RCTA

"yani" suggested this topic. The topic was: "Transgender VS transrace"

That's... a controversial topic, to say the least. I won't lie; I have my own opinions on this topic, and I therefore am coming into this topic with my own bias. I am a transgender person who was discriminated against for being Asian/Korean. Now, people try to be my ethnicity because it is cute or pretty. It's surely something to feel, but I will try to address this with respect.

The idea of gender fluidity and gender being a changing thing was previously covered in the past blog of Gender Identity. I established there that gender is a thing that is only really pushed through social expectations. However, those social expectations lead to an effect on the people around them. The people who are born women are pushed for a certain role, and the people who are born men are also pushed to behave in certain ways. (More in-depth in that blog post.) Transracial people are people who were born a specific race but identify with another. The term was previously used by those in the adoption field. An example of this would be when white parents would adopt a kid who is Black. They are not of the same race, but they were raised in a different racial household, pegging the name transracial. (1) Therefore, when the term was used for the use of changing one's race, it became heated. I will therefore be using the term "race change to another" (RCTA) instead.

Now, a common argument made in the past is that being RCTA is similar to being transgender. I won't lie; I do see some of the similarities in their arguments. One of which is that gender is considered a social construct and is something that is only being pushed by society. That is often compared to ethnicity and race. Yes, the categories for defining race are a social construct. "Italians were considered non-whites; they tend to be seen as white people today." (2) This source talks about how there is a change in how people are perceived and how those perceptions change. The concepts of people as stereotypical versions of themselves are ingrained in the social aspect. There is a racist misconception about every race, which is built on the history and cultural lineage of these races. However, regardless of the fact that race is a social construct, race has become an integral part of society, similar to gender, and has affected many of the lives of the people. 

As seen in this video (3), it explains that there is a difference between race and gender. When a transgender individual realises they are transgender, many of them do so out of a sense of euphoria or dysphoria, which encourages them to make steps in their gender expression journey. By saying you are changing your race, you are to ignore the struggles of your own race and the race that you are attempting to become. When transgender people transition, they do not ignore the struggles of their own gender and their misaligned body. I, as an example, believed I was a transman; I do not feel that way anymore and am now comfortable being genderfluid; however, during that time, I could not ignore the past that made me who I was when I grew up as a "girl" and the struggles I would undergo for being a "man". A transgender person is not deceiving anyone; they are simply living their truth. "A transgender person is growing up with the maleness or femaleness because of the way that gender identity operates within us." (3) That is a huge counterargument against people who claim to be RCTA. They do not understand, nor will they feel the same prejudice, discrimination, experiences, or culture of being that race that is imparted to being a part of that race.

Another thing that people may use as an argument is that how transgender was first perceived by society and how RCTA was perceived are similar. When gaining more traction from society and putting a name to transgender people, people said that it was a mental illness. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders called transgender individuals to have "gender identity disorder of childhood" and "transsexualism". (4) This is similar to how people call those who interpret themselves to be RCTA to be mentally ill. Transgender people, however, have been a part of people and society for thousands of years. There have been records of transgender, gender-diverse people throughout history and fluidity of gender since at least 7,000 BCE. (5) RCTA people have been more of a recent development. This brings us back to (3) because it brings up what she says that RCTA people are "chasing aesthetic ideals in search for cultural status". Many of the cultures that are targeted are targeted because there is something that appeals to the person in the sense of culture or status. The video by Not Even Emily brings up great commentary about how many of the people who are RCTA are fetishising the culture. They are ignoring the negatives of being a part of the culture, fantasising about having the positive aspects to themselves. They did not grow that race and did not understand the struggles and goods that came with being a part of that race. Yet again, they do not understand, nor will they feel the same prejudice, discrimination, experiences, or culture of being that race that is imparted to being a part of that race.

Out of these Discord spaces for RCTA people that I've seen, most of them are spaces of hate. Many of the members are children who are struggling (as mentioned in Not Even Emily) and have turned to RCTA to make themselves feel better (a form of escapism) and focus on something else. As a certified delusional and dreamer kid, I understand that pain and would love to live in a universe where I could stop time or do magic. However, that does not excuse the behaviour of being hateful to others, taking another culture, altering it with rose-coloured glasses, and shaping it to fit you. 

Overall, my feelings are that being RCTA is just appropriating a culture and disregarding your own culture to fetishise another. Don't appropriate, appreciate. It understandably upsets many people of the race that people are fetishising because they are, in a way, being objectified. They aren't really being treated as human and more as an aesthetic that people can eventually achieve. As a Korean, I don't like how many of the people trying to be Korean are ignoring everything that is bad with the nation. We have many issues within our politics with the current president and the war that we still need to move on from but can't because of more political reasons, the racism and ableism that is prevalent within the country, high rates of suicide, domestic abuse, and anti-feminism. The president has done many things, one of which was martial law when the citizens were sleeping. These were outrageous to the people and were "unanimously voted to nullify the martial law declaration, and it was officially revoked just six hours after it was declared." (7) We are in the process of impeaching him. He basically tried to take control of the country by putting the country under military control while people were unguarded and without the permission and votes of his parliament. We have high rates of suicide because of the dissatisfaction of life with the difficulty of work and schooling (8). The term used for school is hell. Students often wake up and study until 3 am in South Korea in order to keep up with the competition for grades. There is increasing fear for their safety and a constant sense of danger with how the "women here view breakups without violent repercussions as rare, commonly referring to them as 'safe breakups.'" (9) The issue of feeling unsafe and the femicide led to the 4B movement in Korea that completely ousts men from their lives. All of these are part of the bad of South Korea, and it doesn't excise from the good; however, you cannot just look at simply the good of a country. A country is a country; there are no perfections, and the idealised version you see is ultimately a facade. Idealising something too much is a bad side effect of RCTA.

Sorry for the rant about my grievances about South Korea. I personally love South Korea, and that's why I want to hold my country accountable. I don't know much about many other countries par from America, so that's why I can't say much about other countries. If y'all have any other topics you want me to go over, let me know :)