LMAO! Oh dear. Worse yet, as most cultural appropriations go, these misguides souls will inevitably adopt the worst possible stereotypes and claim them as culture. Like white kids dressing as black gangsters and using the N-word, or Japanese kids thinking they’re Beanie Man because they like Jamaican reggae. At some point, you can only tolerate so much in the name of tolerance and understanding.
I see that there’s been an update to that post where “prince koyangi” admitted to being a troll: Doesn’t mean that other people don’t mean it seriously, though.
And they’re an Otherkin. That is absolutely brilliant. I’m a little bit dizzy from all the hilarious wrong on display.
Meh. I guess it might be interesting from a philosophical standpoint to debate this and why it is in principle different from transgender? Whether the person is originally a member of a privileged group (eg white person “switching to” another ethnicity) seems a weak argument, since that is also the case for transwomen. Is it possible to create a solid, cogent argument of what the difference is in principle? I do not think the linked article managed to do so, at least.
How about: pangender asexual demiromantic Okay. trans-asian cat otherkin Sigh. Because there are a lot of people whose identities don’t conform to existing (oppressive!) language conventions and we end up trying to define ourselves through long, ridiculous-sounding lists sometimes (and, hey, isn’t it fun when people mock us for it). I don’t particularly like it, but you work with what you’ve got. It’s better than being erased by the default. That said, there are justifiable reasons for face-palming the latter three. But let’s not pretend that the former three warrant that as well.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. These trolls aside, I thought the very end of the post Jill linked to was interesting. I think trans-ethnicity could be a legitimate issue where the person in question was adopted by parents of another ethnicity (though I am white and cis, and don’t want to suggest that there aren’t still appropriation concerns in that situation).
“Is it possible to create a solid, cogent argument of what the difference is in principle?” One’s a real, measurable phenomenon, and the other isn’t and is admittedly made up?
How does one define “real”? Is it made up because every single one of the people who claimed it have admitted to just making it up? Or are there people who seriously think that they are ‘transethnic’ in a genuine fashion? I don’t feel I know enough about transgender to speak to the differences between it and transethnicity.
I’m reminded of “transablism”, to which I say “take my disability, please!” Beyond that, I have nothing useful to add.
I think trans-ethnicity could be a legitimate issue where the person in question was adopted by parents of another ethnicity The problem with even this is the fact that people are confusing race, ethnicity, and culture. A child raised in any culture will be enculturated into that culture and identify with it. Now, because of the current culture (in the US) race is a component that often gets blended into “culture” and people think they have to go together. They don’t. So it leads to a lot of conflict and confusion.
Whether the person is originally a member of a privileged group (eg white person “switching to” another ethnicity) seems a weak argument, since that is also the case for transwomen. Is it possible to create a solid, cogent argument of what the difference is in principle? I do not think the linked article managed to do so, at least. You can try Renee’s post at Womanist Musings. It may or may not address some of your quibbles. And fwiw, Questioning Transphobia has an entry on male privilege and trans people, male and female.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. These trolls aside, I thought the very end of the post Jill linked to was interesting. I think trans-ethnicity could be a legitimate issue where the person in question was adopted by parents of another ethnicity (though I am white and cis, and don’t want to suggest that there aren’t still appropriation concerns in that situation). Hmmm…, no not really. I have a friend who was adopted from Samoa as a baby by an Irish immigrant couple in the U.S.. He has a common Irish surname, so do his kids. He knows Irish history and Irish folklore inside out. He has cousins – legal – in Ireland, and visited them for the first time about 6 years ago. He had to bring pictures of his parents to prove it. He is not Irish, and doesn’t tell people he’s Irish. When he’s asked about his surname, he’ll say his adopted parents were from Ireland – something he has to do almost every day. I’ll go further: even if I were born in Korea to American parents, and spoke only Korean, I still could not be ethnically Korean. I could be born in Germany and not be ethnically German. Same with France and Italy or Greece.
The problem with even this is the fact that people are confusing race, ethnicity, and culture. A child raised in any culture will be enculturated into that culture and identify with it. Now, because of the current culture (in the US) race is a component that often gets blended into “culture” and people think they have to go together. They don’t. So it leads to a lot of conflict and confusion. Yes.
I checked the feministe comments policy, but couldn’t find it. Does anyone know which religious beliefs are okay to mock in this space and which aren’t? I just wondered if there was a list or something.
I’ll go further: even if I were born in Korea to American parents, and spoke only Korean, I still could not be ethnically Korean. I could be born in Germany and not be ethnically German. Same with France and Italy or Greece. well how do you define ethnicity when ur talking about countries in western europe like that? for example my parents are both from england but i was born and raised in wales. am i ethnically english or ethnically welsh? I call myself welsh, and I’m not trying to appropriate someone elses identity with that.
I checked the feministe comments policy, but couldn’t find it. Does anyone know which religious beliefs are okay to mock in this space and which aren’t? I just wondered if there was a list or something. ones made up within the last hundred years: you can mock ones made up thousands of years ago: you can’t mock
…are you talking about the otherkin comment? Is otherkn a religion? I read the wiki but I’m not sure I get it fully. Does anyone understand it better who would be willing to explain?
Ah, the privilege of being normal–to flippantly dismiss anything outside your comfort zone or comprehesion with a mere “no”. Even though this was a troll, it certainly struck a rigid nerve with a lot of you, didn’t it? OK, fine, but just don’t go hanging around autistic forums, please. We autistics and our not-conforming-to-your-comfort-zones identities may make you pretty queasy. This troll seems to be riffing on the very things many, if not most, autistics DO struggle with (non-conforming gender identity, non-conforming sexual orientation, non-confirming to their native culture/ethnicity, alienated by other human beings, etc.) and so for me it’s a nice reminder of how unwilling you “normal” people really are about accepting autistic people as human beings who are not like you yet still equally human, as opposed to the made-to-conform-to-your-tropes non-beings that we are so often expected to be. I know, I know, we and our “weird: experience are so much easier to dismiss as “defective” when you reduce us down to whatever you think is wrong with us. The thing is, we’re getting pretty tired of that. So expect more people–for realz–to be calling themselves autistic and X-sexual, X-gendered and trans-X in the near future. And unless you’ve seen the world through their synapses, best not to judge them, ‘K? That’s another thing we don’t conform will to, BTW: your bigotries, especially the ones you refuse to see but we cannot ignore, because they limit our ability to participate in society. No wonder you “normal” people alienate us autistics so much.
I don’t know, yes, maybe you could ask yourself if the people of said religion or ethnicity have been historically oppressed along the axis you wish to mock, eh?
Hmmm…, no not really. I have a friend who was adopted from Samoa as a baby by an Irish immigrant couple in the U.S.. He has a common Irish surname, so do his kids. He knows Irish history and Irish folklore inside out. He has cousins – legal – in Ireland, and visited them for the first time about 6 years ago. He had to bring pictures of his parents to prove it. He is not Irish, and doesn’t tell people he’s Irish. When he’s asked about his surname, he’ll say his adopted parents were from Ireland – something he has to do almost every day. I totally get this, but on the other hand, I would think that man has a right to call himself Irish, as well. “Irish” can designate a culture as well as an ethnicity. If he wanted to be accepted as Irish, having been raised in it and never known another culture, would it be wrong for the group to deny him that label? (vs: the increasing numbers of Chinese adoptees by Jewish-American families. Most of the kids I know identify as Jewish, or Chinese *and* Jewish. Not that international adoption doesn’t have its own ethical can of worms, just noting what I’ve seen).
Meh. I guess it might be interesting from a philosophical standpoint to debate this and why it is in principle different from transgender? Don’t. Just don’t. Seriously. Everybody loves to have “interesting” “philosophical” debates about trans people’s lives and the validity of their identities. My life is real. It’s not up for debate, not by you or anybody else, especially not by cis people and especially not as compared to these people. So just stop, please.
Also: what part of speech do you think “transgender” is? Hint: it’s an adjective; please don’t just use it as some sort of collective noun.
Transfat people are quite welcome to transition into being fat. I will, post-transition, be quite happy to acknowledge their professed identity. Meanwhile, can I be transthin?
Look…here’s the thing. Indian culture is wildly diverse and frankly incoherent. “Indian” is such a dubious identifier of race that it ranks right up there with “American”, since there’s people on the subcontinent who are more or less Caucasian, Mediterranean, black African or Hispanic in appearance (I’ve been routinely mistaken-for-south-American, myself), that honestly, unless someone actually had cultural/ancestral heritage of being Indian, I wouldn’t really assume them Indian at all as much as identify them by their race. So I look at someone who would identify as transethnic Indian, and go *fisheye* “Well it looks like someone has some racist stereotypes they feel they identify with…” Because honestly. Transethnicity? Fuck right off. I “feel” Korean indeed. Jesus.
The thing is, we’re getting pretty tired of that. So expect more people–for realz–to be calling themselves autistic and X-sexual, X-gendered and trans-X in the near future. And unless you’ve seen the world through their synapses, best not to judge them, ‘K? Oh you bet I’ll judge it if it’s racist. Sorry Charlie, autism is not a get-out-of-being-a-bigot-free card.
Meh. I guess it might be interesting from a philosophical standpoint to debate this and why it is in principle different from transgender? Without having time to mount a solid philosophical argument, maybe a decent starting point is the fact that that race and gender are vastly different social phenomena, and treating them as directly analagous has always been a deeply flawed enterprise. And it’s worth noting that particularly in the history of (privileged) feminism, the notion that ‘non-white people’ are basically just in the same position as ‘women’ – that is, the generic positon of ‘being oppressed’, without any attention to the nuances of how oppression and identity function in different contexts – has never yielded any great insights into the realities of our social existence, and has mostly served to obscure the specificities of different marginalized experiences behind a monolithic idea of ‘oppressed people’ (which conveniently allowed wealthy straight white women to present themselves as the voice of women in general, seeing as we’re all equally oppressed!). But I digress; in short, we shouldn’t have to make an argument for why ‘transethnicity’ is ‘different’ from transgender, any more than we should have to make an argument for why ethnicity is different from gender. Rather, the burden is on those who claim that the two are comparable to explain why they’re not different, taking into account everything we know about racial and gender identity and the differences between them, and to make a case for ‘transethnicity’ as an oppressed identity that exists in its own right. And as far as I’ve seen, nobody’s made any case beyond direct, unabashed appropriations of transgender experience and terminology. In other news, this shit is why I avoid tumblr like the fucking plague.
That’s another thing we don’t conform will to, BTW: your bigotries, especially the ones you refuse to see but we cannot ignore, because they limit our ability to participate in society. No wonder you “normal” people alienate us autistics so much. Wait. I’m squicked out by certain individuals online who use the language of transgender people to appropriate other racial identities — partially, it seems, as a way to mock trans people — and that means I’m alienating autistic people? Now that is a new one. I’m not repulsed because I think “these people are weird.” I’m repulsed because I think these people are racist and transphobic. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: Feministe comments are not therapy. This is not the place to go to hitch your personal grievances onto every post.
As far as trans-ethnic (multiethnic?) people go, may I bring up NFL player Scott Fujita, who is white but was adopted by Japanese-American parents? Not to mention all sorts of Koreans who were born and/or raised in Japan, but that’s a whole ‘nuther kettle of fish, isn’t it?
I read matlun as saying that transgender identities and experiences clearly are real, though maybe I misunderstood. (And, FWIW, I completely agree with you, Donna.) I thought the “debate” being suggested was about things like transethnicity; we all agree that they’re B.S. (and appropriative and offensive to trans folks to boot), but that does seem to contradict the commonly-expressed tenet that all identities are valid and that it’s oppressive to tell anyone that they are not what they identify as being. I’ve never been totally on board with that tenet, actually, and stuff like this is exactly why.
that does seem to contradict the commonly-expressed tenet that all identities are valid and that it’s oppressive to tell anyone that they are not what they identify as being. I’ve never been totally on board with that tenet, actually, and stuff like this is exactly why. Yeah, that ‘tenet’ has always struck me as a widespread misinterpretation of what people meant when they started talking about respecting trans* identities. If anything, it’s something that started in transphobic discourse (‘if I have to respect people’s gender identities then I guess I have to respect that my 5-year-old really is a dinosaur, LOLOLOL!!!’) and then became absorbed in certain social justice circles in a bizarro poe’s law kinda way (‘if you don’t respect my identity as a dinosaur you’re being oppressive because trans people exist’). As I see it, the reason it’s oppressive to delegitimize trans* identity is not because all identities are precious; it’s because the delegitimization of gender identity has been an actual, demonstrably harmful and violent aspect of trans* people’s historical and ongoing oppression. Calling trans women ‘men’ doesn’t happen in a vacuum of imaginary ‘identities’, it happens in a world where trans women exist and are attacked and murdered and marginalized because they are regarded as men. This notion that it’s all about respecting someone’s internal experience is missing that it’s also about the tangible social realities in which language and identity play a part.
Also in regards to people trying to compare this to transgender people, and even bigger NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
OK, fine, but just don’t go hanging around autistic forums, please. We autistics and our not-conforming-to-your-comfort-zones identities may make you pretty queasy. OK, fine, but don’t go hanging around where POCs and transfolk go, then. (Some of us are autistic, dontcha know.) We coloureds and genderqueers and our insistence on, like, having our identities not be usurped by immature dipfucks may make you pretty queasy. This troll seems to be riffing on the very things many, if not most, autistics DO struggle with (non-conforming gender identity, non-conforming sexual orientation, non-confirming to their native culture/ethnicity, alienated by other human beings, etc.) and so for me it’s a nice reminder of how unwilling you “normal” people really are about accepting autistic people as human beings who are not like you yet still equally human, as opposed to the made-to-conform-to-your-tropes non-beings that we are so often expected to be. Again, there are autists on these fora. There are neurotypicals pulling this transethnic bullshit. And no, we don’t accept racist, transphobic, ableist assholes as non-assholes just because they happen to have a diagnosis handy. I know, I know, we and our “weird: experience are so much easier to dismiss as “defective” when you reduce us down to whatever you think is wrong with us. Seriously, again, who brought up autistic people in this thread? You. Who decided that only autists pull transethnic/transabled shenanigans? You. Who decided that us POC and transfolk wanting to keep our own goddamn identities are somehow oppressing autists? YOU. I hadn’t even considered autism in this thread. The thing is, we’re getting pretty tired of that. So expect more people–for realz–to be calling themselves autistic and X-sexual, X-gendered and trans-X in the near future. And unless you’ve seen the world through their synapses, best not to judge them, ‘K? And unless you’ve seen the world through a colonised person’s lens (I’ll bet you haven’t, you overprivileged shitstain), I’ll judge you from here to eternity and all the way home, thanks. Racism isn’t magically not-racism because an autistic person high-functioning enough to get on the goddamn internet and have a halfway coherent blog can’t be arsed to educate themselves about not being colonising, appropriating douchecanoes. That’s another thing we don’t conform will to, BTW: your bigotries, especially the ones you refuse to see but we cannot ignore, because they limit our ability to participate in society. No wonder you “normal” people alienate us autistics so much. Yes, and racists and transphobes refuse to conform to the basic human standards of decency. No wonder they alienate us “other” folk so much.
Well, I learn something new every day: Body integrity identity disorder. The hypothesized biological basis works: while cooking up a post questioning whether a biological basis for transsthnicity is even possible[0], trying to roughly inform myself on research about brain structures in cis and trans people, I momentarily wondered what influence the sensory cortex could possibly have on some peoples’ insistence that they should be missing a particular body part, or should be blind. Serious biological studies might prove interesting. [0] I don’t think I can currently entertain the concept of “transethnicity” because the cultural aspects of ethnicity are socialized, not tied to specific brain structures. I don’t think brain structures exist that lead the mind to “expect” a particular skin shade or inherited set of body forms, though if they do it still wouldn’t explain the (falsely, in this case) claimed wish to adopt a different, specific culture. I’d be surprised if there were a genetic or structural basis for wishing to adopt another culture. That sounds like a desire developed over time from life experiences and either intense fascination with another, or strong dissatisfaction with one’s current, set of practices. Of course, like anything else, I could be wrong.
but that does seem to contradict the commonly-expressed tenet that all identities are valid and that it’s oppressive to tell anyone that they are not what they identify as being. I actually agree with this tenet, and it’s something I’ve thought about a lot. The way I see it. . .each of has only one life, and we have the right to do whatever we think will lead to happiness in that life so long as we are not interacting with others on a non-consensual basis. So I personally support absolute individual self-determination and wouldn’t try to stop anyone from doing something if they were merely acting upon themselves. . .whether that’s driving without a seat belt, shooting heroin, committing suicide, or identifying as “transethnic.” I’m only half qualified to talk about this. I’m transgender, but I’m white. . .so I’m only half of what is being made fun of by these trolls here. These people are obviously insincere and are also racist and transphobic assholes. But supposing there is anyone out there who deeply, genuinely thinks of themselves as “transethnic”. . .well, I think that’s OK. It would be such a unusual and rare thing to think that I wouldn’t see it as a serious instance of cultural appropriation. . .more like the manifestation of some kind of individual mental illness in the person identifying as “transethnic.” And I don’t think that a person should be mocked or marginalized for having unusual ideation as part of a mental illness. There are enough large-scale, systemic, and entirely “normal” instances of white people by the millions appropriating the cultures of POC, I think, to concern ourselves with. Then again, I’m white. . .so I possibly should just shut up and listen. One last point. If anything is something that would widely be considered ridiculous by 95% of the population. . .well then, I’m skeptical it’s actually a problem. I’ve just been burned by “normal” people and “normal” society too many times. So I’ve given up identifying with the center in favor of identifying with the margins. But maybe I’m missing something here. How would a tiny handful of people genuinely and deeply identifying as “transethnic,” concretely cause harm to trans people or people of color, especially when contrasted with the habitual stereotyping and dehumanization that “normal” people subject us to?
@20 I don’t think anyone was attacking biologically-derived neural configurations, merely ones (likely) acquired through socialization and experience and claimed to be biologically driven. I completely understand wishing to adopt new identities and practices over the course of a life, whatever those may be, but that is separate from having a divergent body map, as my previous post went into in ludicrous detail. I don’t think you’re born with a set of nascent neural structures that make you want to be explicitly of Korean descet, or speak and write Hebrew instead of English or Telugu. As you and I, both somewhere on the spectrum, are well aware, all the acculturation and education in the world won’t change our default behavourial tendencies, individual cognitive differences, and social awkardness-to-apathy (though we can, if desired, consciously work to counteract and adapt around those basic tendencies). That seems to have a biological basis, though the eggheads are still tracking down what. exactly, leads to being ASD-type neuroatypical. Hell, I just got used to being thought of as weird by everyone else, since no one even whispered the word “autism” when I grew up, or just associated it with that Dustin Hoffman movie and didn’t realize the odd kid with a strange inability to read social cues, difficulty interacting with peers, and far too much interest in astronomy for his age might have been (forgive me for the weak Lady Gaga reference) born that way. I’ve even grown to like being different in that way; it’s *useful* sometimes, and kinda fun others. I can’t say that about the complex eye problems. If it’s not genetically, epigenetically, or otherwise biologically “programmed in” during gestation, then we’re into the realm of acquired tendencies developed during the socialization, learning, and conditioning processes, and that invokes questions about what thought processes are taking place, not whether sections of the brain are formed or composed differently at a basic level.
This is pushing all the same buttons with me as with the issue of race fetishism. A little background info on myself: All of my life, I have been told by peers (Black *and* White), by family, and by people who barely even know me, that I’m not really “Black” or that I’m not “Black enough”. So when I see someone claiming to be trans ethnic, I have to call bullshit on what they believe it means to really be “x”. Transethnicity is nothing but appropriation, exotification, and complete, utter bullshit.
@Becca, I’m really going to have to disagree, because I think that there’s a distinction between someone who genuinely believes they’re another ethnicity and someone who just “identifies SO MUCH and loves it SO MUCH and is just beyond all these little trivialities of identity and oppression”. I’d treat someone who genuinely thought they were transethnic as I’d treat someone who genuinely thought they were Napoleon the First: as someone in need of real and compassionate medical/therapeutic attention. If they’re going to insist that they’re absolutely FINE and WE are the ones oppressing THEM, then yeah. I have less than no sympathy for these fucking appropriating shitwads. How would a tiny handful of people genuinely and deeply identifying as “transethnic,” concretely cause harm to trans people or people of color, especially when contrasted with the habitual stereotyping and dehumanization that “normal” people subject us to? Well, really, you could ask that about any microaggression, couldn’t you? What harm does it REALLY do when people have “positive” stereotypes about trans people and say things like “I think being trans makes you so beautiful, you’re so tragic and misunderstood”? What harm does it REALLY do when someone says “Oh, I cosplay anime characters of the other gender, so I totally get transfolk’s oppression!”? It doesn’t do concrete harm to any actual trans people when people say things like that; people who say things like that are extremely unlikely to actually persecute trans people in any conscious way, and probably even consider themselves allies. Probably are allies in other ways. But it still stings, I’d imagine (and the reactions of transfolk on this forum, including you, to similar bullshit bear me out here). No, in the grand scheme of things, these dipshits aren’t out there lynching anyone, and I probably wouldn’t do more than irritably dismiss anyone IRL I met who pulled this crap, but seriously, Becca, is there, like, a level of appropriation that appropriation has to attain in order for us POCs to be allowed to think it’s unacceptable? I really like your posts most of the time, but I think your perspective isn’t coming from years of watching others tromp all over your culture with grubby boots and think they’re all that because they explored the exotic. Mine is. (Of course, I admit that this is also a huge hot button for me, both from the perspective of white folk appropriating Indian culture, and my lifelong hatred of Indians appropriating other cultures (and practicing internal colonisation) in similarly icky ways, so maybe I’m getting too pissed off, too.)
And a final note from a Hindu Indian perspective, because I think it’s nuanced in a way that many others probably aren’t: there is literally no bar to someone identifying as Hindu if they choose to. If someone calls themselves a Hindu, they pretty much are, afa most Hindus are concerned (the patriarchal professional kiss-asses running the temples are a different, and frankly racist, matter). So, someone calling themselves a Hindu, I wouldn’t give a shit. But seriously, what’s the point of someone saying they’re “transethnic Indian”? Are you using “transethnic Indian” as code for Hindu? Congratulations on disappearing 180 million Muslims and roughly 50 million Christians; you are a stereotyping assface with unacknowledged Islamophobia issues. Are you using “transethnic Indian” as code for “what I think mystic Hinduism is”? Congratulations, you are a Hindu, that doesn’t make you a fucking Indian, unless all the Hindus in about, oh, every other country in the world aren’t Hindu anymore. So, what’s left? Oh, yeah. Using “transethnic Indian” as code for “I totally think that I’m all these stupid stereotypes generalised from possibly the most culturally diverse and internally fractious nation in the world; I’m disappearing, ignoring and fetishising large chunks of its population; and I’m basically giving myself a fancy name to describe my adopting some weird hippie hybrid Hare Krishna crap with a side of woo-woo”. And they can have THAT label, if they’re honest enough to take it.
First of all, they are confusing attributes and identity, which are two different things. A big thing in the Tumbler sj hellhole is that identity is seen as the same as your set of attributes and wanting your attributes to be different is treason to yourself. It gets to the point that suggesting that there is anything intrinsically inconvenient about disabilites is treated as oppressive. And this idea that attributes part of an identity are true because of the identity, rather than because the identity is right. IMO saying trans people’s identity is wrong is bad not because TEH IDENTITIEEZ IZ AWLWZY RITE but because 1. it goes with other oppression and 2. because trans identities are actually not wrong, but totally correct, complete with scientific evidence to suggest. Gender seems to be a semi-deep-seated psychological attribute that determines what societal set of performed actions people want to perform and be respected for performing. At least some of the time. Most of teh time? Wow. We need better neuropsychology and we need it now. On the other hand, race is not. Race pretty much seems to be a simple ingroup-outgroup thing, with multiple different groups. You could acculturate to a different ingroup, if they would let you. With the groups being determined by ethnicity, out of old history, and physically visible/inheritable race characteristics providing an inaccurate way of telling who is from what broad group of ethnicities. People do not perform race at all. They do perform culture, but it’s pretty different in character from gender. It’s actually 100% performed, and potentially much more re-learnable than gender is. Wanting genuinely to acculturate is fine IMO, although it could be problematic. Some cultures are more receptive than others, a few blatantly xenophobic. I do wish that people would not jump instantly on the cultural appropriation bandwagon. And if these people were right, it would not be appropriative. First, it’s not really relevant to the specific question of whether or not this is bullshit (although it is to other things, such as whether it is problematic). Second, it seems to be part of a growing attitude that it is wrong to compare things to other things. And what if this were NOT bullshit? A lot of people have heard about trans people. So it seems like one could compare similar things to transgenderness, to explain them. Of course in reality these morons are not remotely similar. I do think it is barely possible for somebody to have dysphoria w/r/t their body’s racial characteristics but that’s really only in the sense of human brains being so weird that it is plausible that for any imaginable subjective experience, somebody has had it. The big question is how you decide whether to allow incorporation or consider it appropriation. Not for me to decide, but I will allow myself to criticize trans people for seeming to not actually make that decision. Womanist Musings seems to imply that other trans-like phenomena cannot be incorporated into or compared to transness unless they result in similar levels of disprivilege and suffering. I do think she misses one point: Transsexual people do have their support systems and some people do care about them and recognize the validity of their gender/sex/sexuality. But if one of these trans-like phenomena turns out to be real, there will be literally NOBODY outside the internet who respects it or even thinks it possible. And that has got to suck. It might even be able to give violence risk a run for its money, who knows. Not sure what to say here. I feel like if any of these phenomena/identities turns out to be real, it’s going to be a dillema between appropriation and oppression olympics.
To me, none of this is very different from the Gentiles who like to say that they have Jewish souls and instinctively love “Jewish culture” (as if there’s only one kind), all because maybe they had a Jewish ancestor who converted 250 years ago, or maybe not, and don’t know the first thing about anything. It’s appropriative, and I do find it harmful. And it sure as hell does trivialize what it means to be trans, on top of everything else. If someone actually wants to educate themselves and become Jewish, sure. And I admit there’s something quite heartwarming and romantic to me about people who discover that they’re descended from the conversos of 500 years ago, and whose families still follow a trace of Jewish practices, even after all those centuries, and decide to “return.” But when it’s based on some sort of purely imaginary, psychic connection, not so much.
I will allow myself to criticize trans people for seeming to not actually make that decision. Could you please clarify this sentence? I don’t understand it. But if one of these trans-like phenomena turns out to be real, there will be literally NOBODY outside the internet who respects it or even thinks it possible. And that has got to suck. It might even be able to give violence risk a run for its money, who knows. No.
There is a (lovely, I’ve always thought) mishna that converts have Jewish souls that somehow got slotted into the wrong bodies and are just finding their way home. IIRC, it is less actually poetic than a way the rabbis used to justify having converts *at all.* But there’s no need to attempt to graft any sort of trans-ness onto that, for pete’s sake. Ugh.
But when it’s based on some sort of purely imaginary, psychic connection, not so much. Yes, when was any religious belief based on that?
The link above isn’t working for me, but I have read about this somewhere else, so hopefully this isn’t too off topic. I remember watching a video of a black lesbian who was performing spoken word. She was questioning transgenderism by using race in place of gender, and questioned what she should do if her daughter came home and told her she wanted to be white. It made me think of The Bluest Eye, because black girls do learn at an early age that they are different, and unfortunately many of them realize that to the world, they aren’t ‘as good’ as white girls. On the other hand, as Angel pointed out above, there is the policing by other people to be ‘black enough.’ Like Angel, I was always told I wasn’t black enough, talked white, must have a white parent, etc. It’s odd, but some people have the pressure to conform and the pressure to not conform, at the same time, from the same people. That said, would I have any repsect or engage with someone outside of my race who ‘believed’ or ‘felt’ they were? Absolutely not.
My question for otherkins (OK, I’m going for the low-hanging fruit) is what other species has individuals who are capable of conceving of being a member of a different species?
im, I addressed pretty much all the points you made in your post in my comments at #43 and #44, but let me have another go at this: With the groups being determined by ethnicity, out of old history, and physically visible/inheritable race characteristics providing an inaccurate way of telling who is from what broad group of ethnicities. People do not perform race at all. They do perform culture Uh-huh. Now, let’s take “I feel trans-Indian” as an example. Usually, it means “I feel really Hindu-stereotype”, because there are Indians who have been Muslims for, oh, I don’t know, several hundred years at least, and their ancestors were also Muslim before they came in via Afghanistan. So, again, bullshit: they’re not talking about performing culture, they’re talking about performing racial (racIST) stereotypes. Wanting genuinely to acculturate is fine IMO, although it could be problematic. Some cultures are more receptive than others, a few blatantly xenophobic. Wanting to genuinely acculturate? Awesome! Be a Hindu or convert to Buddhism or Islam or whatever, learn Indian languages, wtfever you want. It doesn’t make you “transethnic”, it makes you a successful immigrant. There is no single “Indian” ethnicity any more than there’s one single “African” ethnicity (unless Charlize Theron has some wicked awesome whiteface on the go). I do wish that people would not jump instantly on the cultural appropriation bandwagon. And if these people were right, it would not be appropriative. You’re white, aren’t you? My spidey senses are tingling. If someone was “genuinely transethnic”, they’d be peeling like Eustace in The Dawn Treader. Transsexual people do have their support systems and some people do care about them and recognize the validity of their gender/sex/sexuality. But if one of these trans-like phenomena turns out to be real, there will be literally NOBODY outside the internet who respects it or even thinks it possible. So…because an actual thing like being trans is supported by someone IRL, we need to be really nice to these racist sheeplickers. Well, their ability to pursue their personal delusions ends where my having to put up wtih their racism begins. It might even be able to give violence risk a run for its money, who knows. Oh, yeah. Some uppity POCs disagreed with them on the internet! It’s exactly like being brutally raped and murdered! Cry me a fucking river.
I wasn’t saying it necessarily was. But I have been convinced that absolute denial of a closely held identity and attribute by absolutely everyone is extremely bad and while it’s easy to know how bad the things you must put up with are, it’s hard to know how bad the things others must put up with are.
Well, yeah, im, that’s true. What I’m not buying is that these identities are closely held at all. I could set up a blog tomorrow claiming I’m a kudzu; it wouldn’t make me one. Also: not absolutely everyone is denying this bullshit. I have no doubt that people in the general sense would be a lot more accepting of this crap than the social justice world, simply because it reinforces bullshit “colourblind” and “everyone has a right to adopt any identity they decide, no matter how hurtful” ideas that have really harmed marginalised people.
Actually worse than otherkin are ‘fictionkin’ who identify as a specific fictional person. That’s right. An individual ‘identifies as’ another individual. Often associated with ‘the fiction is true in a parallel universe and the author percieved it and wrote about it’ woo. Also, singlets refer to multiple systems, (i.e. a sinlget is not multiple), the tumbler SJ name for human bodies with supposedly multiple people (each with own body image, personality, consciousness, and subjective experience, fully human like you and me, etc) living in a single human brain. Sometimes they appropriate multiple personality disorder which is actually not much like that at all apparently. While I cannot claim to be sure of it’s impossibility, I very much doubt that the human brain has the capacity or the capability to support several unimpaired human minds at the same time.
I find transethnicity (outside its established academic usage in describing very specific experiences like adoption) so appallingly racist that I really can’t bring myself to respond with anything but snark, because this is pretty much the kind of thing that makes me want to hold Oppression Olympics just so I have an even more solid basis on which to tell people “No”. “I AM OPPRESSED BECAUSE PEOPLE CALL ME RACIST ON THE INTERNET.”
this is pretty much the kind of thing that makes me want to hold Oppression Olympics It might be worth it to watch half the pole vault competitors hit a glass ceiling.
im, I responded to you, but it went into mod. D: “I AM OPPRESSED BECAUSE PEOPLE CALL ME RACIST ON THE INTERNET.” Lol – pretty much this, Li.
Mac. . .thanks for the gentle call-out. . .on reflection a lot of my previous post seems inaccurate and shitty. Reminds me that I haven’t nearly finished examining my white, Euro-USian privilege. I need to remember that the small, still voice in my head whispering. . .”what you’re typing could be slightly racist” is a good thing to listen to rather than ignore. As I said on another thread, my view on the concept of “appropriation” is heavily influenced by my hatred for the bogus claims of the trans-critical radfems who say trans women “appropriate” female bodies and lesbian identity. But appropriation has been a huge failing of white people and colonialists, and it’s caused a lot of damage. I should educate myself more on that dynamic because I really don’t know much about it. Your posts and the posts of others on this thread provide a helpful and illuminating start for me, and I appreciate it. And good point about the microaggressions. . .your analogy to those cissexist microaggressions really helped me see things a lot more clearly. In terms of damaging my self-esteem and happiness. . .I’d say the overall impact of microaggressions like that is huge. . .they are so constant and so subtle that they can totally drag me down and I’m not even aware it’s happening. I imagine the prevalence of racist microaggressons like this “transethnic” crap has a similar impact on people of color. And, in a darkly ironic twist, parts of my own post–that there’s more important things than transethnicity “to concern ourselves with” and that all this is not “a serious instance of cultural appropriation”–I think qualify as racist microaggressions. What the fuck would I know about what people of color should concern themselves with? So I apologize for saying these things.
Okay, my reflex is to say this is weird and offensive. And yet, I am currently in a conversation on a different blog about transgender issues, and I (as a cis woman) asked, “what is gender, to the trans community, IF we acknowledge gender essentialism to be harmful?” (as in, if there is no such thing as gender essentialism, what is the experience like of being compelled to identify as a different gender?) And a similar issue here – even though it is my liberal reflex to say this article is NOT OKAY, I’m not sure why. We defend the other myriad ways a person can take control of their identity…
And a similar issue here – even though it is my liberal reflex to say this article is NOT OKAY, I’m not sure why. We defend the other myriad ways a person can take control of their identity… As the_leanover already stated: As I see it, the reason it’s oppressive to delegitimize trans* identity is not because all identities are precious; it’s because the delegitimization of gender identity has been an actual, demonstrably harmful and violent aspect of trans* people’s historical and ongoing oppression. Calling trans women ‘men’ doesn’t happen in a vacuum of imaginary ‘identities’, it happens in a world where trans women exist and are attacked and murdered and marginalized because they are regarded as men. This notion that it’s all about respecting someone’s internal experience is missing that it’s also about the tangible social realities in which language and identity play a part. Furthermore, transethnicity is all about white privilege. At the end of the day, people claiming transethnicity are still white people living in a white supremacist society. Speshul fucking snowflakes who feel they don’t have an identity of their own, so latch onto something k3wl!1! Fuck ’em.
ok, so, just a logistical point here– if you’re a “trans-Asian cat otherkin”….how are you both a cat and an Asian person? Are you a cat of Thai extraction or something?
@Becca, Don’t worry about it! Your post wasn’t racIST as much as… unaware of context, I thought, and I was just trying to provide some. And yeah, while appropriation as a term has been warped to justify some shittty, shitty behaviour towards transfolk, its original use, afaik, was to discuss colonialism, which is where I still think it finds its main home. (And honestly, who’s done unpacking their place-of-origin’s particular brand of privilege? I’m sure as fuck not.) @Angel, At the end of the day, people claiming transethnicity are still white people living in a white supremacist society. Speshul fucking snowflakes who feel they don’t have an identity of their own, so latch onto something k3wl!1! Fuck ‘em. QFT and love you for it!
if you’re a “trans-Asian cat otherkin”….how are you both a cat and an Asian person? Are you a cat of Thai extraction or something? They’re just a really, really, uh, Asian cat, which means, uh being Asian. You know. I mean, you know how those Asians are, right? They’re a cat, but like that.
I spent a full 48 hours researching mentions of transethnicity, on Tumblr and elsewhere. There is NOT ONE person who claims to be transethnic and doesn’t later admit they’re trolling. If I’m wrong and you found someone who really seems to believe they’re transethnic, by all means say so. Otherwise, please shut the fuck up about it and talk about things that aren’t pure troll chow.
A theory of ethnicity that is genetic is, in my view, fatally flawed. It has always made much more sense to me to say that ethnicity is passed (1) as an identity (2) to a child (3) in an intergenerational relationship. But there’s probably literature on this that I’m unaware of.
Leo, does “please shut the fuck up about it” seem like a reasonable response to a blog post that is talking about something you posit doesn’t even exist? Also, let me know when this became your blog and I will gladly apologize for this comment.
I spent a full 48 hours researching mentions of transethnicity, on Tumblr and elsewhere. There is NOT ONE person who claims to be transethnic and doesn’t later admit they’re trolling. If I’m wrong and you found someone who really seems to believe they’re transethnic, by all means say so. Otherwise, please shut the fuck up about it and talk about things that aren’t pure troll chow Better idea: Don’t come into someone’s space and tell them to “shut the fuck up.” Because that will get you banned from commenting.
I think those seriously supporting the existence of this thing hypothetically are discussing culture, not this made up troll transethnicity thing. Culture can be adopted, as can religion/nationality/tribal affiliation by invitation. Ethnicity is determined by birth to parents who are members of that ethnic group. So you can be multiethnic, the majority of people are actually, it’s hard to find a 100% member of X ethnicity outside of remote areas that have not seen immigration since X ethnic group arose. Most people who claim 100% X are 90 something% X actually. Culturally they may be 100% but ethnically they are part this and that. Many people confuse cultural identity with ethnic identity. So if you wholeheartedly identify with another culture, sure you can join it. People join the “American culture” whatever that is, all the time. If you immigrate to Italy you or your descendants will eventually become partially “Italian” culturally while retaining certain of your own cultural group’s characteristics to one extent of another, (or maybe none), and even perhaps donating some of them to the new culture. (because culture is fluid to, in 1820s USA there were very few European people whose primary music genre was African American, who favorite fast food was Italian, and whose favorite sport was descended from an English game, but even if adopted none of these would make an immigrant from Antarctica or anywhere else African American, Italian or English or part of each)
Moreover, it doesn’t matter in the least if people claiming to be transethnic are trolling or not. They are still racist f**kheads, plus bonus points for appropriating the concept of transgender identities for the purpose of mockery. Double barf.
Because there are a lot of people whose identities don’t conform to existing (oppressive!) language conventions and we end up trying to define ourselves through long, ridiculous-sounding lists sometimes (and, hey, isn’t it fun when people mock us for it). I don’t particularly like it, but you work with what you’ve got. It’s better than being erased by the default. That said, there are justifiable reasons for face-palming the latter three. But let’s not pretend that the former three warrant that as well. Yeah, sorry about that, my bad. I was originally going to make a snarky comment about her appropriating the internet because cats don’t have thumbs, decided that didn’t make any sense, and changed it without editing my quote. Also it turns out that pangender doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.
Yes, when was any religious belief based on that? I wasn’t talking about religious belief, really. I was talking about imaginary, psychic connections to Jewish ethnicity.
[Could you post this revised version of my comment with the ableist slur taken out instead?] The people in the link are trolls or misguided. Transethnicity is a theoretical possibility. If there actually were people who experienced crushing distress if they weren’t socially constructed as an ethnicity other than the one they are usually (or supposed to be according to existing criteria) constructed as, good people would revise their definitions to include correspondence with psychologically necessary identity. If such hypothetical folks presented and were thus socially constructed as their desired ethnicity, it would be difficult to coherently exclude them without forgetting that ethnicity is a social construct.
I remember watching a video of a black lesbian who was performing spoken word. She was questioning transgenderism by using race in place of gender, Calling it “transgenderism” — as if it were a religious or political belief like Lutheranism or Marxism — and using rhetoric like “questioning transgenderism,” load the dice from the outset, and suggest that the “answer” was pre-determined long before the question was asked. Not to mention that the comparison doesn’t make sense in the first place.
Wally you cannot change your ethnicity and hypothetically if you are feeling you are ethnically X what you are feeling is cultural affiliation, not transethnicity. Until someone invents a genetic transplant, you are what your biological ancestors were (you look like them within a range). This is why biologists talk about things like subpopulations and demes (a group of individuals more genetically similar to each other than to other individuals, usually with some degree of spatial isolation as well). This would be a much simpler discussion if we were talking about animals as it takes culture out of the equation. Read the first table in the fundamentals section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_ecology You can change/adopt a cultural identity or parts thereof people do it all the time. This is why the transethnic thing is a nasty swipe at transgendered people, some of whom have changed their physical gender or done other things to live as their actual gender because gender is more than some collection of X and/or Y chromosomes. What you are talking about is if someone was born into culture X and identified so closely with culture Y that they wished they were instead part of culture Y. They can move to culture Y (and would probably face acceptance issues). Talking about it in terms of culture is more appropriate as it takes the biological element out of the commonly held mis-definition of ethnicity which blends genetics and culture (and sometimes throws in religion – e.g. all Italians are Catholics) into a loosely defined mishmash of crap.
Transsexual people do have their support systems and some people do care about them and recognize the validity of their gender/sex/sexuality. But if one of these trans-like phenomena turns out to be real, there will be literally NOBODY outside the internet who respects it or even thinks it possible. Well, at least they have the Internet, right? What do you think I and every other actual trans person older than about 35 had growing up? Nothing. From the time I was 3, I thought I was the only person like me in the world, except when I was a little older and saw a handful of famous trans women on TV, like Christine Jorgensen and Jan Morris, who didn’t even seem very real to me, and then Renee Richards later on, who seemed most notable for the vicious abuse and ridicule she inspired. Support system? The very first time I actually met another trans woman in person in my entire life, I was more than 40 years old. And I am still, to the best of my knowledge, one of only two trans women who has ever transitioned while working in a New York City law firm. Out of what, 50,000 or 60,000 lawyers at any given time? And I didn’t even know about the other one until much later. Lots of support there. Never mind everything everyone else said. So, yeah, we trans people have such an easy life compared to white people who are “trans-Korean” or “trans-feline” or both. I’d love to know just what world you live in.
Ok, we all realize this transethnicity thing is pure trollery by now, but I’ll assume, for the purposes of this comment, that this is a real thing practiced by at least one person in the world. (And hey, it’s a big world out there. Take any off-the-wall idea you can think of – if you can dream it, someone out there has probably done it.) The comparison between ‘transethinicty’ and transgender identity completely falls apart because ethnicity has no innate biological component. It’s purely cultural. It is actually impossible to be socialized as, say, a Dutch person if you have had no relatives or friends-close-enough-to-be-considered-relatives who have raised you in the Dutch tradition, or if you’ve never lived in Holland. What this means is that, in order to be ‘trans-Dutch’, you need to have made a conscious decision to abandon your old ethnicity and to attempt to adopt this new Dutch one. In other words, it’s a choice. The fact that something is a choice does not immediately render it invalid as an identity, but it means that the motivations behind the choice can now be probed and understood in a way that would be completely nonsensical for transgender people. My questions would be thus… 1. What is it about your old ethnicity that is so unappealing? (I anticipate a deluge of stereotypes, and a certain hipster snobbery toward anything considered common and therefore boring.) 2. What is it about this new ethnicity that IS so appealing? (I anticipate a deluge of stereotypes, and a certain hipster snobbery toward anything considered common and therefore boring.) I’m definitely showing my bias, but I have my doubts that there are any answers to these questions that are not incredibly racist and offensive.
So, yeah, we trans people have such an easy life compared to white people who are “trans-Korean” or “trans-feline” or both. I’d love to know just what world you live in. I know, right? And, of course, being disbelieved on the internet is worse than “actual violence risk”, or something. Fuck’s sake. I know my odds of discrimination and they ain’t good, but I’m still statistically much less likely to be discriminated against than you, Donna, and I’m really aware of it. Trans-feline my portly brown ass.
Better idea: Don’t come into someone’s space and tell them to “shut the fuck up.” Because that will get you banned from commenting. Damnit, Jill, why are you such an asshat? Can you literally not go a single day without oppressing the poor, alienated, tyranized trans-socially-acceptable community?! Its not Leo’s fault that he was born in an asshole’s body! GOD, you’re just like [insert overblown and offensive war criminal of your choice here]!!
My questions would be thus… 1. What is it about your old ethnicity that is so unappealing? (I anticipate a deluge of stereotypes, and a certain hipster snobbery toward anything considered common and therefore boring.) 2. What is it about this new ethnicity that IS so appealing? (I anticipate a deluge of stereotypes, and a certain hipster snobbery toward anything considered common and therefore boring.) I’m definitely showing my bias, but I have my doubts that there are any answers to these questions that are not incredibly racist and offensive. I’m not sure if these questions are relevant to this issue, if it were true, which as you say, it probably isn’t. I can totally relate to the idea of wanting to be someone different, I spent much of my teenage years feeling that way. There are non-racist ways that traits of your ethnicity could lead you to wish you were another. For example, if I hated my red hair and freckles, I might fantasize about being Chinese or another ethnicity where red hair is less common than mine. Having said that, labeling these harmless fantasies ‘trans-ethnicity’ devalues trans-gender people, and therefore is the opposite of harmless.
Well there was that one time in Germany during the 1930s when a small group of people deluded themselves to thinking that they were the savior of blond haired and blue eyed Aryan and managed to kill about 10 million people who didn’t fit their image even though they didn’t quite look like what they idolized either. I suppose if you were looking for an example of so called “transethincity” gone horribly wrong than that would be a good one not that the idea is a great in the first place.
Well there was that one time in Germany during the 1930s when a small group of people deluded themselves to thinking that they were the savior of blond haired and blue eyed Aryan and managed to kill about 10 million people who didn’t fit their image even though they didn’t quite look like what they idolized either. I suppose if you were looking for an example of so called “transethincity” gone horribly wrong than that would be a good one not that the idea is a great in the first place. For the (God)win!
There are non-racist ways that traits of your ethnicity could lead you to wish you were another. For example, if I hated my red hair and freckles, I might fantasize about being Chinese or another ethnicity where red hair is less common than mine. Well, there’s the kicker. What is there to hate about red hair or freckles? Is there an explanation for hating ginger-ness that isn’t bigoted? 😛
Well, there’s the kicker. What is there to hate about red hair or freckles? Is there an explanation for hating ginger-ness that isn’t bigoted? 😛 I know your joking but I specifically I said ‘my’ red hair meaning I would just be feeling negatively about myself, feeling like I’m in a society which doesn’t respect me and wanting to be a different person form a different. I assumed everyone had these feelings at one point in their life. Maybe I am just extremely strange. That is a very distinct possibility.
For example, if I hated my red hair and freckles, I might fantasize about being Chinese or another ethnicity where red hair is less common than mine. I know you were just using this an example, but POC with freckles and naturally red hair are way more common than you might think. I have so many Black cousins with freckles and/or red hair. Plus, there’s this new guy at work who’s Black with red hair and freckles. I even asked him about his family because I could’ve sworn we were related. 🙂
So, yeah, we trans people have such an easy life compared to white people who are “trans-Korean” or “trans-feline” or both. I’d love to know just what world you live in. I. Did. Not. Claim. That. THe. Levels. Of. Opression. Are. The. Same. I did claim that having utterly nobody or nearly nobody believe you can be pretty serious. Which if these people really are that attached to their strange identities (I think that some but not all otherkin are probably more likely honest than the transethnics) means you are kind of proving my points, which you kind of strawmanned. Having the internet is of course a huge improvement. I obviously don’t think your life is easier. It probably is much, much harder. I am educated in trans issues, you know. My point is more along the lines of not being _too_ quick to dismiss the possibility that they are telling the truth at least about some things occasionally, and that complete denial of existence (Completely ignorant but not actively hateful people can probably accept the massively oversimplified ‘Gender A stuck in Gender B’s body’ narrative easier than any otherkin type thing) is pretty serious business. I doubt that more than a small percentage of otherkin even possibly really feel what is commonly talked about. It’s apparently a fairly old community that started in a less weird manner and without the whole social justice thing (the originals were mostly id-ing as elves, fey creatures, or werewolves) and I suspect that most of what we are seeing is multiple layers of appropriation of the original otherkin. Appropriations of appropriations, all from the Special Snowflakes and the People Who Can’t Feel Good With The Culture They Have. Transethnics still make no goddamn sense.
Cade DeBois: I’m autistic and I don’t particularly agree with you, so maybe don’t go throwing around “we autistics” as if though we all had a big meeting and elected you to be our spokes person.
I. Did. Not. Claim. That. THe. Levels. Of. Opression. Are. The. Same. Perhaps not, but you certainly suggested that they were comparable, with your “run for its money” comment effectively equating having nobody believe you’re genuinely trans-ethnic or “otherkin” with the risk of violence of being trans. people can probably accept the massively oversimplified ‘Gender A stuck in Gender B’s body’ narrative easier than any otherkin type That’s hardly surprising, given that most people seem to understand, despite the Mars vs. Venus stereotypes, that male and female humans are a little closer to each other, perhaps, than humans and cats, or humans and fictional creatures. Except, of course, for the people who mock trans people by saying things like “I used to want to be a cat, but that didn’t make it true, LOLOL.” When they find a hormonal medication people can take that makes them grow cat whiskers and ears and a nice furry tail and be able to jump several times their own height, and enjoy killing and eating birds and mice, perhaps then otherkins will gain belief in the reality of their identities. Until such time, it’s unlikely, and I don’t remotely appreciate being lumped together with otherkins in even the same universe. Or being discussed in the same conversation. Even just having that kind of discussion is tangibly harmful to trans people. Perhaps you’re not as educated on trans issues as you think you are?
I think this is part of what bugged me about Avatar. That fucking protagonist was being “transethnic”! NO. And sure, if someone was really firmly certain that they were actually whathaveyou ethnicity, then I wouldn’t be any meaner to them than to anyone else with a severe delusion, but it wouldn’t make it true either.
Also, one time an Asian woman offered me some Korean snack food, which I thought was delicious, and she joked that I was an “egg.” But that didn’t mean I suddenly decided I was transAsian! I just like Asian food. White people of the world, you can like sushi and anime and karate and still not be Japanese!
For example, if I hated my red hair and freckles, I might fantasize about being Chinese or another ethnicity where red hair is less common than mine. I know you were just using this an example, but POC with freckles and naturally red hair are way more common than you might think. I have so many Black cousins with freckles and/or red hair. Plus, there’s this new guy at work who’s Black with red hair and freckles. I even asked him about his family because I could’ve sworn we were related. 🙂 I did say ‘Chinese’, not ‘Black’, which isn’t the same thing, at all really. But rest assured I am familiar with my related-by-hair compatriots Morgan Freeman, Redd Foxx, Malcolm X, and the other significantly less famous of members of the Red-Headed League in the African-American community.
Also, one time an Asian woman offered me some Korean snack food, which I thought was delicious, and she joked that I was an “egg.” But that didn’t mean I suddenly decided I was transAsian! I just like Asian food. White people of the world, you can like sushi and anime and karate and still not be Japanese! True, but white people can be Japanese, just not ethnically Japanese. I am the first to say the term ‘transethnic’ sucks bigtime for a variety of reasons, but what you’re saying is depressingly similar to arguments that people who don’t have an indigenous British background can’t be British, etc, etc…
I’ve heard people say things to the effect that non-Anglo Saxon-Norman types can be British, but not English.
I did say ‘Chinese’, not ‘Black’, which isn’t the same thing, at all really. Yeah, I think I know that. But rest assured I am familiar with my related-by-hair compatriots Morgan Freeman, Redd Foxx, Malcolm X, and the other significantly less famous of members of the Red-Headed League in the African-American community. Okay, sure. Just thought funny anecdote was funny, hence the smiley.
I’ve heard people say things to the effect that non-Anglo Saxon-Norman types can be British, but not English. IMO both positions are racist. If you are a citizen of England you are English AND British. If you are a citizen of Wales or Scotland you are British but not English.
I obviously don’t think your life is easier. It probably is much, much harder. I am educated in trans issues, you know. Yes, you’re the very model of a modern trans ally.
Why is this even being debated? The person in the original post admits to autism and believing that they are also a cat spirit. Either they are a troll, trollin’ or they are a person who’s mental processes work differently than the norm, especially where social norms are concerned. Either they are pushing internet debate hot-buttons on purpose for fun, or they really are socially limited enough to not understand why this would be controversial. I’m not saying all autistic people are socially limited in such a way that they couldn’t see why this would be socially unacceptable, but there are different strengths and varieties of autism and it is totally conceivable that this person just does not realize the social context of what they are saying. Come on guys, this person refers to all people as “beings” and thinks they are a cat spirit. If they are not a troll, i seriously doubt that they intended offense to transgendered people. This person is just not a normal functioning person. I’m not saying that people who don’t function normally can’t have good ideas worthy of debate (LOTS of people who were not normally functioning have had GREAT ideas). But in the case of THIS person and THIS debate, maybe it’s kind of an internet waste of time and we should get our collective panties/boxers/underoos/whatever in a twist about something else maybe.
i seriously doubt that they intended offense to transgendered people. Do I really need to repeat the cliche about why this isn’t determinative, even if it’s true? And it isn’t really that I’m personally offended by one person simply thinking he or she is a cat. (The trans-ethnic business is another thing entirely). It’s the fact that comparing that belief to transness, even in good faith, aligns so closely with one of the precise forms of comparison that deliberate ridicule of trans people takes, and reinforces that comparison in the minds of people who read what the person says. It’s not pleasant to be reminded of that, or to think that other people might think the comparison makes sense. So regardless of “offense,” it really can be harmful. And I’ll say once again that the harm to trans people in real life from that kind of thinking involves more than just ostracism and isolation, as important as those are.
I guess it wouldn’t be Feministe if some random people didn’t start showing up telling us, essentially, not to worry our pretty little heads about something.
I’ve heard people say things to the effect that non-Anglo Saxon-Norman types can be British, but not English. I don’t want to misinterpret you so just wanted to clarify – are you presenting this as a legitimate distinction or a further example of the British racism Fat Steve mentioned? Because, to be clear, the notion that ‘English’=Anglo-Saxon-Norman is deeply, unarguably racist. (Not that I’m accusing you of holding that view – it was just a little unclear from the post whether you were presenting it as legitimate or not!) Funnily enough, Scotland is probably much more racially homogenous than England, yet there seems to be much less of a tendency here to equate race and nationality. Certainly I’m not suggesting Scotland lacks its own white supremacist structures, but the proposition that (for example) Scottish Asian people can call themselves British but not Scottish would be regarded as fairly absurd by most Scots, as far as I’m aware. It’s not something I’ve ever come across, anyway.
True, but white people can be Japanese, just not ethnically Japanese. I meant ethnically, sorry that wasn’t clear.
Certainly I’m not suggesting Scotland lacks its own white supremacist structures, but the proposition that (for example) Scottish Asian people can call themselves British but not Scottish would be regarded as fairly absurd by most Scots, as far as I’m aware. I think even Skittles is onboard with this concept, honestly. ^^
I don’t want to misinterpret you so just wanted to clarify – are you presenting this as a legitimate distinction or a further example of the British racism Fat Steve mentioned? Because, to be clear, the notion that ‘English’=Anglo-Saxon-Norman is deeply, unarguably racist. (Not that I’m accusing you of holding that view – it was just a little unclear from the post whether you were presenting it as legitimate or not!) I was presenting this as a further example of British/English racism, which is why I put it as having heard people say that; I’m sorry that wasn’t clear. After all, I’ve heard English people say that Jews whose families have lived in England since Jews were allowed to return in the mid-1600’s aren’t actually English; they’re “Anglo-Jews” instead.
Cade DeBois: I’m autistic and I don’t particularly agree with you, so maybe don’t go throwing around “we autistics” as if though we all had a big meeting and elected you to be our spokes person. This, exactly. And… I’m not quite sure what autistic forums Cade DeBois is hanging out in, but the ones I frequent haven’t had any of these “trans-X” identities mentioned in them. LGBTQA, sure. But while I’m sure there are some auties out there who feel like they’ve found a culture they could fit with, most of the ones I’ve heard from (myself included) feel pretty alienated/socially-ill-equipped *everywhere*. Also, having hung out in autistic forums for quite some time, I gotta say: no, pretty sure we can be just as bigoted as everyone else. Neuroatypicality is unfortunately not the magic solution to racism, sexism, classism, et c.
I was presenting this as a further example of British/English racism, which is why I put it as having heard people say that; I’m sorry that wasn’t clear. After all, I’ve heard English people say that Jews whose families have lived in England since Jews were allowed to return in the mid-1600′s aren’t actually English; they’re “Anglo-Jews” instead. I wasn’t sure what you meant either but assumed YOU weren’t being racist, as you haven’t shown any racist tendencies the thousands of posts I’d read from you, so I wondered if you might have been talking about the bad old days of the British Empire, where someone born in India could rock up in England and reasonably claim to be British, should they choose, despite never having been on mainland GB.
the bad old days of the British Empire, where someone born in India could rock up in England and reasonably claim to be British, should they choose, despite never having been on mainland GB. Steve, I have no objection to your actual point, but the idea that this is a phenomenon of the “bad old days”, as opposed to yet another way Indian-born white Indian nationals assert white privilege in my country of origin, is frankly hilarious to me. (I know, I know, this is not basic knowledge, I don’t blame you for not knowing this, I just find it funny that there’s this perception that that’s All Done With.)
The 2nd comment in this thread made it very clear what Prince Koyangi is: a troll. PK (who is actually 3 people) wrote: “I find it so utterly absurd that a movement whose original purpose was to defend the rights of POC, trans* individuals, and other oppressed groups has been co-opted by people who believe they are dragons or that they have Homestuck characters living inside their head. It’s hilarious to me. It’s also incredibly offensive. I think what happened is that the SJ movement’s message of acceptance was somehow generalized to mean that if you don’t accept everything, you are a bigot —and the outcasts of the internet, the furries, the soulbonders, latched onto that, because they had finally found a place where no one could make fun of them. A “safe space”, if you will. But it’s completely stupid (tw: ableism) and it trivializes the struggles of people who actually suffer from oppression (people laughing at you on the internet is not oppression). It also enables unhealthy escapist attitudes and, in some cases, severe mental illness. One of our more fervent supporters is a diagnosed schizophrenic, who’s chalked up their schizophrenic delusions to their identity as a “multiple system”. Don’t tell them to get treatment, or you’re being oppressive! In short: the Tumblr SJ community has turned into a giant joke.” So basically, they decided to make this troll blog in order to make fun of people who either a) believe they have the “spirit” of some mythological creature or other in a human body, or b) were diagnosed with a “severe mental illness”. People in category a) are typically harmless people with a non-mainstream subculture who get viciously made fun of a lot, similar to hippies and goths. People in category b) have a long history of being killed in childhood for it, locked up for it, forcibly shocked for it, and forcibly drugged for it. The last three still happen quite frequently. PS I used to know a person in real life who identified as multiple. This person was a survivor of severe childhood abuse and I suppose may have been diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, but did not see their multiple-ness as a “disorder”, rather they saw it as something they could live with fine, that they had no intention of getting rid of just so some psychiatrist could proclaim them cured.
I view Otherkin as a religious movement. I think their claims are unfalsifiable and a bit strange, but no more unfalsifiable or strange than the views of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Wiccans, or whatever. There’s just less of them and their movement is newer and more decentralized, so it seems less legitimate to most people.
@macavitykitsune I just wanted to point out that in your description of Indian you constantly forget to include Indians of Chinese heritage. It’s something I’m trying to be better at myself, so it stood out to me.
@Shadow, Jeepers, did I? D: I somehow never “see” them as Chinese because they always ping north-eastern, and there’s subtle differences (yes, I know this is internalised bullshit!), and I’m sorry, and will work harder at that.
@macavitykitsune You’re better than me then. I consistently see them as Chinese-Indian rather than just Indian. I recently asked my friend if his dad was “Indian Indian” or “Chinese Indian” and it was only like a day later where it hit me and I’m looking at the mirror going “Damn you’re a dick!”
Lol… I think we’ve all had those moments! I confess Chak De India was a big wake-up call for me there. I still slip up, though, obviously *sheepish* So, you’re Indian too, then?
Steve, I have no objection to your actual point, but the idea that this is a phenomenon of the “bad old days”, as opposed to yet another way Indian-born white Indian nationals assert white privilege in my country of origin, is frankly hilarious to me. (I know, I know, this is not basic knowledge, I don’t blame you for not knowing this, I just find it funny that there’s this perception that that’s All Done With.) I wasn’t referring to Indian born white Indian nationals, I was talking about ethnically Indian people who were forced to fly the British flag at least having the right to call themselves British had they desired/chosen to do so (or not, as the case may be.)
…also though that’s not what I meant, you are correct that I wasn’t really aware of that way of asserting privilege.
Sri Lankan actually, but I left when I was 3 so not as connected to that part of my identity as I perhaps should be loll
WTF was expected when people kept saying “race/ethnicity is just a social concept” well if it’s “just” a social concept….
@Steve: Oh, I see. Sorry, I misread! Yeah, the white Brit Indians really, really piss me off that way. (There’s a lot of other white immigrants in India, but these ones really annoy me, maybe because they’re trading off oppressive privileges…) @shadow, eh, culture sticks. My parents were still “Northies” 15 years after moving south, even though they *were* ethnically Tamil…
A big thing in the Tumbler sj hellhole This is the best thing I’ve ever heard and the most apt description of Tumblr “social justice” culture I have ever seen. /derail