My dad once explained to me that I'm "Jewish for purposes of persecution".

My mother has non-jokingly had this conversation with my brother about his daughter. Though my niece's mother is not herself observant, she was raised French-Canadian Catholic and my niece was baptized because it was very important to her side of the family. If she goes through with confirmation when she's the relevant age, I'm pretty sure that puts her out of being considered anything but ethnically Jewish even by Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism. That will change nothing if people want to be racist at her.

(Which I've found surprisingly helpful as a rule of thumb for dealing with all sorts of identity politics about who is a "real" X.)

Agreed.