What's the diference between feeling like the other gender, and feeling like another race?

It would allow people to identify with a different , Kingdom ,Phylum, Order, Class, Genous ,species. I’m SpongeBob SquarePants.

How would I know or anyone else for that matter? Wouldn’t you have to experience both in order to answer the question?

Your link doesn’t seem to link anything having to do with your question.

@flo

Could you specify who you’re talking about? Your link just goes to the New York Times main page.

I think this is about Rachel Dolezal, and I have 2 cents on this:

The one and only reason why this is in any way relevant is that she was acting in such a way that this revelation made her a huge hypocrite.

According to various sources she was the kind of person who would repeatedly engage in racism under the guise of fairness, much like it seems to be the trend with PolSci and gender studies majors of late.

If that turns out to be true, which I don’t know or care, then this would make this event a form of poetic justice, as she basically shot herself in the leg, with a bazooka.

Other than that, nobody should or does give a shit. If this was ANY other person, this would not be newsworthy in the slightest.

People should not identify with their “race”. Period. You’re an individual, whatever other individuals of your race have accomplished or been subjected to has no bearing on you or your life. What YOU have accomplished/suffered does.

I still don’t get the whole “I identify as” thing. You are what you are. Stop lying to yourself.

The difference is feeling it, and actually being it.
One is objective, the other is subjective.

Because gender is biological and race is also biological, but transgender is possible and transrace is not (it’s simply a mental and emotional construct).

@flo you need another link or more details.

I think they are similar.

@JLeslie Why do you think they are similar? I don’t, so I am very interested in and open to your opinion.

Rachael didn’t ‘identify’ as being black. She misrepresented herself for financial gain. She was a fraudster, repeatedly.

There are physical and psychological differences between genders. Let me hasten to add that different does not mean better or worse. It just means different.

The same does not hold for race. There may be cultural differences between races, due to living in isolation from one another, either through preference or discrimination. I can see someone of one race being drawn to the culture of another, but it makes no sense to say that you physically feel that you are a different race, because the physical differences are mostly skin deep and not of much significance.

@Pied_Pfeffer First, I should say that after learning more about the one particular women that was in the news in America, she does sound like she was committing all sorts of frauds and lies and probably mentally unstable as some jellies said here and @keobooks expanded on in great depth in another Q.

However, I think some people really feel very close and comfortable with other races, they identify with that race more, and yes I think it is more of a cultural closeness probably than physical resemblance, but it can be physical too. That white woman who lived as a black woman who was in the news had been living as a black woman Black people accepted her as black. She seemed to darken her skin a little, but when I looked at her she also had a fairly broad nose, which if you look the original definitions if the races from long ago it is the facial features that are described in detail. My dad used to be called jokingly nigger lips and chink eyes. I’ll just say I am very grateful for my full lips. My sister and aunt had their noses narrowed. Our skin is extremely “white.” I don’t think anyone in my family would pull off being black easily, nor Asian, most of us “look” Jewish and act that way, but we definitely could pull off Hispanic or some other group.

I think some people feel closely identified with groups they were not born into. I don’t see it as much different than boys wanting to wear dresses, girls wanting to dress as men or someone wanting to completely transition to the other gender. The clothing is like a social construct similar to race. Actually changing to another gender and living as that person, because that person feels in their soul that’s what they were meant to be, well some people convert religions, become citizens of other countries. Some people truly fill like a square peg in a round hole living in their town of origin and disagree with how people there think, what they believe.

We all seek our fit, and to feel happy in our community, and to feel we are authentic to what we feel we are internally whether it be gender, race, religion, and on and on.

I guess since I’m just fine with whatever someone wants to be, I kind of see it as all the same. I don’t care if something is biological or learned, if the person is drawn to a particular life they are. If their community accepts them (community can mean family, friends, neighborhood, etc) then they did it. They live as that person.

I have mentioned my friend’s great uncle lived as a white doctor his entire adult life. Anyone back in that day, if they knew who his parents were would have considered him to be black. Did he live a lie? Or, is he white? Does it matter?

That is the article I was posting was
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/us/rachel-dolezal-quits-naacp-in-spokane.html?_r=0
I’ll be back to respond more.

Search is not completely broken on Fluther.

This may be wrong, but identifying with a ‘race’ and a culture seem like separate topics. Rachel Dolezal claims to relate to the African-American community better than the white community that she belonged to from birth until whenever it dawned on her that this was not the right cultural group. There isn’t anything wrong with that.

Where the line gets crossed is attempting to pass as something she is not. Why not just let it all out by being upfront instead of living a lie that is a house of cards? What was the purpose of her making up the story of being an African-American, changing her appearance, and sharing images of people who were not her parents? What was the ulterior motive? There must be a reason because in this day and age, especially for someone in their early 20’s, skin color isn’t a big deal.

Relating to a culture is another matter. There are a plethora of examples where an individual does not relate to their birthplace: babies and young children adopted in one country and brought up in another, children of missionaries and people in the service who move around, living off the grid vs. the posh life that they had before. The list goes on.

Gender identity starts at an early age. Most, if not all, transexuals recognize in their youth that they do not relate to the body they were given at birth.

If there is someone who feels the same way about their ‘race’, then let them speak up. Ms. Dolezal has thus far been a poor example, if not a failure.

I went into great detail before in the other thread, and I’m not into it now. But here is a story that is totally different than that crazy Dolezal woman. The only weird thing about the story is that she decided to look for her biological parents when she was over 70. They’d most likely be dead… But I still don’t think she ever did anything dishonest when she claimed to be black all her life.

Actually, here is an update of that story I just found. It’s a picture of that woman with her biological sisters. It also has some pictures of her as a young woman and child. I think her bio mom may not have been totally honest about who the father of her baby was. She looks pretty black to me…