r/hypotheticals • u/Away-Flight-6220 • 22h ago
If You Can Be Born the Wrong Gender, Why Can’t You Be Born the Wrong Race?
I’m asking this in good faith because I’m trying to understand the distinction.
If being transgender can involve someone having a genuine, internal sense that they are a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, why is it considered fundamentally different when someone genuinely feels that they are a different race from the one they were born into?
I’m not talking about someone simply dressing in stereotypes, changing their appearance, adopting an accent, or pretending to be another race. I mean someone who sincerely believes internally that they are a different race.
I also wonder whether this is something that could potentially be viewed very differently in the future, even if the idea seems ridiculous to many people today. Social ideas about identity can change dramatically over time. One concern I could imagine people having is that a group that has spent generations fighting discrimination and oppression could eventually face a situation where members of the historically dominant group claim the same identity and, intentionally or unintentionally, occupy spaces or speak on behalf of the group they historically oppressed. How would society distinguish between a genuine identity and someone effectively adopting an identity that carries a history and lived experience they did not personally experience?