(no subject)

[leejooheon]

Ive gone down a rabbithole of people who want to change their race and "transition" to a different race. Which feels wrong but im having a hard time articulating why. Like, gender and race are both social constructs, so I understand why one would say if gender transition is real, so is race transitioning. And like, i do think race and gender function differently, but i find it hard to articulate why. Im kinda stuck trying to find a coherent response.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Both have a mix of innate and socially constructed aspects. There is identity (what people feel they are) and expression (how they show that), compounded by other people's perceptions of what they are (which may or may not be accurate).

The isness of both is more construct than reality. We can point to sex chromosomes and hormones, but they only influence gender probability, don't determine it. We can point to genes for skin pigments and hair textures, but the appearances they create don't map closely to ethnic heritage locations or cultural groups.

But race has another quirk to consider. Some genes are way more dominant than others.

In particular, the Australian Aboriginal genes for appearance seem to wash out really fast when mixed with European genes, whereas African ones stick through more generations. This quickly leads to what one poor guy described as "I'm a blackfella in a whitefella body." It can lead to poor self-image and poor relations with one's kingroup. In this context, it would be easy to see why someone would wish to transition to an appearance that better matches their identity and culture.

Conversely, in America many mixed-race people wish to pass as white for survival reasons, which goes back as far as mixing minus a couple generations to make it feasible. Since about that time, there have been products aimed at helping people pass, from skin-bleaching to hair-straightening, often toxic. African hair is a whole political can of worms unto itself. Compare with people who have cross-dressed to pass as the opposite sex for survival reasons.

Gender and race are both complicated topics, but then, people are complicated creatures.

[kiramori]

As someone who has not researched about the subject (so it's mainly just a opinion), i think that even if gender and race are social constructs, they are both very different constructs. Money is also a social construct, but i can't identify myself as someone with a lot of money. So something being a construct doesn't mean it's arbitrary.

But other than that, i think transitioning race would undermine the ideals of race equality and the message of resistance that is part of that race. All in all, races and culture are tightly knit together, and culture is dynamic — Culture changes based on context, location and contact with other cultures. That's healthy and natural. I think transitioning race could create sterile cultures devoid of meaning, because it is impossible to trully transition race without forgoing the culture associated with it and thus, depriving that culture of it's natural dynamic changes. While it is possible to adopt a new culture, it doesn't come with the meaning attached to it the same way someone born and raised in that medium knows and care for.

The thing is, if you can experience any culture without being part of it and if race doesn't mean anything without culture, then transitioning race is pointless.

[leejooheon]

I think this is a really good way of putting it!