Can someone be transracial?

Being transracial cannot compare to being transgender

Question: Can someone be transracial?
Position‹2 of 2: Transracialism should be rejected as invalid and as cultural appropriation
Argument‹2 of 2: Being transracial cannot compare to being transgender

The argument that transracial people should be accepted because transgender people are is invalid. Transgendered people have experienced hate crime and violence, so it is unfair to compare them to transracial people.

The argument

Often, advocates for transracial individuals mention the transgender community as a way to defend their opinions and validity. This argument holds that the comparison does not survive examination, because the two cases differ in precisely the respects that would have to match for the analogy to do any work. The first difference is the record of harm. Throughout history, transgender people have experienced discrimination and violence. Every year, a large number of Black and Latina transgender women are targeted and murdered for being transgender. There have never been any recorded cases of hate crimes or violence against a transracial person, proving the two terms cannot be compared. An analogy that borrows the moral weight of a persecuted group's experience needs a comparable experience standing behind it. The second difference concerns how each identity is said to arise. The decision to identify as transracial is an active choice a person makes, whereas transgender people are born into the wrong body so they have to transition in order to feel physically and mentally comfortable. Transracial people change race only after being submerged in the culture, which makes the change a response to exposure rather than to something present from the start. The third concerns what the two categories are made of. Gender is assigned to a person at birth, but race and ethnicity are rooted in history and culture, so adopting a race means claiming a collective history rather than resolving a fact about oneself. Transgender people have experienced hate crimes and physically transitioning is a long, expensive, and painful process. On this argument, transracial people cannot compare themselves to a minority group that is heavily discriminated against.

Premises

[P1]Advocates for transracial identity often invoke the transgender community to defend its validity. [P2] Transgender people, especially Black and Latina trans women, face documented discrimination, violence, and murder, whereas there are no recorded hate crimes against transracial people. [P3] Identifying as transracial is presented as an active choice, whereas transgender people transition out of an innate need, so the two are not comparable. [C] Therefore, transracialism cannot be equated with being transgender and should be rejected as invalid.

Counter-arguments

Transgender and transracial individuals can be compared because they are both transitioning from the body they were born with. Trans people have a long history of violence and discrimination because the term has been well-known for decades. Transracialism is a new term, explaining why it is not widely accepted yet. When more individuals discover they identify as transracial, the movement will gain more popularity and acceptance.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Transracial is a new term, so it cannot have a history of hate crimes or violence.

Proponents cited

Ellie Freeman
“Being transracial is hardly similar to ‘feeling black’ … It’s not like gender dysphoria either – the politics of race and gender are not interchangeable in this context. Unlike many black Americans, Rachel Dolezal’s family background does not carry the trauma of slavery and institutionalised racism. Unlike people who really are transracial, Rachel has not been physically torn between two cultures and denied intimate knowledge of her birth culture. Unlike people who are black and transracial adoptees, Rachel has not had to deal with both of these life-affecting experiences at the same time.”
Meredith Talusan
“The fundamental difference between Dolezal’s actions and trans people’s is that her decision to identify as Black was an active choice, whereas transgender people’s decision to transition is almost always involuntary. Transitioning is the product of a fundamental aspect of our humanity – gender – being foisted upon us over and over again from the time of our birth in a manner inconsistent with our own experience of our genders. Doctors don’t announce our race or color when we are born; they announce our gender. People who are alienated from their presumed gender and define themselves according to another gender have existed since earliest recorded history; race is a medieval European invention.”