Can I be Trans-Race or Trans-Class?

[The Valkyrie]

So if I'm allowed to choose my gender identity to be whatever I want it to be, and thus I can be trans-gender, can I also be trans-race?  I'm clearly white, but could I decide that I am actually trans-racially Asian?  Or black?  If gender is an arbitrary social construct with no relation to biological realities like chromosomes or body parts, then is race also an arbitrary social construct that has no relations to chromosomes or skin color?  

And can I be trans-class?  Can I be a poor person who identifies as a wealthy person and thus is entitles to the privileges of the wealthy?  Can I sit in first class on an airplane on the grounds that I am trans-class and thus can sit with the upper class passengers?


The reality for me is that I am a middle class white male.  Could I actually identify as a wealthy black woman?  I would be transgender, transrace, and transclass.  I would go to fancy restaurants and hand them Monopoly money and tell them that I am actually wealthy.  Since money is a social construct anyway, they would have no grounds for refusing my Monopoly money as long as I asserted that I was a transclass wealthy person.  

Here's another question.  If you're not a white male, but you want what you believe is white male privilege, couldn't you just re-identify yourself as a white male when it suited your purposes?  Could identify as a man in salary negotiations so you'd get paid more money, but identify as a woman for purposes of the military draft so you wouldn't have to sign up?  If race, gender, and class are fluid and constantly changing, then couldn't I change my race, gender, and class identities whenever it would give me some kind of advantage in a situation?

WTF??

[Rev. Rye]

Well, knowing the case of John Howard Griffin (see Black Like Me) I suppose it's possible to change one's outward race, likely by taking craptons of methoxsalen, spending loads of hours under a tanning bed, and praying you don't end up with skin cancer in the process.

Of course, this only applies if you really believe nature fucked up when it made you white and aren't just using this as an excuse to be a jackass. It's not terribly likely that any given trans person chose to be like that.

Of course, Griffin's regimen is reversible, but gender reassignment surgery is not.

[InquiringMind]

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

And then there are the people who claim to be gender fluid.

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.

[Aroura]

Ah, the Christian loophole of choice and freewill that allows them to be judgy judgy stone throwers.

[Pat Mustard]

So if I'm allowed to choose my gender identity to be whatever I want it to be, and thus I can be trans-gender, can I also be trans-race?  I'm clearly white, but could I decide that I am actually trans-racially Asian?  Or black?  If gender is an arbitrary social construct with no relation to biological realities like chromosomes or body parts, then is race also an arbitrary social construct that has no relations to chromosomes or skin color?  

And can I be trans-class?  Can I be a poor person who identifies as a wealthy person and thus is entitles to the privileges of the wealthy?  Can I sit in first class on an airplane on the grounds that I am trans-class and thus can sit with the upper class passengers?


The reality for me is that I am a middle class white male.  Could I actually identify as a wealthy black woman?  I would be transgender, transrace, and transclass.  I would go to fancy restaurants and hand them Monopoly money and tell them that I am actually wealthy.  Since money is a social construct anyway, they would have no grounds for refusing my Monopoly money as long as I asserted that I was a transclass wealthy person.  

Here's another question.  If you're not a white male, but you want what you believe is white male privilege, couldn't you just re-identify yourself as a white male when it suited your purposes?  Could identify as a man in salary negotiations so you'd get paid more money, but identify as a woman for purposes of the military draft so you wouldn't have to sign up?  If race, gender, and class are fluid and constantly changing, then couldn't I change my race, gender, and class identities whenever it would give me some kind of advantage in a situation?

There is one question you should ask yourself before opening a thread Uninquiring Mind, viz "Does this screed make me look more or less stupid?" As it stands, in the politics area at least your topics have a dismal record when it comes to that question.

[Lucanus]

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

And then there are the people who claim to be gender fluid.

I don't think they choose that as well.

Why do these complex issues have to be black-and-white and simple and solvable with "gotcha" replies?

Am I going crazy?

AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS?

[Alex K]

Or trans thought

[chimp3]

Cultural fluidity is called code switching.

[Amarok]

gender fluidity doesn't make it a choice that just moronic oh wait I just remember who stated it never mind wooter

[Neo-Scholastic]

gender fluidity doesn't make it a choice that just moronic oh wait I just remember who stated it never mind wooter

Could you elaborate on that please? If a guy walks into Baskin-Robbins without a strong preference for any specific flavor doesn't that make him more capable of choosing an alternative? Or going out to get a hamburger?