BLOG FOUR

The last time I raised this question I caused two people to stop being friends. I have hence then refrain from this question… but I saw a tik tok so I thought I would bring it back up.
In fall semster of 2019 I took a Composition 2 class at Century College and this is where I first heard this question. It was a pretty heated debate, and I have asked multiple people this question too and I get variations of the same response.
This question has two parts and the first part ask this:
“How do you feel about transgender?”
In other words, do you think it is okay for people to change one’s gender? Most people in this day of age are like, “Yeah that’s fine, be who feel you are.” This was the question that caused my friends to cut ties since one was part of the LGBT+ community and the other is a by-the-book Christian. It turned into ugly debate of one person calling the other person names and belittling them while the other tried to tell them their views are from a religious standpoint and not a personal standpoint.
Anywho, most people are accepting of transgender. So there is the next part of the question right:
“So how do you feel about transracial?”
A lot of us were confused by what this meant, but we quickly learned that this meant switching race or ethics. People where up in arms with this question. And everyone I have asked says that transracial cannot be a thing. So the real kicker is, “If you are okay with people being transgender, why can’t people be transracial?” If a cis boy can become girl, non-binary, and vice versa, why can’t a black person be white, or a white person be Korean, or an Japanese person be Jamaican, etc.
The girl in the video says to the guy, “If you are trying to deny someone of their identity, and deny what their life experience is, then that does not seem like a moral stance to me.” She goes on by saying that she wants to respect people identity and how they want to present themselves to the world.
A lot of people say that your skin color is not something you cannot wash off, and this is true. But most people say that one’s color hold culture and people behind it. So people don’t accept it because if the historical and cultural background tied to each color.
When I was still pursuing music, I asked my amazing friend and jazz & blues pianist this question. He told me that is a black man, he does not think people should transition racially. So I asked him well what about my case. Physically I am a white woman. Raised with Christian and mixed culture and morals. Ethically, I am African, Native, Swiss, German, and Irish. So I asked him if it was okay for someone like me to be black. He agreed that it was okay since I was raised with some of the culture and I have that tie. So culture is not culture unless it is shared, but you must be of that culture for it to be shared upon you.
I like to pick at peoples brain more by asking them questions like what if the kid is adopted and was raise in a culture completely different from their skin and feel more like the culture they were raised from verses the culture of their skin? Or what is someone grew up around people different from their own and feel closer to them than to their skin. What then?
The teacher asked this question because we were going to read a book called Your Face in Mine by Jess Row. It was an interesting book. Basically this dude comes back home after his wife and daughter die in a car crash and he goes to a store and meet a black man and they talk and the black man tells him that he was actually this guy and they both use to be in a band and he was white. So the black man tells the main character his story and tries to get him to change his rationality as well because they need more people to test the surgical procedure before they can release it to the public.
But yeah, I guess I am curious on your thoughts. For me, I have the mentality that we all bleed red. Be who you want to be.
