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)
No race, no gender. No problems.
Gender anarchism and race anarchism. People be just people. Social constructs shall not be a dividing reason, let everyone behave however the hell they want as long as they don’t hurt others and be happy.
Also US race concepts are kind of weird in general. I suppose the history of slavery and segregation did a number on people’s perception of race.
This is exactly why I think “transgender” does more harm than good and I’ll die on this hill. What’s the point? The people who are going to accept the way you express yourself aren’t going to care if it conforms to gender stereotypes, and the people who aren’t won’t suddenly change their minds if it does.
All it does is reinforce the very same stereotypes that gave you gender dysphoria in the first place. It’s saying that gender norms are valid, you just got assigned the wrong ones. Live your truth, express yourself how you want, alter your body however you want, but don’t validate oppressive stereotypes in the process.
Transracial isn’t a thing. You can scientifically change your gender. You can’t change your race
Block them.
Look, understanding and relating to someone of a different race is one thing, but if you think that you somehow are that race then there’s something wrong in your brain, one way or another. It’s better than being like “I’m really a wolf” or similar nonsense, but only because at least you’re not claiming it believing that you’re a different species. Instead you’re on the sliding scale of delusion/dog whistle and either way I’d rather just not be around you.
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.
Transracial is an actual thing, but it refers to people of one race adopted by another
I think a better word for it would be “Transcultural” or “Transethnithicy” ?
But I’ve never heard of that specifically, closest people I know of are people with parents from other cultures who grew up in a different culture than one or both parents, call themselves “multicultural” or as having “multiethnicity”…
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 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.
“Shut up.”
The correct response is to consider what the correct way to synthesize the positions is, and go with that. There’s nothing wrong with adapting your position to handle possible inconsistencies. The goal is not to win but to be the most correct.
Typically, the assumption is that this is an argument that transgender is invalid. Perhaps there’s another way of looking at it. Perhaps a way people aren’t ready for, which is why your opponent went in that direction.
Alternatively, it can be pointed out that this is changing the topic, because it technically is.
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.
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.
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 weren’t raised in and have no heritage from but the loose political definition of race gives them lots of wiggle room.
Tldr: tell them race isnt real and ethnicity is based on the culture you were raised in and the heritage of your ancestors. You can’t force your ancestors to be a different ethnicity and you can transition a childhood upbringing, just an identity.
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.
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.
