The Paradoxes of Trans Identity Claims

Abstract

As both ethnoracial and sex/gender categories come to be increasingly understood as fluid, contextual, and constructed, transgender identities have gained cultural legitimacy, yet transracial claims remain widely contested. This contrast has prompted the question, “If transgender, why not transracial?” I contend that this comparison overlooks fundamental differences between ethnoracial and sex/gender systems—particularly in their modalities of division and structures of exclusion—that render the analogy problematic. Drawing out these distinctions, I argue that transgender identification emerges as a plausible outcome of a sex/gender system—constituted through culturally elaborated nomenclatures, institutions, and practices—that has historically given rise to variable categories of “deviance” from cis-heteronormative standards. By contrast, transracialism remains unintelligible and will likely remain so within ethnoracial systems that sustain hierarchical boundaries between legitimized racialized groups, boundaries that are reinforced through collective loyalties. Recognizing this distinction, this study calls for greater precision in theorizing how culturally elaborated categories acquire specific structural forms.