I hate seeing those “if you can be transgender, why can’t you be transracial” so here are my thoughts on that in case your really looking for an answer and not just being a huge dick.

Anyway, onto it.

Race is not fluid- it is not changeable.

Being a member certain race means that from the moment you are born you are put in either a position of social privilege or disadvantage. Those born into disadvantage have developed their own means of survival, their own ways to keep pushing through a world that hates them, and though it may manifest in different ways, our shared history of oppression makes many of our characteristics similar and easy to (mistakenly)stereotype. Not the same by any stretch of the imagination, mind you, but it allows us to understand each other on a more personal level, even from a far.

You don’t ‘transition races’ because you are truly of that race- you ‘become’ black because you see the amazing community that has been created by those in a position of near powerlessness. You have seen the incredible things that black people can do, that have produced- you see the creativity that they are endowed with, and you say, ‘I want that’.

You want the privileges of being black, without ever fighting for them- you want to reap something you never sowed.

Moreover, you base your idea of race on a horrifically static group of stereotypes and try to imitate them, not realizing that these things that have been deemed the norm for the black community come from years of living a certain way, and, even so, is not shared by the entire race. For instance, you decide to speak using AAVE because it’s cool- not because it is your language. You try to mimic our anger- when you have never understood the pain it is borne of. You enter our spaces because you like the way they look from the outside- not because you have nowhere else to go.

You want to be us, without ever being able to understand why we are us.

In other words, you are no better than a living, breathing, racist caricature that doesn’t respect the black community enough to realize you are not a part of it.

Do I even need to mention that white people would never allow black people to be considered white because their rampant anti-blackness barely allows them to accept a black person in their spaces, let alone ‘be’ them, or can we move on?

Great. Moving the **** on then.

Gender, on the other hand is incredibly fluid and personal.

You do not decide to ‘be’ transgender because you want to wear a dress, or pants(because, heads up, clothes are not explicitly gendered). You don’t ‘become’ transgender because you desperately want to be a full time parent or an engineer, because once again, for those in the cheap seats, that **** has nothing to do with gender.

You have, at some point in your life, realized that you are not defined by your genitals/chromosomes/secondary sex characteristics, and despite all odds, you are not as you have previously been defined. It is not because of the traits you find cool and interesting in the other gender, it is because you have found the traits within yourself that make you a woman or man(or non- binary). You are willing to endure hell on earth to become who you truly are, and accept the social stigma and consequences that comes with that. You are not an outsider looking in and jealously admiring what others have worked so hard to have, you are an insider who has been wrongly labeled.

It is not about changing your image, it is about you becoming your image.

You are not trying to ‘invade’ brother or sisterhood, you just want to be who you are, and you deserve the support of every person alive in that endeavor.

So before you decide to open your ****ing mouth and say some dumb ****, including but not limited to ‘being transgender and transracial are the same’ remember to not ever belittle the need to be by comparing it to the desire to take.

I didn't write a stitch of this but it's TEA so soak it up