way gender is.
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.
I’m uncomfortable with the idea that the only reason that being trans is valid is because of biological factors.
If we could construct a human that came into existence without being Female at some gestational point, you gonna tell them they can’t be trans? If someone has a thyroid problem such that they their body CAN’T handle a sex hormone, you gonna tell them they can’t be trans?
I feel like we’re looking for a 9-D chess play when a 1-D play is sufficient: you say you’re trans, you’re trans. I’m not the fucking cops
Good points, and I think we generally agree. I definitely didn’t mean to exclude anyone in those real or hypothetical situations you mentioned. To me, those examples are more about showing how gender is, or can be, biologically fluid. There are many “odd” situations that aren’t binary. So amongst the many unusual ways that sex can occur biologically, “male brain in a female body” or “I reject the concept of gender entirely” are valid and believable.
I agree with your last point as well, but in the context of this post, would you tell Rachel Dolezal that she says she’s Black, so she’s Black? I guess I was trying to find some sort of difference between gender and race identity, the way the question was posed.
I’m definitely not claiming to have an unassailable argument, so thanks for responding with good points.
They’re either trying to get your goat, or it’s genuine. Either way, it’s not making the world any better by bestowing upon yourself the title of judge and enforcer. You’re either taking bait or you’re a fucking cop. “Ok” is all you gotta say.
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?
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 someone you’re Black they’d think you’re a dipshit. you can’t pass as something you’re not.
maybe stop comparing race and gender then.
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.
trans women only pass because we’re women.
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.
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.
PS: using ciswomen and transwomen makes you sound like a TERF.
using ciswomen and transwomen makes you sound like a TERF.
What would be a correct way to distinguish between the two?
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“Woman” seems like it works refer to both, to be used in the majority of cases when the distinction is irrelevant.
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I don’t want to say “natural” women, or “real” women, as even someone as thick as me can see that’s insulting.
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It seems that using the prefix for both makes them equal.
What do you think world be more appropriate?
it’s impossible for Black people to not pass as Black because it’s been proven they experience racism based on an immutable characteristic.
But they would suggest that as soon as we discover a way to change that characteristic, transrace world be valid.
Further, while gender identity may not be based on appearance, the way one is treated is very much based on appearance. If I look male, I get treated as male. If I look female, I get treated as female. If I look like one, but insist I am the other, people tend to have disagreements between their deliberate and automatic behaviors. (Well, the same people do, anyway.)
I can’t think of a good way to prove it, but I am legitimately curious about this topic. I’m never happy with the answer “because this one is right, and that one is wrong.” There needs to be reasons why.
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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. race doesnt = gender.
Assuming race, As a white person you are going to struggle to get others to see you as black. Cause those are social constructs. YOU do not get to decide what others see you as when it comes to a social construct. Because the very point of a social construct is that it’s the general social frame work used to see others as.
Ethnicity on the other hand, as a white skin tone person if you grew up in Africa in a tribe of indigenous people then you would be an indigenous person. Ethnicity only cares about the facts.
To mirror that to transgender.
Gender is a social construct, it’s what others see you as and how you categorize into a given communities framework. This differs between communities. For example what defines a male gender in ancient Rome is different then ancient Scotland. Both having male genders that quite literally just do not exist in one or the other.
While sex is the physical only caring about the factual biological. The actual flesh and reproductive organs. You either have them, or you don’t. Primary or secondary. You can alter them with modern medicine sure, but even after alteration. It still only matters what you have. Are you a male producer or female reproducer. Are you functional or not. Do you have both sets? That’s basically it, sex just cares about the facts it’s not socially constructed. You can’t argue that someone with a penis does not have a penis.
Ethnicity tho, doesn’t have a modern medicine equivalent. It just is what it is. You can’t change facts, so your rather stuck with it. Unlike a penis.
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.
The best way to respond is to disregard them, block and move on. Transracial is an actual thing, but it refers to people of one race adopted by another. Transracial ala Dolezal is just a troll to attack trans people, no different from attack helicopters.
Don’t even know if I’d call that transracial, that’s just a person who is of one ethnicity but was raised in a different culture than one might expect for someone who looks like them. There’s no “transitioning” happening there.
It’s not even a race, it’s usually a community with a different culture, so the entire term is invalid. And humans are one species with no races, despite this we keep the divisions that the less educated from history created.
transracial adoption doesn’t imply that the child’s race is being changed but that the adopting family is of a different race than them. it’s usually meant to highlight the way white parents adopt Black children to be used as slave labor.
we keep the divisions
who’s we? this is dangerous and is implying that the only reason racism keeps being an issue is because Black people refuse to move on. only we as whites have the privilege to ignore the racial caste system and pretend like nothing is going on
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 her gender presentation so that people’s perception matches her inner reality 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 into becoming Black
I’m thinking of a situation where someone can easily pass as either race depending on context and they might change their identity based on finding out new information. Not altering their skin color or even their behavior necessarily, just how they identify.
Also, in the US race for the census and other federal data collection is based on self-identification and has been for well over a decade. A lot of people with mixed ancestry often choose one as the race they identify with based on social perceptions, like choosing to identify as black despite having a white parent where they could be both white and black because of social pressures. Or their parent raises them to identify as white because they don’t want their kid to suffer from racial oppression .
That just seems comparable as something that is imposed on someone, isn’t always accurate, has social pressure to go with first impressions, and a negative response to someone choosing how they want to identify.
Note: This does not include Rachel Dolzal (sp) who changed the color of her skin, that was definitely someone who was pretending using blackface.
seems like you’re confusing ethnicity and race, which is why the US census isn’t treated as a valid source in sociology because it conflates the two.
even if biracial Black people identify as white because of having a white parent (anti-Blackness) that doesn’t change the fact they will continue experiencing racism for being Black. race is all about first impressions because it was meant to be a cognitive model for white people to reduce our guilt for enslaving Black people.
There are actually a lot of people who meet the social definition of black but are white passing by being right skinned enough and they choose not to identify as black to avoid the racism.
you mean they were raised with Black culture? there’s a difference between Black American as an ethnicity and Black as a racial classification. a white biracial can be raised by 2 Black parents and identify with that culture but that won’t lead to them experiencing racism because their phenotype is still white to cops and other whites. i don’t understand the relevance of how biracial people identify?
I don’t think this is going anywhere because you seem to think anyone can spot whether someone is black at a glance.
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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.
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.
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.
race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning
Physical traits are passed through genes onto kids, thus kids have much the same traits as their parents. Asian parents have asian kids. Why are we doing elementary biology here?
This really isn’t the argument we should be latching onto.
I’m not saying the physical traits you are talking about aren’t real. I’m saying you’re using the wrong word to describe them. Biologically there is no such thing as different human races. You are talking about ethnic groups.
If you take two people from an African country they can be genetically closer to an European or Asian person than to each other.
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.
tell them race isnt real
This is the shit I was responding too. And rhetoric like that is painfully contrary to even elementary biology. If the best response to OP’s question is a demonstrably false statement like ‘race isn’t real’, well, that’s a very sad state of affairs.
doesn’t make much sense to group them so roughly
Just as I wouldn’t generally find it necessary to group people by eye color, the fact remains eye color is real. Same for other genetically determined things like race.
Where do you put children of parents of different races, then?
And the offspring of such children?
Many if not most people on Earth have a combined descent.
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.
white people stop pretending like we live in a post-racial society challenge
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. Mind your own business. It’s a slippery slope to start considering whether a fellow human is ‘valid’ or not.
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.
Lemmy is filled with people who gave the right a red carpet treatment. Probably the last place we should ask questions about engagement to.
It’s like asking r/relationship about relationship advice. It’s a terrible idea
You can’t rationally debate someone out of a position they didn’t reach through rational consideration.
So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?
It’s stuff like this why people in real life all share the same opinion on trans issues and other right wing issues. It’s this stuff that has allowed their arguments to spread. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what you were supposed to be doing. You gave them a red carpet and helped contribute to the spread of their propaganda by disengaging. Changing their opinion was not ever said as a goal. You need to challenge their opinion to show it is badly formed. If it isn’t then you need to evaluate yours.
Disengaging does not help spread propaganda. Engaging and giving horrible ideas a platform does help spread propaganda.
Your “debate bro” advice is about ten years out of date.
You’re wrong. Completely wrong on so many levels. This is all about engagement. That whole “too enlightened to engage” attitude is exactly how the right managed to take over so much of the online space. Right-wing think tanks and PR firms invested in engagement, nonstop posts, repetition, platform saturation. And it worked.
People see the same ideas echoed over and over again, and eventually it shapes how they think. That’s why regular, everyday people, people who aren’t even political start parroting right-wing talking points. Even my kids and their friends are saying this stuff.
It’s not because they believe it. It’s because that’s what they see. All the time.
The reason it’s gotten this bad? A whole chunk of people on the left thought disengaging was smart. That if they just ignored it, it would go away. It didn’t. It spread. And now we’re here.
People see the same ideas echoed over and over again, and eventually it shapes how they think. That’s why regular, everyday people, people who aren’t even political start parroting right-wing talking points. Even my kids and their friends are saying this stuff.
You are 100% correct on this part.
The problem is, arguing with them magnifies that effect, it doesn’t challenge it.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t push back. I don’t mean smile and agree, or just ignore them. Deplatforming works, protests work, proud visibility works, civil disobedience works. Responding negatively works. Making it so that there is a social cost to being a transphobe works.
But debating them isn’t any of those things. Debating them is engaging with them, and in the act of arguing with you, they actually solidify the beliefs they already hold, and this is especially true of heavily polarised issues. Here’s some research on it https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01623-8 (PDF link), and an article that goes in to the topic a bit https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/why-is-it-that-even-proven-facts-cant-change-some-peoples-minds
As much as it feels right to argue with them, all you are doing is strengthening their already held beliefs when you do. It might feel like its helping, but it isn’t. You’ll read my response, and you’ll likely go “screw that, you’re wrong, I’m going to keep arguing”. And that’s the exact effect I’m talking about at play. Every time you argue with someone, they have that same internal reaction to your comments, no matter what you say, or how strongly you believe it.
If you debate people and onlookers find themselves agreeing more with the other guy than they were at the start, the answer is to re-evaluate your arguments. When you go to social shaming, while you may get people to shut up, you also solidify those people against you. You blocked off the mechanism for those onlookers to have their mind changed and created resentment for the social cost you impose on them.
Isn’t it weird how when you talk to someone online they generally won’t go against the grain, yet Trump now won a second term? And not only that, but he won the popular vote this time around with 14,317,752 more votes than he got the first time around.
That is what social shaming does. Instead of trying to convince people, you force them against you.
So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?
I’m prepared to trust other people’s intelligence to see through it, and if they can’t, fuck them as well.
Part of being intelligent is being social. Being social means we mirror and sometimes go with the crowd. That’s just how it is. Which means if you think people are intelligent, it means it also should understand they will be susceptible to certain things like this
So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?
No, absolutely not. I run instances to give gender diverse folk safe spaces. I ban transphobes the instant they appear, I don’t debate them. Offline, I’m visible, active and proud. I am an volunteer at my local parkrun, I’ve spoken openly with people at my workplace, I’ve hosted a queer community radio show, I host a vodcast, and I used to be active in organising events for my local gender diverse community. Because what gets people to change their minds, is an emotional connection with the group they’re targeting. When they start to see us as people, just the same as them, then they start to make choices that aren’t harmful to us, and they start to wind back their own arguments.
Pushing back is incredibly important, but debating them isn’t effective. Like most people, when confronted with debate points in regards to a topic they hold on to for emotional reasons, they will shift goal posts, and only see the things that validate what they already believe, whilst ignoring the things that challenge it. When they get to the point where they’re ready to challenge their ideas (because their emotional position has shifted) then, lots of the talking points you would normally debate become relevant, but by that stage, it’s a discussion, not a debate.
Absolutely. If people like the idiot this post is referring to are allowed to spew bullshit without push back, then other idiots will believe it and spread it. These people need to be shamed and publicly corrected for their bullshit stance that can hurt others. I say hurt others, because an idea like this can be used to delegitimize transgender people.
I remember a study once showing that you can skew the views of any group if only 10% of that group change their opinion.
I think this is really important here because if you’re on an social media and you see nothing but right wing views, I think it does influence lots of people. This is why I get so mad seeing attitudes suggesting we should all just ignore it all like it’s a waste of time.
My second paragraph covered that, I thought.
Don’t engage with them.
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
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.
