But this is also the argument feminists apply to trans women; they view women as having deep, historic oppression that permates culture (only able to vote for 100 years!); how could you identify as a woman without having experienced how women are treated?
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And like, ultimately we've settled on "still, feeling like womanhood describes you better is valid! There's lots to womanhood that isn't oppression."
This is a Big Deal; gender is probably the deepest, most totalizing division we've ever had. So why is this not applied to race?
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My suspicion is that it's cause we haven't yet culturally agreed that there's much more to blackness besides oppression. For a white person to identify as black is an existential racial threat; it's impossible, because white ppl can't transition in the way that matters.
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And if white people *could* transition, if we accepted that race is simply an identification, then this weakens the conception of race as meaningful, as a powerful story to rally justice behind. It means sacrificing the story of oppression and tribal unity.
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So this is why I think (i guess, progressive?) culture no longer *really* thinks that women are oppressed. It's no longer central to female identity. They might talk about woman-power, but once you admit the oppressor group into your own ranks, your tribal unity is gone.
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And I think this is good! I'm really glad people who are born male have the freedom of expression to be able to inhabit and be accepted in their female identities (and vice versa).
I also feel grief for those who feel this about race but don't have the freedom to inhabit it yet.
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I do predict that, assuming that the race war thing ends up dying down over the next several decades, we'll see a very similar shift to accepting transracialism as we did to transgenderism. Once actual artillery stops getting fired, I'm looking forward to the trans peace treaty.
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I think you've missed a key difference in the oppression thing, which is that race (and therefore race-based oppression) is hereditary while gender (and therefore...) isn't.
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A black kid has less opportunity because they grew up in a poor neighborhood because their parents were victims of racism (etc. up the family tree). A little girl doesn't have less opportunity because her parents were victims of sexism
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In theory, a boy could transition his gender and live the same life as if they'd been born a girl. This is not true of transitioning his race
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Because if they were born a different race they'd be born in completely different circumstances (family, etc.), with the above hanging over them (or not, delete as appropriate)
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