People increasingly attempt to use biological determinism (or essentialism) to lock people into identities, identities that are actually assigned and determined by cultural mores.
While people who are transgender or transexual (often abbreviated as just trans) are increasingly accepted by academia and by society–although we absolutely have a long, long way to go–such cannot be said for other people who identify as trans in some way or another.
Transracial
Most readers here have probably heard of Rachel Dolezal. She is the individual, described by many, as the White woman pretending to be Black, put simply. Dolezal has said she is transracial. Almost everyone has reacted with extremely negative reactions, saying that she was appropriating Black culture and identity and was pretending to be someone she wasn’t for positions and recognition.
I too, at least initially, found her actions to be surprising and unfavorable and unacceptable.
Recently, however, I have read some powerful articles that have changed my mind some. While I still do not know exactly what I think–and I am reminded of what I tell my students about looking for various perspectives, recognizing those, and then taking time to form an opinion–I am persuaded by Dr. Angela Jones’s comments regarding biological essentialism. In brief, if we do not allow Rachel Dolezal (and others – there are others) to be transracial, we are going squarely against decades of evidence that explains how “race” is a social, not a biological, reality. People are not “white” or “black” — they are racialized (subjectively) as White or Black and in many other ways. So, Dolezal is not white or black – but she is racialized by society and does have the power to adopt and reject various identities. The question is does this extend to race? And don’t forget that Homer Plessy “looked white” but was deemed Black by the “one-drop rule.”
Read this for a variety of pro and con comments by scholars and journalists. Rosa Clemente provides one important comment that is critical of Rachel Dolezal:
As people of color, no matter how hard we try, we cannot achieve whiteness, but the fact that a White woman can achieve Blackness and lie and take space and take resources and on top of it be belligerent when confronted is the epitome of White privilege.
(See here and here for other interesting perspectives on being transracial.)
Transabled
Additionally, there are people who assert that they are transabled. As with other identities or statements about oneself, at some level, we have to believe what people say and take what they say as being true, at least for purposes of identity and understanding. Being disabled, I personally can’t understand why someone would opt to be disabled, but some people do. Some people say they feel as if their leg or arm doesn’t belong with the rest of their body. As written about here, people with Body Integrity Identity Disorder sometimes make themselves disabled by choice.
Other articles about this can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
Implications
The common development of the human organism and the human self in a socially determined environment is related to the peculiarly human relationship between organism and self. This relationship is an eccentric one. On the one hand, man is a body, in the same way this may be said of every other animal organism. On the other hand, man has a body. That is, man experiences himself as an entity that is not identical with his body, but that, on the contrary, has that body at its disposal.
-Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality
Modern Western society tends to medicalize any difference and to say that such differences are an illness that needs to be in the DSM and needs to be correct. At this point, we should have far more questions than answers when it comes to people who assert transracial or transabled identities. When asking and answering such questions it is vital that we not allow biology to be the driving force because we know, even for people who are transgender, that society’s incredibly strong–and largely invisible–rules shape at least in part who we are and aren’t. Culture. Culture. Recognizing culture is extremely important. Biology does not determine social identities that are dependent on a time and place. And, as a society, it is important to not demonize people simply because they are different and we don’t understand their choices.
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda 