tacotao replied to your post: i’m transclass i’m a rich person born in a poor…

i try to be understanding too but i’m going to go ahead and draw the line at transethnicity because oh my god

i’m trying to wrap my head around transethnicity by using an example im making up of someone saying they think they were born mexican

and i’d be so apprehensive to believe them UNLESS they looked like they were making a genuine effort to learn about mexican culture, history (which even I only know to a sort of hazy extent), the Spanish language, politics, mexican regionalisms, mexico in relation to the US, in relation to OTHER latin american countries, and even if they knew all that then i think they’d still be just a very knowledgable non-Mexican and i’d HARDCORE respect them for that.

Mexico is another country in the New World that had its own stream of immigrants who adapted a Mexican identity, so I’m sure if you became involved enough anybody could ‘become’ Mexican so to speak by becoming absorbed in the culture and assimilating but there’s a PROCESS to that

the thing about culture is that yes, you can become a part of a different culture but there’s so much more you have to do than just say “hey i think i’m actually this culture, not this culture” and the BIG THING about being a trans* anything is that there IS a transition process so if you consider yourself ‘transethnic’ i better see you actually go LIVE in that country or learn that language or partake in those customs and all of that

but at the same time, you haven’t lived your whole life as a part of the group, and that’s one of the things you’d be missing if you suddenly called yourself a different ethnicity. if you were born Moroccan or French or Korean but moved to Mexico at 15 and by 50 you wanted to call yourself Mexican, go for it!

you’ve lived the country and have shared an experience with the people, you know them enough by now in my opinion that it’s fair to consider yourself as such. you’ve been through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and i think you’ve EARNED the right to call yourself that.

but if you’re basing your ‘transethnicity’ on a pretty movie or funny tv show or cute music video or any other romanticized aspect of a culture, you are absolutely wrong to have this “desire” to become another culture. you can’t just want it, you have to EARN that label, and until you can be recognized by OTHERS as that label, YOU DO NOT HAVE IT - ethnicity is all about how OTHERS see you and the differences others see between you and themselves.

basically, if want you want to be Mexican or Korean or Greek, don’t you DARE call yourself that UNTIL YOU HAVE EARNED the label, you HAVE NO RIGHT. if you want to call yourself “transethnic” go RIGHT ON AHEAD, but YOU ARE NOT MEXICAN OR KOREAN OR GREEK, you have to earn that, NOBODY IN THAT GROUP WILL BELIEVE YOU.

fuck this is mind boggling and i dont know how to put my feelings into words geez