politicartoons | For your consideration...

Gender has a biological element to it. Gender is, of course, never solely biological - there's always an element of social construction - but there is a biological component. Thus, having a gender that does not match one's initially perceived/assigned sex is a biological problem with a biological solution.

"Gender has a biological element to it."

No, not according to the dogma.

But that doesn't really answer the question, because ethnicity is definitely biological; in this regard, ethnicity is to race as sex is to gender. If a "biological problem" defines legitimate trans-ness, then trans-ethnic is in.

Edited 2013-07-21 01:49 (UTC)

I'm probably out of my league in a debate like this, but I'll give it a shot anyway. :P

A crude way of putting it is: sex is what's in your pants, gender is what's in your head (which is where the biological component comes in as studies have show that trans*women have brains structure that is similar to cis*women). And then of course there's also gender as a social construct. When all three don't line up as society dictates that they should, that's when there are problems.

Have you ever read Evolution's Rainbow? It's a really good book on sexual diversity in nature, and how humans feel the need to categorize and label things (which kind of ties into restrictions on gender expression).

Culture is, among other things the set of values and beliefs that a group of people share. At its core, there is no biological component. Ethnicity might play a part in some cases, but not always. Which is key.

Therefore, I don't think that sex is to gender, as culture is to ethnicity, since gender (in the brain as far as we understand it to date) has a definite biological component, while culture does not.

"Trans-ethnics" aren't interested in addressing biology though. The above "transn****r" isn't trying to raise their blood pressure or increase their sun endurance or get sickle-cell. They just want to culturally appropriate without being yelled at for it.

Besides, ever notice that all "trans-ethnic" people, whether trolling or legitimately fucked up, are white? PoC wouldn't pull that shit because they actually live with the consequences of being nonwhite in a white-supremacist society every day of their lives. It's just white people who don't understand what living on the other side of racism is actually like, or who do understand and are trolling. I really can't tell which nor do I give a shit.

And what dogma? The social attributes of gender are socially constructed, but I don't think anyone denies physical differences between genders. Acknowledging that the variation within gender is vaster than the variation between gender doesn't mean denying gender differentiation outright.

If there were a procedure to change a person's skin color, would you support trans-ethnic people having it done or would you also consider that "fucked up"?

I haven't encountered enough trans-ethnic people to notice anything about them.

Physical and biological differences are part of sex, not gender. At least, that seems to be the most widely accepted paradigm among people who recognize that there is any difference between sex and gender.

If there were a procedure to change a person's skin color, would you support trans-ethnic people having it done or would you also consider that "fucked up"?

There is; it's called tanning.
Less flippantly, I don't think actual physical appearance or attributes have anything at all to do with "trans-ethnicity". Those that aren't deliberately trolling - and I'm still not sure that they aren't ALL deliberately trolling - aren't having trouble because their skin color or eye angle feels "wrong"; they're distressed because they think they would feel more comfortable in a CULTURE other than the one in which they are raised. And that's... their fucking problem. Especially in this day and age, if you genuinely want to transplant yourself into another culture, it's entirely possible. It's just not easy.

I haven't encountered enough trans-ethnic people to notice anything about them.

I haven't encountered any in real life. But every single one on the internet is a white person who's complaining about not being a PoC.

Physical and biological differences are part of sex, not gender. At least, that seems to be the most widely accepted paradigm among people who recognize that there is any difference between sex and gender.

Well, yes, but sex and gender are both spectra. There are people who genuinely feel that their brain is at odds with the assigned sex of the body into which they were born, and who chafe from a very young age against the social gender into which their assigned sex places them. There are people who are genderqueer and don't feel comfortable in either binary social gender category. There are all manner of intersex conditions which render sex nonbinary. Sex and gender interact in very complex ways.

Gender is not in-born; gender is socially constructed. Behavioral tendencies may be in-born, and those tendencies may be associated with a gender, or even expected of a gender. It's easy to see how it would be uncomfortable for a person's behavioral tendencies to differ from what is expected of their perceived gender.

People of different races also exhibit structural differences in their brains. There isn't enough data to determine whether this is due to genetics or environmental factors; but whether culture is the cause or effect of these differences, how is thinking you would feel more comfortable in a different culture fundamentally different from thinking you would feel more comfortable in a different body? Both are about the expectations that come with how you are perceived.

I mean, I'm pretty transhumanist about bodies - if there's a procedure to change one's body in some way I want people to have access to it. But I think that anyone who was sincere about trans-ethnicity would be in for a rude awakening if they could in fact change their visual ethnic markers. Because I think that if they're not trolling racism, they're unaware, because of white privilege, of how racism would affect them if they were actually perceivable as a minority. Maybe that would be a beneficial wake-up call.

Do you think trans-sexed people are aware of what they're getting into? Or do they also experience a "rude awakening"?

For your consideration...

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