a visibly black person has a very specific experience of racism that no white person, regardless of their ancestral history, can understand or simply 'identify' into. of course it is the same with transgender at the end of the day BUT the reason that people have felt differently about gender is because gender has such strong visual elements tied to it in our culture than can be adapted by either sex that it forces something of a mind trick when we see it

But you're saying being subjected to racism comes from being "visibly black" (presumably in white-majority parts of the world) whilst also saying that what makes "gender" so important to some is that it "has such strong visual elements..." Which I find confusing.

World history shows that there are many, many different kinds of racism and ethnic prejudice - racism is not just something that only affects, and historically has affected, "visibly black" people in places/countries that are majority white. There's long been tons of racism against all kinds of people in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australia, New Zealand and the other Pacific Islands.

Moreover, even amongst persons who are perceived by others and themselves as black in countries such as the USA, there has always been a huge variation in skin tones and physical characteristics of those who have experienced anti-black racism. The great black civil rights activist Walter White, founder and first president of the NAACP, was a mixed-race person who definitely did not look "visibly black." On the contrary, most people thought he looked completely white.

wheras a white woman braiding her hair and tanning will NEVER lead her to experience what black women do, people dressing as the opposite sex do experience stigma and discrimination that others are able to observe and recognise - which then lends extra credence to the claim they are an oppressed population.

What do you mean by "dressing as the opposite sex"? And which countries/regions of countries and historical periods are you speaking of? In countries like the US, UK and Canada today, men who "dress as the opposite sex" are lionized for being stunning and brave and treated extremely well. They get awards for being "woman of the year" and showing "courage," and they occupy positions of power. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, men who wore long hair, frilly and "feminine" clothing and makeup were a dime a dozen and did not get singled out for "stigma and discrimination" as a result.

For many decades women in countries in North America, Europe and the UK wore trousers, trouser suits and other men's clothing, and very short hair including shaved heads and buzz cuts, and most other people in those places/cultures didn't mind at all.

My sense is, the "stigma and discrimination" you claim people who "dress as the opposite sex" routinely experience today is over-stated, and a matter of the questionable perceptions and claims of insecure, histrionic people who mistakenly think that everyone else in the world is constantly looking at them and disapproving of them. When the reality is, most of the world hardly notices them (which funnily enough, these self-conscious, self-obsessed people who think they are so edgy and unique coz of their "gender identity" and expression take as an invalidating affront as well).

I'm not saying that such stigma and discrimination does not occur, just that it's over-stated. Moreover, when it does occur nowadays I think it comes from homophobia, the regressive sex stereotypes that previous generations in the Western world rejected but today's "hip and young" people are embracing, and the rampant and hyper lookism of the Instagram and social media era.

Still, whatever "stigma and discrimination" they suffer, the experience of boys/men and girls/women who "dress as the opposite sex" is nothing like the experience of people who actually are the opposite sex.