Race is also a social construct, as you point out.
Skin color is a genetic phenotype., biological sex is too. Those phenotypes are inherited.
So yeah, you could change your appearance: skin color, bone structure, musculature, etc with surgery.
Michael Jackson is a good example of this (though he had vitiligo). Compare pictures of his face in his early career to later. He was still ‘African American’ though.
They are making a point that gender is something in one’s own mind. It’s not necessarily genetic.
Sex is not changed with surgery. Surgery allows the person receiving it to have a body that matches more closely with what they want to feel like (their gender). No different than people getting breast implants or reductions or labioplasty or plastic surgery or dick enhancement.
Most people have a body/sex that fits their preferred gender which is why this feels weird to some people, especially the ones that can’t or won’t reason through this. They make snap judgments with previous biases or prejudices which is an unfair and somewhat bigoted position to take.
I wasn’t really bringing social construct into it because I don’t think it is greatly relevant. Race isn’t entirely a social construct, it’s more akin to sex. You are born with the genetics of your heritage much like you are born with the genetics of your sex and neither changes just because you have a surgery. Perhaps heritage would be better to use than race. North African descent, Japanese descent, Scandinavian descent, Samoan descent, the heritage of each of these would impact your genetic makeup and things like healthcare much like sex impacts the type of care you may need.
There is plenty more nuance to this but that’s my general opinion on why they differ.
They’re not changing gender, they’re changing their body to match their gender.
Sure, but does that mean you can also change your body to match your race? Like isn’t race also a social construct?
Irish people weren’t considered white not too long ago, so surely it must be.
Race is also a social construct, as you point out.
Skin color is a genetic phenotype., biological sex is too. Those phenotypes are inherited.
So yeah, you could change your appearance: skin color, bone structure, musculature, etc with surgery.
Michael Jackson is a good example of this (though he had vitiligo). Compare pictures of his face in his early career to later. He was still ‘African American’ though.
Gender is not inherited
I don’t see how that’s relevant
They are making a point that gender is something in one’s own mind. It’s not necessarily genetic.
Sex is not changed with surgery. Surgery allows the person receiving it to have a body that matches more closely with what they want to feel like (their gender). No different than people getting breast implants or reductions or labioplasty or plastic surgery or dick enhancement.
Most people have a body/sex that fits their preferred gender which is why this feels weird to some people, especially the ones that can’t or won’t reason through this. They make snap judgments with previous biases or prejudices which is an unfair and somewhat bigoted position to take.
Sure but race is also a social construct. It’s not inherited.
Eg. some people didn’t consider the Irish as white.
So neither is inherited, aka why I asked how it’s relevant.
I wasn’t really bringing social construct into it because I don’t think it is greatly relevant. Race isn’t entirely a social construct, it’s more akin to sex. You are born with the genetics of your heritage much like you are born with the genetics of your sex and neither changes just because you have a surgery. Perhaps heritage would be better to use than race. North African descent, Japanese descent, Scandinavian descent, Samoan descent, the heritage of each of these would impact your genetic makeup and things like healthcare much like sex impacts the type of care you may need.
There is plenty more nuance to this but that’s my general opinion on why they differ.