Whoopi Goldberg and Raven-Symone defended Rachel Dolezal by addressing the issue this way, “whether someone can identify as a man or a woman, when they are clearly born of some opposite sex, bisexual or transsexual, why can't Dolezal identify as black? Whoopi goes on to say that Dolezal has been living as a black woman for 5 years and should know what it means to be black. Dolezal said in the interview with Lauer that she was shocked that her cover was blown and that the moment her deception came to light. Other issues that came up during the interview were that she introduced a black male friend as her father, when her white biological father was said to be her stepfather. Additionally, Dolezal described herself as transracial, declining to answer the question of whether she was black or white, but said she does not identify as such.