#anyway. brace for 48 hours of arguing about radqueer stuff in my notes and inbox o7

[a-dragons-journal]

How exactly is being otherkin any different than being transracial by idea? I’m not pro-transracial, but I can’t really formulate an argument on where the difference is and why one is okay while the other isn’t

The difference, in my opinion at least, basically comes down to the fact that race and ethnicity are things other real people deal with and which have big cultural impact for a lot of people; species is not. You can't hurt theriform wolves by identifying as a wolf because wolves are not people and are not aware of any of this. Dragons may be people depending on the dragon, but they don't exist physically in this world to have an opinion. You can, however, hurt people of color by identifying as transethnicity and approaching it in a disrespectful way.

And I say it that way because if I'm honest, transethnicity is one of those transIDs where I'm... a little torn on it. I can understand the feelings and experiences they're describing, but I struggle to find a way to engage with the idea of being transethnicity that isn't going to wind up being racist in one way or another. And while I haven't exactly spent a ton of time in radqueer/transID spaces, when I've gone into their tags and such to do a little research on them, I have overwhelmingly seen transethnicity people being kind of if not extremely racist about it. The experiences are not inherently harmful, but it's really easy to slide into engaging with those experiences in a way that's harmful.

And yet... in this community we have, for example, fictionkin whose fictotypes are a different race than them all the time, and sometimes that's very important to who their fictotype is and how they view the world. And that works out fine. I think the primary difference is that fictionkin are generally expected to acknowledge that they're not a part of that group in the present and can't speak on the group's issues or experiences as if they were, whereas the minute you put a trans- label onto the word, the expectation is that you should be treating a trans[x] person as if they're [x]. (And if it's not, then... why are you calling it trans- anything to begin with when that's what trans- means in an identity context?)

So, I do genuinely believe that they're having these experiences, but... idk, there has to be a better way to frame and engage with those experiences. I don't know what that is, but it's got to be out there somewhere, though it may not be a one-size-fits-all answer. (And maybe there's a transID community out there that's found it, I don't know.)

Anyway, open invitation for POC to give their thoughts on this, since they've probably got better-constructed ones than me; if I'm honest, I haven't spent all that much time thinking about this issue. I think about it on and off here and there when it comes up and then it gives me a headache so I move on.