Transethnicity? Real, or Total Bullshit?

[Sexy Frog]

Is it wrong that I think trans-ethnicity is a load of crap? I mean, something like being a trans-gender is one thing, but being a trans-ethnic? Not that I'm saying being either is wrong, or immoral, (because at the end of the day, I could really, honestly and for truly care no less either way since it has absolutely nothing to do with me) but at the same time, I still hold my right to an opinion.

The mere concept of one person who is -- say, Caucasian -- swearing up and down that they're actually Native American by nature due to some inherent, over obsessive interest in a culture of which they are not born into is just really dumb to me. I mean, I kind of feel the same about trans-genders as well, but at least something on that scale is somewhat understandable given all the modern day pro-homosexuality movements and whatever going on. I don't know, I just don't understand it.

One thing is being interested in a culture to the point of wanting to involve yourself in it, or even just surrounding yourself with others of your point of interest, but it's another thing entirely to sit there and be like, "Well, turns out I reeeeally like speaking Spanish, and I love Hispanic food and culture and everything about Spain and other places where Spanish is the predominant language, therefore I'm not actually African American. I'm a Hispanic trapped in an African American's body!!"

I really just do not understand.

TL;DR - I think Trans-Ethnics are full of crap. Am I wrong for thinking that?

[rBST Cow]

It's the dumbest shit I've ever heard of really. I think the same for trans-gender too, but as long as you understand that you are a female/male, then idgaf if you dress up like a girl/boy. Trans-ethnic goes even further into the realm of stupidity.

If you are black, you're black. If you're white, you're white. IT'S LITERALLY BLACK AND WHITE! GET IT!

[Hazard Time]

I have to agree.  For example, I for one am really interested in Russian culture.  A lot of the customs strike a chord with me and I can see myself passing off as one if I ever went over there.  Also, my mother's mother's parents were Russian.  Still, does that make me Russian?

No.

Was I born in Russia?  Was I raised on Russian culture?  Did I grow up speaking the language, eating the food, and celebrating the holidays?

No.

If someone asked me for my ethnicity, I would give them Jewish and American because those are the cultures that I grew up with.  On another unrelated note, there's also the talk of the people who are 1/16 native american who claim that that drop of native blood makes them a native as well.  While that may have been widely considered true a century ago, I don't believe it.  If everyone in your immediate family is white, you're not a native american.

[Sexy Frog]

Exactly my point. Wanting to be part of a culture other than your own is not a bad thing -- in fact, it's a great thing. It's a very open minded step one can take in order to deepen your understanding of another's way of life...walking in someone else's shoes, if you will. But to go to the point of saying that you're one ethnicity trapped in another's body just seems the opposite. Shallow, even.

Reason I bring this up is because of a Reddit post I read a while back and just recently found again about a 16 year of white girl who swears up and down that she's actually Japanese. She's a "Japanese woman trapped in a western tainted body"

I don’t want to be transethnic; this isn’t a choice.I didn’t wake up one morning and say “I want to be Japanese!”

I am very excited to renounce the American citizenship that’s been hanging over my head and threatening my happiness.

Have I ever been to Japan? Every single day in my head.
I had developed enough self-confidence in myself because of anime to believe I deserve to belong to such a perfect place.
I was a depressed child who hated America and had no hope because of the meat industry.
thank the kamisama

source: http://www.reddit.com/r/weeabootales/comments/20ujjb/i_am_finally_going_to_come_out_as_a_transethnic/

This is the kind of shit that makes me cringe so hard that it makes me not even want to be associated with a lot of the things that I like. Just taking a step back from the fact that I am interested in similar things and taking this from a completely objective stand point, this makes absolutely no sense what so ever.

First off, her reasoning behind the things she says are so ignorant and blindly ethnocentric, it's disgusting. Second, she has no basis for anything she is saying other than made up "facts" that are all misguided at best. And finally, she clearly has a case of blatant over glorification of a place she has never been to or probably so much as seen outside of pictures and fictitious animations that are very rarely accurate. Just like a lot of the comments there in that thread say, it's just another place. It's really not that serious.

This is the only real example I know of off the bat, though I'm sure there's more. I know this girl's tumblr is no longer available, as to the reason I don't know. She probably got trolled into oblivion and took it down, lol.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBZ4kJEFSiA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBZ4kJEFSiA</a>

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDtPtXXHj5I" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDtPtXXHj5I</a>

[Hazard Time]

And here I am, a brony, thinking that my fandom was the sole-producer of spaghetti nowadays...

That does seem very insulting to actual Japanese people who are having their country generalized as a sort of Neverland by foreigners who have no right to be dissatisfied with their lives.  At least with transgender people it seems somewhat natural (Their sexual identity does not equate to their gender.).  Perhaps the one thing that set off the most alarms in my head was her infamous statement, "Have I ever been to Japan?  Every day in my head."  That statement right there sums up everything that is wrong with her argument.  She has no idea what being Japanese means other than what she has seen and heard in anime, manga, and/or her culture classes (Assuming she took any).  She reminds me of the european immigrants from the early-1900's who came to America thinking that the streets were paved in gold, only they at least were fleeing from actual persecution back home.

Finally, I'm pretty sure that "officially renouncing your American citizenship" requires a bit more than a simple verbal statement.

[[CA] KiwieeEh]

Inclined to agree.

There's no way you can proclaim yourself as a mother nationality or culture group simply because you like the style and act like it.
I feel that the easiest way to discuss this is to use my Canadian emigration as an example.

I like Canada. I have always liked it when I have been here and haven't. I love the country, most of the people I've met, I like statua, I like the god damn geographical location of it (Timezones man) and I would eat poutine and maple ribs until the end of time (lol stereotypes)

Anyway, this has driven me in recent years to decide to emigrate to Canada. Huzzah it's in the works. I have had to do research and the like but I found that I do also have close relatives in Canada, one of my grandparents. This combined with my education and being part of the commonwealth has made the application for a Canadian passport relatively simple, which is a nice thing to accomplish.

But, did I ever consider myself Canadian before I had an official document?
No, and even now I don't consider myself one, I see myself more like a hermit.

I just don't see how people will proclaim themselves as being of a different nationality or culture group simply because they like it.
I didn't become Canadian when I realised that I liked maple syrup, so how can you "become" or decide you are Hispanic if you like their culture.

You are what others class you as, an over sympathetic and overbearing tourist engaging in any and all culture possible to try and convince yourself and others that you, by engaging in their tradition, are somehow one.

Welp.

Edit for Lulz:

To address the largest "target market" for self proclaimed transethnics;

[tics]

I have to agree.  For example, I for one am really interested in Russian culture.  A lot of the customs strike a chord with me and I can see myself passing off as one if I ever went over there.  Also, my mother's mother's parents were Russian.  Still, does that make me Russian?

No.

Was I born in Russia?  Was I raised on Russian culture?  Did I grow up speaking the language, eating the food, and celebrating the holidays?

No.

If someone asked me for my ethnicity, I would give them Jewish and American because those are the cultures that I grew up with.  On another unrelated note, there's also the talk of the people who are 1/16 native american who claim that that drop of native blood makes them a native as well.  While that may have been widely considered true a century ago, I don't believe it.  If everyone in your immediate family is white, you're not a native american.

Yes, that does make you ethnically Russian. Ethnicity is an accepted characteristic of human beings. Transethnics are people who believe that they rightfully belong to an ethnicity that they simply do not belong to. It would be like if I, a person of mainly Polish descent and third generation American, claimed that I truly belonged to Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. I simply have no ethnic and familial history to justify a claim on being "Anglo-Saxon."

In a similar fashion, I think there is a problem with people who harp too much on parts of their ethnicity that do not influence my life. Along side my Polish ethnicity, I have Irish ethnicity, too. My last name is Irish, as well. Nevertheless, my family on both sides has adopted the cultural traditions of the dominant Polish heritage that we share. Since my Irish ethnicity has never had any particular consequence on my life, it would be silly to care much about that part of my heritage.

[Hazard Time]

Yes, that does make you ethnically Russian. Ethnicity is an accepted characteristic of human beings. Transethnics are people who believe that they rightfully belong to an ethnicity that they simply do not belong to. It would be like if I, a person of mainly Polish descent and third generation American, claimed that I truly belonged to Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. I simply have no ethnic and familial history to justify a claim on being "Anglo-Saxon."

In a similar fashion, I think there is a problem with people who harp too much on parts of their ethnicity that do not influence my life. Along side my Polish ethnicity, I have Irish ethnicity, too. My last name is Irish, as well. Nevertheless, my family on both sides has adopted the cultural traditions of the dominant Polish heritage that we share. Since my Irish ethnicity has never had any particular consequence on my life, it would be silly to care much about that part of my heritage.

I'll concede that, but I still wouldn't name "Russian" as my primary ethnicity.  If I had to say what percentage ethnicity I am, I'd say that I'm about 50% German, 25% Russian, and 25% Hungarian.  Still, at the very least, I am a third-generation native-born American, so I personally find it a little hard to claim that I'm Russian when I have never been to Russia and really only started learning about the language and culture two years ago.

[tics]

Yes, that does make you ethnically Russian. Ethnicity is an accepted characteristic of human beings. Transethnics are people who believe that they rightfully belong to an ethnicity that they simply do not belong to. It would be like if I, a person of mainly Polish descent and third generation American, claimed that I truly belonged to Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. I simply have no ethnic and familial history to justify a claim on being "Anglo-Saxon."

In a similar fashion, I think there is a problem with people who harp too much on parts of their ethnicity that do not influence my life. Along side my Polish ethnicity, I have Irish ethnicity, too. My last name is Irish, as well. Nevertheless, my family on both sides has adopted the cultural traditions of the dominant Polish heritage that we share. Since my Irish ethnicity has never had any particular consequence on my life, it would be silly to care much about that part of my heritage.

I'll concede that, but I still wouldn't name "Russian" as my primary ethnicity.  If I had to say what percentage ethnicity I am, I'd say that I'm about 50% German, 25% Russian, and 25% Hungarian.  Still, at the very least, I am a third-generation native-born American, so I personally find it a little hard to claim that I'm Russian when I have never been to Russia and really only started learning about the language and culture two years ago.

The percentages for ethnicity are not guessed. For each native-born Russian parent, you would be 50% Russian. 25% for each native-born grandparent. 12.5% for each native-born great-grandparent. So, for example, I am at least 25% ethnically Polish, since both of my maternal great-grandparents were native-born Poles, and I do not have the genealogical information to correctly calculate the paternal percentage.

[Hazard Time]

The percentages for ethnicity are not guessed. For each native-born Russian parent, you would be 50% Russian. 25% for each native-born grandparent. 12.5% for each native-born great-grandparent. So, for example, I am at least 25% ethnically Polish, since both of my maternal great-grandparents were native-born Poles, and I do not have the genealogical information to correctly calculate the paternal percentage.

I was wondering how people calculated that...I guess that makes me at least 18.75% German and Russian, respectively.  Correction: at least 25% German and 37.5% Russian.

Anyway, we're starting to go on a tangent, so let's get back to whether or not trans-ethnicity is bullshit or not.

I believe that these are just hormonal teenagers who feel that nobody understands them and are trying to paint themselves as prisoners of society.