Final Paper - Personal Identity and Acceptance

Ian Patel

Professor Braverman

WGS 220: Gender and Pop Culture

May 9, 2016

Personal Identity and Acceptance

            With the recent legalization of gay marriage in the United States, it is clear that Americans are slowly becoming more accepting of other people’s different beliefs. Transgender people, those whose sexes do not match their genders, are gradually becoming more accepted for who they are instead of what they feel. The fact that the situation of a transgender person is not the majority still makes many people uncomfortable with the concept, but the majority of people would agree that a person should be permitted to identify as whatever gender he or she desires. In fact, society will largely allow any actions as long as it is not harmful to others. But how far will this kind of acceptance extend? Especially with the Internet these days, people are quickly generating new variants on personal identities that, at first glance, seem ludicrous to most of the population. Of the more recent, controversial personal identifications, three stand out. Transracial, a term popularized by Rachel Dolezal, is used to describe people who were born one race and feel they are actually a different race. Transableism describes people who are healthy but strongly feel they should be disabled, and are sometimes willing to damage their physical bodies to realize this sensation. Lastly, otherkin are those who claim to be nonhuman, usually in spirit but sometimes, less commonly, in body as well. Otherkin have been known to identify as all kinds of animals, including mythical beasts such as dragons, angels, and fairies. Though it is rare, some otherkin even identify as machines or inanimate objects. While most people’s gut reaction to such identities is rejection, will transracial, transabled, and otherkin people be regular any time soon in our society? I believe that, in ten years, views on people who fall into these categories will still be negative, but that they will not be as strongly rejected by society.

            “Transracial” is a term that possessed a different meaning before it was repurposed for personal identification. Previously, transracial was used to refer to families that adopted children of a different race. Adoptees in such families may feel confused as their race does not match that of their parents, leading some adoptees to identify with both races. In 2015, however, Rachel Dolezal created a new definition for the word, “transracial,” when her two white parents revealed that she was disguising herself and living as a black woman. Dolezal had decided that, although she had been born to white parents, she should have been an African-American person, and thus altered her appearance so that she could pass as a black person. She even became the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) under this guise, but resigned once her transracial identity was revealed. Today, Dolezal acknowledges that she was born as white to white parents, but identifies as black regardless.

            Society’s initial reaction to this concept of transracial was severely negative, and I do not believe that a transracial person will be seen as acceptable in the near future. The main argument against Dolezal’s transracial identity is that it is an abuse of white privilege. As much as we might desire racial equality, there is still a serious imbalance between the races in our culture. White people do not face as many hardships as black people do, and white people tend to hold more powerful positions than black people do. Society has defined a sort of hierarchy of races that is not likely to fade soon, with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom. Dolezal made the transition from white to black and was able to tan enough to pass as a black person, but the reverse transition, going from black to white, would not be so easy physically or socially. Dolezal was able to decide to be black and claim to face and understand the same oppression that a natural-born black person knows, even though she grew up as a white child with white parents. On the other hand, a black person cannot simply decide to be white and gain white privilege and escape oppression as a result.         Similarly to how gender and sex are separated, I think we might need to separate physical race from cultural race. The very idea of switching races seems illogical to begin with since a person’s race is usually defined as a biological trait that comes from that person’s parents. “Transracial” is likely a poor term for the kind of transition that Dolezal is attempting since race is usually treated as a biological trait. While she might be physically white, she wishes to be identified as part of the black culture and be viewed as a black person. Perhaps physically changing one’s skin color is not reasonable, but choosing the racial culture in which one is most comfortable is plausible. To truly make this kind of personal identity feasible, though, I believe it would be necessary to achieve complete racial equality first. In doing so, the hierarchy that classifies races and generates concepts like white privilege would be removed, allowing people to switch more freely between races. With total racial equality seeming rather far off, though, I predict that transracial people, in the new sense of the word, will remain heavily criticized and not universally accepted for the near future.

            Transability is a situation in which a healthy person has a desire to become disabled in some form. Though there is nothing wrong with these people, physically or mentally, they have an extremely strong impression that they should have a disability. A person could wish to have any kind of disability, including blindness, deafness, an amputation, or paraplegia. Transabled people will often live out their lives as if they have the disability, perhaps using a wheelchair instead of their legs or declining to use an arm that they feel should be amputated. In some cases, transabled people’s desires may be strong enough that they either disable themselves or seek a medical professional that is willing to help them attain their preferred disabilities. Most doctors refuse perform such operations on a healthy individual, but a few will agree on the grounds that it is safer for a professional to perform an operation rather than allowing the person to damage his or her own body at home.

            While there is potential for acceptance of transabled people, there are several difficulties that will need to be overcome first, including the initial, intensely negative response to transableism. Transableism is usually viewed as insane. Most people, especially people that have disabilities, cannot understand why anyone would want to give up their healthy body for a disabled one. Many also cannot help but wonder if transabled people suffer from mental illnesses that cause these seemingly ridiculous yearnings. Overcoming this almost instinctive rejection of the idea of transability would be the first step towards acceptance, but then other concerns arise. If a person decides to live as if he or she has a disability, that person puts extra, and possibly unnecessary, strain on society. Family and friends will have to shoulder some responsibility for helping a transabled person adjust to his or her new lifestyle and limitations. A disabled person will usually generate more paperwork than a healthy person, and as a result will create more work for others in situations where disabilities are significant, like with job applications and government programs. If family, friends, and society are willing to come to terms with the additional strain introduced by a person’s resolution to become disabled, then we can take a second step towards acceptance. I think achieving acceptance of those who identify as disabled is possible, but is not likely to be accomplished in just ten years. While it is possible that society can accept the possibility of a transabled person, I do not believe that all the nuances, like whether or not a transabled person should be permitted to receive disability benefits for example, will be worked out in the next ten years alone.

            Otherkin are people who believe that they are not human, to some extent. From cats and foxes to dragons and angels, otherkin can identify with or as any type of creature, real or mythical. Most of the time these people understand that they are human, but feel they possess animalistic characteristics. Many otherkin identify with a creature, and may have dreams about their respective animals and occasionally lapse into a state where they want to behave like their animals. Often otherkin believe in reincarnation and use it as justification for their beliefs, stating that they are either reincarnations of their creatures or will become their animals in a future life. More rarely, otherkin identify as a creature, and may take part in dressing up and acting like their animals. In even more exceptional cases, an otherkin identifies as a machine or an inanimate object.

            Otherkin are frequently viewed as delusional today, but I think that there is actually potential for society to accept some of the otherkin people. The otherkin community is primarily online, so most of the criticism it faces is also online. Often this criticism is very harsh, telling otherkin that they need professional help or that they are mentally unwell. If someone declares, with complete sincerity, that they identify as an inanimate object, others on the Internet like to mimic such statements with extreme sarcasm and mocking attitudes. Additionally, otherkin’s online posts often appear in so-called “cringe compilations,” collections of Internet posts that most people balk at. Outside of the Internet, most otherkin refrain from mentioning their associated creatures (or objects) due to how people are inclined to react negatively. To people who are not otherkin, the idea of identifying as an animal seems absurd, and evokes a similar kind of appalled gut reaction that transableism does. Over the upcoming years, Internet users are unlikely to be willing to give up the “fun” they have at the expensive of the otherkin, unfortunately, but I think there is still some hope for acceptance in society. The majority of the otherkin can continue as functioning members of society, and most people are willing to cope with a few quirks in a person. If a person wants to identify with or as a nonhuman creature, the person can do so freely as long as he or she is not disrupting other people’s lives. Accepting those who are more enamored with their creatures and frequently try to act as those creatures will take much more time, I think, for people will be slow to recognize this as a legitimate path in life. As for otherkin who identify as inanimate objects, I, sadly, cannot see society truly understanding these people, at least not in the next ten years. The otherkin remain on the farthest branches of unusual self-identification types, so they will probably be one of the last communities to be accepted into regular society.

            Society’s hope is to allow anyone to do as they please as long as they are not hurting anyone else. Despite this goal, however, most people are reluctant to agree that selecting characteristics like one’s race, age, height, physical disabilities, and species is acceptable. The current young generations may welcome different kinds of genders and sexualities fairly readily, but altering these other characteristics remains abnormal. I could imagine out society becoming more willing to permit these kinds of personal identifications eventually, but total approval is still far off in the future and highly unlikely to occur within ten years.

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