Transgender vs. Transracial

[jberryhill]

20. Both involve a host of social constructs

While on the one hand, "race" has no precise meaning, it is also patronizing to say "there is no such thing as race" in the context of continued undeniable social consequences of the widespread belief that there is such a thing and that it matters.

In other words, if you set out to put all of the people in the world, or a large subset thereof, into neatly labeled boxes by "race" or "gender", you'll find that there is no neat division that is going to allow you to sort everyone out that way.

If it had ever been common to "accept", say, African Americans who identified as "white" - and there is a long story in that alone - then, sure, it wouldn't be discomfiting that a person who, by general consensus, would be considered "white" to be accepted in their identification as something else.

In other words, this woman's self-identification is itself taken by many as a manifestation of white privilege.

To me, it seems that her parents had adopted several African American children and either she more closely identifies herself with her siblings, or as the biological child of parents who adopted other children, may have some issues that she has not dealt with in a constructive way.

There is also, in this particular situation, a problem with honesty. She had, for example, posted a picture of an African American man on her Facebook page as her putative father, which was simply not the case, and had engaged in various other fabrications along the way.

Being "accepted" for who you are, and lying about it in the first place, are two different things.