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[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.