Can I be Trans-Race or Trans-Class?

[chimp3]

You think transgender people "choose" their gender. That's your first problem.

I agree that transgender folks do not choose their gender. But otherwise, I do think he raises an interesting point. Theoretically speaking, if someone truly identifies as a different race, should we handle that the same way we handle the transgender issue?

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That's my understanding about modern thought with gender: it's fluid spectrum, and each individual has the right to choose where they are on that spectrum, or to not be on the spectrum at all.  Gender can even change from day to day within and individual, and who are you to tell someone they can't be a woman one day and an a non-binary gender of their choice the next?

So race and class must be fluid spectra as well, and we have a right to choose where we are one the race spectrum and the class spectrum.

But they don't do that because they want to. It's a legitimate condition they have that we don't yet know much about - whether it be feeling like they are the wrong sex (trans), or feeling different about their sex with each day (fluid). Either way, it is a condition they have and not something that was freely chosen.

We can say we are are all one race/ species. We can not say we have the same cultural / familial / or personal historical experiences. The genetic unity of our species is a fact. So is the historical influence of white supremacy on our cultural evolution. The personal experience of race is not solved by genome studies. 


Likewise , so is the variance of acceptance or denounciation of the fluidity of gender or sexual preference experienced by individuals. The presence of homosexuals and transgender peoples throughout history is well documented. The inclusion or exclusion of these peoples is also documented. See  accounts of Two Spirit Peoples in the Native American histories. Certainly we can attest to the treatment of homosexuals in Judeo - Christian - Islamic traditions and modern histories. The experience of being gay /transgender in any given society is not greatly influenced by genome research that validates a natural root of the behaviors. 

I personally do not care if transgender or homosexual lifestyles have a natural basis or not. Even if they were choices and not proclivities I would support the right of consensual adults to enjoy themselves fully. I do believe, that the commonality of personal narratives ,  across cultures , expressing an attraction to same sex individuals, points to a biological basis for these desires. Gender fluidity , aside from sexual preference, also seems to be expressed throughout history and cultures in the same way as sexual preference.