Transracial (identity)


Transracial people are individuals who assert a racial identity for themselves which differs from their birth race.

Examples

By far the most well-known example of a self-identified person in the English-speaking world is Rachel Dolezal, a woman of white ancestry who identifies as black. She successfully passed as black, to the extent that she took over leadership of the Spokane branch of the NAACP in 2014, a year before her "outing" in 2015.
Martina Big, who was featured on Maury in September 2017, is another woman of white ancestry who identifies as black. Big has had tanning injections administered by a physician to darken her skin and hair.
Ja Du, a trans woman who was born Caucasian but now considers herself Filipina, created a Facebook page and community for others who self-identify as transracial.

Theoretical approaches

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. Publication of this paper resulted in considerable controversy. The subject was also explored in , 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.

Controversy over the term

Historically, transracial has been used to describe parents who adopt a child of a different race.
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. 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."