Why Would You Disapprove of Transracial Identity? No Seriously, Why?

It seems like the most common attitude towards transracial people is that they are racists or lunatics or something. I think most of the people who have this attitude have it on irrational grounds.

This post borrows in large part from Rebecca Tuvel’s 2017 paper “In Defense of Transracialism” (which was the center of a big controversy). If you have read the paper, you will probably recognize a lot of the arguments, and if you haven’t I definitely recommend it!

Now, this post will probably be a fair bit more polemical than usual. This is not because I don’t think someone couldn’t rationally be against transracial identity (TRI). Rather it is because many of the people who think that it is the most obvious thing in the world that we should be against TRI also think that it is the most obvious thing in the world that we should be for transgender identity (TGI) - even though there are very obvious tensions between these two positions. It seems to me that this is because these people just don’t stop to reflect on their moral position (at least on this issue). More on this at the end though.

I will not be tackling the question of whether anyone actually identifies as transracial here. We only have access to the inner states of someone through their reports of these states, and if someone says that they are transracial, we should have the presumption that it is correct, even if it is possible that they are lying - it is also possible that someone is lying about being transgender, but we should still have the presumption that they are not.

A General Principle

Let us first lay some groundwork. What do I mean by “for X”. Well, I think we can distinguish three levels of “for-ness”:

1. Not actively doing something to prevent X.

2. Not expressing disapproval or disgust at X.

3. Actively approving and encouraging X.

I’ll refer to these as “for1”, “for2”, and “for3” respectively. What I want to argue is that we ought to at least be for2 transracial identity. Here it is important to distinguish between the legal and moral question: I think the law should at least be for1 TRI, but plausibly not for2 (ie. preventing people from expressing disapproval of TRI). But I think it is immoral to not be for2 TRI (ie. it is immoral to express disapproval of TRI). And being for3 TRI is supererogatory. I will add that this is also roughly my view with respect to TGI.

So to start off, let me just introduce a general principle, which I think almost anyone would agree to:

• We should be for2 the choices of someone, unless there is a reason not to.

Basically we should not actively express disapproval or disgust at someone’s choices unless we have a reason to do so. So if your friend chooses to have a certain type of pizza, you should not express disgust or disapproval of their choice, unless there was some good reason (like that it contained factory farmed meat or pineapple). Similarly, if your friend wants to be called Thomas rather than Jeff for some reason, you shouldn’t purposefully keep calling them Jeff for no reason. The badness of disobeying this principle is of course proportional to how important the choices are to the person in question. The presumption for being for2 someone’s choice will also be stronger in proportion with how important the choice is. So it might for example be permissible to make a mean-spirited joke about someone’s choice of ice-cream, if it is funny enough. But it is probably not permissible to make a mean-spirited joke about someone’s choice of husband, even if it is very funny.

With this in mind, it is quite clear why we should be for2 TGI as well as TRI - there is not really a reason not to.

Objections to TRI

Yet, somehow, many of the people will express disapproval and disgust at TRI if asked, but will at the same time be for2 or even for3 TGI. I think that this is irrational, and I will try to show this by answering a couple of objections to TRI (this will hardly exhaust every possible objection). The answers will generally assume that my interlocutor is at least for2 TGI, so if you’re not that, then this will probably be unconvincing (also, why?).

People Cannot Actually Switch Race

The most obvious objection is that one cannot in reality switch race: Your race is something inherent to you, which (at least in part) depends on your ancestry - something you cannot change.

First off, it is worth it to note that “race” is a really poorly defined concept. The racial categories we have are very poor at tracking the underlying biology. There is generally more genetic variation withing races than between them, and the common racial categories generally have a hard time mapping onto any meaningful biological differences. Rather they seem to be based on superficial features - that is features which can be changed.

On the other hand, sex can be defined more or less successfully with reference to gametes: Females produce large gametes (eggs), and males produce small gametes (sperm). There are of course edge cases, but this distinction at least roughly matches onto our everyday categories of man and woman. It is not really important whether this is a good way to define sex or not, the only important point is that it is at least better than the distinction between races. The concept of race seems much more analogous to the concept of gender - a social construct which is perhaps associated with certain biological features, but which does not reduce to it, and can thus be changed independently.

So if someone can change gender by changing their presentation and self-identification, then it is very hard to see why this should not also be the case with respect to race.

But even if we accept that there is some meaningful distinction which makes it possible to change gender without it being possible to change race, it still seems that this objection is unacceptable. This is because it would make the acceptance of TGI hostage to very complex empirical and metaphysical facts. It would mean that we should possibly be against TGI in the future, if we found out that there was some deep gender-property, which could not be changed. But this is surely unacceptable. Rather we should just be for2 TGI, even if we think that there is some underlying metaphysical fact which has not changed when someone changed gender.

It Would Be Appropriation

Another objection might run something like this:

“When someone is, for example, transitioning from white to black, they are moving from an oppressing group to an oppressed group. In doing this they are exploiting their white privilege and appropriating and benefitting from a culture which they do not belong to - a culture which they have not lived through the struggle of belonging to.”

I will just preface this by saying that I don’t generally put a lot of credence in ethical reasoning on the basis of oppression-categories. I think most of it can be accounted for in terms of more general ethical principles, and the parts that can’t should just be thrown out. This might cloud my judgement a bit here, but I will do my best to answer the objection fairly.

I basically think that you can answer this objection by replacing all racial terms with gender terms, such that it describes someone transitioning from male to female. This would provide an (I think) equally strong argument against TGI. There are surely some experiences and cultural similarities which are only (or mostly) shared between women. By being a transwoman, you are appropriating these and exploiting women, since you are coming from an oppressor group. This is obviously a terrible argument, and should obviously not make us abandon support of TGI. And so it is also a terrible argument against TRI.

I think there is a general lesson to be had here. Before you give a reason for being against TRI, stop and think for a moment: Could I also use this argument against TGI? Would it be a bad argument in that case? If so, there is a good chance that it is also a bad argument in the case of TRI.

Why I Think so many People are Actually against TRI

So why do I think that acceptance of TRI is very low, even among people who are for2 and for3 TGI? This is going to be the uncharitable part of the article, and might be seen as poisoning the well. This might be true, but I also think it is the most plausible explanation of why so many people are against TRI.

I think the reason is that people have a negative gut reaction when seeing or hearing about someone who has changed/wants to change race. This might be for several reasons. It might be because such information is often paired with pictures of botched plastic surgery, or because they just think that it is flat out “weird” or “disgusting”.

British influencer Oli London, who is partly known for being transracial.

Hopefully you can see why this is not a good reason not to be for2 TRI. It is simply confusing an aesthetic reaction with an ethical reaction. I actually think this phenomenon is quite common. For example, I think it is the reason most people throughout history have been against homosexuality - when they have imagined a gay relationship or gay sex, they have had a negative gut reaction. I also think it is why people have been against rock music, DnD, videogames and what not - thinking about these things give them negative gut reactions. But while this confusion is common, it is far from rational, and I think it is important to be careful not to confuse aesthetic reactions with ethical reactions when doing ethics, even though it is often very tempting.