Transracial (identity)

Last updated

Transracial is a label used by people who identify as a different race than the one they were born into. They may adjust their appearance to make themselves look more like that race, and may participate in activities associated with that race. Use of the word transracial to describe this is new and has been criticized, because the word was historically used to describe a person raised by adoptive parents of a different ethnic or racial background, such as a Black child adopted and raised by a White couple.

Contents

History and usage

Historically, the term transracial was used solely to describe parents who adopt a child of a different race. [1] [2] [3]

The use of the term to describe changing racial identity has been criticized by members of the transracial adoption community. Kevin H. Vollmers, executive director of an adoption non-profit, said the term is being "appropriated and co-opted", and that this is a "slap in the face" to transracial adoptees. [3] In June 2015, about two dozen transracial adoptees, transracial parents and academics published an open letter in which they condemned the new usage as "erroneous, ahistorical, and dangerous." [3] [4] [5]

In April 2017, the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia published an academic paper in support of recognizing transracialism and drawing parallels between transracial and transgender identity. [6] Publication of this paper resulted in considerable controversy. The subject was also explored in Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities , a 2016 book by UCLA sociology professor Rogers Brubaker, who argues that the phenomenon, though offensive to many, is psychologically real to many people, and has many examples throughout history. [7] [8]

Examples

See also

Related Research Articles

Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of".

Transracial may refer to:

The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study examined the IQ test scores of 130 black or interracial children adopted by advantaged white families. The aim of the study was to determine the contribution of environmental and genetic factors to the poor performance of black children on IQ tests as compared to white children. The initial study was published in 1976 by Sandra Scarr and Richard A. Weinberg. A follow-up study was published in 1992 by Richard Weinberg, Sandra Scarr and Irwin D. Waldman. Another related study investigating social adjustment in a subsample of the adopted black children was published in 1996. The 1992 follow-up study found that "social environment maintains a dominant role in determining the average IQ level of black and interracial children and that both social and genetic variables contribute to individual variations among them." Both Levin and Lynn argued that these findings support a hereditarian alternative, while other researchers believed the findings were consistent with both genetic and environmental explanations.

In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent–child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.

Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.

Racial passing occurred when a person who was categorized as black - their Race in the United States of America, sought to be accepted or perceived ("passes") as a member of another racial group, usually white. Historically, the term has been used primarily in the United States to describe a black person, especially a Mulatto person who assimilated into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of racial segregation and discrimination. In the Antebellum South, passing as white was a temporary disguise used as a means of escaping slavery.

<i>Hypatia</i> (journal) Peer-reviewed academic journal

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Cambridge University Press. As of January 2024, the journal is led by co-editors Katharine Jenkins, Aidan McGlynn, Simona Capisani, Aness Kim Webster, and Charlotte Knowles. Book reviews are published by Hypatia Reviews Online (HRO). The journal is owned by a non-profit corporation, Hypatia, Inc. The idea for the journal arose out of meetings of the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) in the 1970s. Philosopher and legal scholar Azizah Y. al-Hibri became the founding editor in 1982, when it was published as a "piggy back" issue of the Women's Studies International Forum. In 1984 the Board accepted a proposal by Margaret Simons to launch Hypatia as an autonomous journal, with Simons, who was guest editor of the third (1985) issue of Hypatia at WSIF, as editor. The editorial office at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville handled production as well until Simons, who stepped down as editor in 1990, negotiated a contract with Indiana University Press to publish the journal, facilitating the move to a new editor.

Multiracial Americans, also known as Mixed Americans, are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed-race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially. In the 2020 United States census, 33.8 million individuals or 10.2% of the population, self-identified as multiracial. There is evidence that an accounting by genetic ancestry would produce a higher number.

Rogers Brubaker is professor of sociology at University of California, Los Angeles and UCLA Foundation Chair. He has written academic works on social theory, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, ethnicity, religion, diasporas, gender, populism, and digital hyperconnectivity.

Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.

Ethnic plastic surgery, or ethnic modification, refers to the types of plastic surgery performed frequently due to certain racial or ethnic traits, or with the intention of making one's appearance more similar or less similar to people of a particular race or ethnicity. Popular procedures which may have an ethnically motivated component are rhinoplasties and blepharoplasties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Dolezal</span> American racial identity activist (born 1977)

Nkechi Amare Diallo is an American former college instructor and activist known for presenting herself as a black woman despite being born to white parents. She is also a former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter president.

<i>Hypatia</i> transracialism controversy 2017 academic dispute

The feminist philosophy journal Hypatia became involved in a dispute in April 2017 that led to the online shaming of one of its authors, Rebecca Tuvel, an assistant professor of philosophy at Rhodes College in Memphis. The journal had published a peer-reviewed article by Tuvel in which she compared the situation of Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, to that of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies as black. When the article was criticized on social media, scholars associated with Hypatia joined in the criticism and urged the journal to retract it. The controversy exposed a rift within the journal's editorial team and more broadly within feminism and academic philosophy.

Matthew Windust Hughey is an American sociologist known for his work on race and racism. He is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, where he is also an adjunct faculty member in the Africana Studies Institute; American Studies Program; Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, & Policy; Sustainable Global Cities Initiative, and; graduate certificate program in Indigeneity, Race, Ethnicity, & Politics. His work has included studying whiteness, race and media, race and politics, racism and racial assumptions within genetic and genomic science, and racism and racial identity in white and black American fraternities and sororities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Rachel Divide</span> 2018 documentary film by Laura Brownson

The Rachel Divide is a 2018 documentary about the controversial life of Rachel Dolezal, also known as Nkechi Diallo, an American woman of white parentage who identifies as black, and was forced to resign as president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington when her race and ancestry were exposed. The film was directed by Laura Brownson and distributed by Netflix, originally airing on April 27, 2018.

<i>In Full Color</i> (memoir) 2017 memoir by Rachel Dolezal

In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World is a memoir by American activist Rachel Dolezal, known for presenting herself as a black woman while having no known black ancestry. It was published in 2017 by BenBella Books, almost two years after the controversy about her racial identity in June 2015. The Guardian reported that 30 publishing houses turned down the manuscript before BenBella Books printed it in March 2017.

<i>Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities</i> 2016 book by Rogers Brubaker

Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities by American sociologist Rogers Brubaker is an analysis of racial and gender identity, published by Princeton University Press in 2016 in the wake of the publicity around Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal.

Becky is a female nickname for Rebecca. In some areas of popular culture, the name is a pejorative American slang term for a young white woman. The term has come to be associated with a "white girl who loves Starbucks and Uggs"; for this reason, "Becky" is often associated with the slang term "basic", which has many similar connotations.

Racial or ethnic misrepresentation occurs when someone deliberately misrepresents their racial or ethnic background. It may occur for a variety of reasons, such as someone attempting to benefit from affirmative action programs for which they are not eligible.

Oli London is an English Internet personality. London is known for his multiple ethnic plastic surgery procedures intended to make him look like Jimin, a member of the South Korean boy band BTS.

References

  1. ↑ Valby, Karen. "The Realities of Raising a Kid of a Different Race". Time . Archived from the original on December 18, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Growing Up 'White,' Transracial Adoptee Learned To Be Black". NPR. January 26, 2014. Archived from the original on December 25, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 Kai-Hwa Wang, Frances (June 17, 2015). "Adoptees to Rachel Dolezal: You're Not Transracial". NBC News. Archived from the original on January 1, 2018. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  4. ↑ Moyer, Justin Wm. (June 17, 2015). "Rachel Dolezal draws ire of transracial adoptees". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on September 24, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  5. ↑ Kimberly McKee, PhD; et al. (June 16, 2015). "An Open Letter: Why Co-opting "Transracial" in the Case of Rachel Dolezal is Problematic". Archived from the original on March 13, 2018. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  6. 1 2 Tuvel, Rebecca (2017). "In Defense of Transracialism". Hypatia . 32 (2): 263–278. doi:10.1111/hypa.12327. ISSN   0887-5367. S2CID   151630261.
  7. ↑ Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities. Princeton University Press. October 4, 2016. ISBN   9780691172354. Archived from the original on November 29, 2018. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  8. ↑ Brubaker, Rogers (2016). "Introduction" (PDF). Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. 1–11. ISBN   9780691172354. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 27, 2019. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  9. ↑ Brubaker, Rogers (2015). "The Dolezal affair: race, gender, and the micropolitics of identity". Ethnic and Racial Studies . 39 (3): 414–448. doi:10.1080/01419870.2015.1084430. ISSN   0141-9870. S2CID   146583317.
  10. ↑ Horne, Marc (October 12, 2021). "Members can identify as black, disabled or female, university union insists" . The Times . Archived from the original on October 13, 2021. Retrieved October 20, 2021.
  11. 1 2 Lubin, Rhian (September 22, 2017). "White glamour model with size 32S breasts who spent £50k on cosmetic surgery now 'identifies as a black woman'". Daily Mirror . Archived from the original on October 1, 2017. Retrieved October 1, 2017.
  12. 1 2 Valens, Ana (September 22, 2017). "White woman who 'transitioned' races to Black is back". The Daily Dot . Archived from the original on September 29, 2017. Retrieved October 1, 2017.
  13. 1 2 Bido, Tatiana (March 20, 2018). "Woman Totally Changes Skin Tone Using Illegal and Harmful 'Barbie Drug'". Yahoo Life. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
  14. ↑ "The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White". The New Yorker. September 12, 2020. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  15. ↑ Lumpkin, Lauren; Svrluga, Susan (September 3, 2020). "White GWU professor admits she falsely claimed Black identity". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  16. ↑ Neumann, Laiken (June 21, 2021). "'This is my new official flag': White influencer says they identify as Korean". The Daily Dot . Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  17. ↑ Spickard, Paul (June 2022). "Shape Shifting: Toward a Theory of Racial Change". Genealogy. 6 (2): 48. doi: 10.3390/genealogy6020048 . ISSN   2313-5778.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.