Rescuing Transracialism

Can an individual change their race? To answer in the affirmative is to endorse transracialism. Spencer Case has recently objected to transracialism on the grounds that it seems to raise the unwelcome prospect of accepting “trans-ability” and “trans-species” identity claims, which refer, respectively, to an able-bodied person identifying as disabled and a human being identifying as an animal. According to Case, this prospect not only reduces transracialism to absurdity, it reveals shortcomings with prevailing theories of transgender acceptance. I defend transracialism from Case’s critique. Once we recognize what accepting “trans-ability” identity claims involves, doing so ceases to be absurd. As for “trans-species” identity claims, they are too disanalogous from transracial ones for a common standard of acceptance to apply to both. Regarding transgender identity claims, even if Case is right that one basis for accepting them is not well-defended, other frameworks of trans acceptance will remain available. Case’s argument against accepting transracialism per se amounts to the idea that accepting transracialism would empty racial terms of meaning. I retort that this will not be true of theories of transracialism whose standard for accepting a transracial identity claim include a social component. Case therefore fails to show transracialism is an absurd idea.