Whoopi Goldberg and Raven-Symone defended Rachel Dolezal by approaching the issue this way, “if someone can identify as a man or a woman, when he was clearly born of the 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 she should know what it means to be black. Dolezal said in the Lauer interview that she was shocked that her cover-up was exposed and the timing of her deception was revealed. Other issues raised during the interview were that she had introduced a black friend as her father, while her white biological father was considered her stepfather. Additionally, Dolezal described herself as transracial, refusing to answer the question of whether she was black or white, but stated that she did not identify as.