I’m on my way to a symposium on ‘trans race’ at which Rebecca Tuvel is speaking. Needless to say I am concerned but also feel I should go and check out what this is all about. Report later

Adam Hochman opens by noting that ‘trans race’ is controversial and risky for POC and transgender ppl

But if we don’t examine trans race there’s a risk we accept race as a biological category and ignore the fact that it has always been open to fluidity. I’ll use the hashtag #transraceconf to make clear this is reportage not my views

Does trans race stand up to scrutiny or is it a new way to talk about passing? #transraceconf

Ann Morning starts her keynote by mentioning a conference on racial passing at Vassar college whose 1st Black alumna passed as White until she was outed by her roommate: Anita Hemmings #transraceconf

The question of trans race is met with derision while passing is seen as a serious concept for study - Ann Morning #transraceconf

The question posed by Ann Morning #transraceconf

Passing is considered dishonest bc there’s a general belief that an individual’s race is objective and can be discerned by others #transraceconf

But transrace is seen as a challenge to social authority #transraceconf

Passing has taken on a benign connotation while trans race is seen as highly negative - Eg Dolezal was made radioactive. Academics such as Morning white wrote about the case were seen as defenders and seen as untouchable also #transraceconf

Almost 10 m ppl in the US changed their racial identity on the census in recent years and that has never garnered the same outrage #transraceconf

Morning is comparing passing to transrace and her contention is that passing is heroic (eg case of Harriet the movie). But passing is about survival but transrace clearly isn’t in my view #transraceconf

Passing was negatively perceived pre civil rights bc it undermined racial segregation. In late 20th C, the passer is seen as a fighter against injustice

White Americans are no longer outraged by racial passing but now the anger is focused on transracial ppl. There’s no moral justification for transracialism

Transracialism is seen as narrowly self interest. Dolezal is seen as looking for media attention even though she didn’t seek attention herself.

Most of the outrage about Dolezal comes from white Americans in the main who think she’s manipulating what they see as the unjust affirmative action system - this is an interesting point imo #transraceconf

Anyone who takes on a transracial identity is seen as negating a taken for granted racial order.

Traditionally passing was from Black to white or approximately to Mexican or Indian etc - anything but blackness. But today ppl want to exit whiteness and that’s seen as exercising white privilege bc not everyone can do that.

With the advent of cosmetic surgery we’ll be grappling with many more transracial shifts in different directions

‘Racial alchemy’ - an old facet of racial science

Morning remarks that it is problematic that ppl still believe that there are real racial identities. She cites Rogers Brubaker who shows how belief in racial essentialism are as prevalent on the left as on the right

Will Dolezal be seen as a figure of emancipation in the future?? #transraceconf

Now Adam Hochman is presenting on why he thinks transracialism doesn’t exist - because race doesn’t exist #transraceconf

Rogers Brubaker - 3 versions of trans: migration, in between and beyond

All three versions exist in relation to race but we don’t have to use them to describe identity

Adam Hochman describes some jazz musicians who passed as Black historically, one Jewish and one Greek

But these ppl have been understood as misrecognised rather than as to have transitioned between races

Hochman is using homosexuality analogously with race but I’m not convinced that’s helpful if we accept that race is not identity but can become identity but only under conditions established by race as a technology of power #transraceconf

What matters is a history of racialisation rather than how society perceives what ‘race’ a person belongs to

Dolezal is not a candidate for transracialism because she’s an anti race realist. She said ‘race is a fiction’. She prefers the label ‘Trans Black woman’. This reveals the ambiguity of race

Hochman compares Dolezal to a squatter who has been evicted from blackness. But again an unhelpful analogy bc in the real world outside of philosophical musings, Black ppl v often cannot rent or buy home!!

He concludes by saying we don’t need to racialise anyone for social justice purposes

Now Camille Gear Rich is speaking #transraceconf

Transrace evokes concern bc it disturbs the order. For others it’s euphoric -finally I can move as I wish.

Gear-Rich uses racial formation theory to understand transrace: it’s just one way of how race works. The most important point is the note oxygen we give Transrace the more importance it will have. So we need to think seriously about what we want it to do

2015: both Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal happened at the same time.

Dolezal was involved in Black politics which complexifies her identification- it’s not just about individual expression

Transrace emerges at a time when the postracial was seen to have failed. One of the reasons the Postracial failed is bc of racial pleasure and the role of the market in constructing racial pleasure

Transrace has very conservative ramifications. It implies you can journey to another race which is static

There’s no analogy with passing because there’s nothing voluntary about passing. How many ppl are moving between racial categories because of racism and lack of economic opportunities. This gets lost in focus on Dolezal et al. Real experience of transracial families also ignored

Race is not about choice either in the past or present

As soon as you talk about racial disphoria and imply a role for medical intervention. Is this what we want??

DNA testing is a gateway for an industry for white people to ethnicise themselves and become more ‘interesting’

Now Yves Aquino on Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery #transraceconf

Now @BindiBennett talking about transrace about ‘is it a thing for Aboriginal people’. It’s not bc of the ‘Aboriginal elephant in the room’ - the fact that many Aboriginal ppl have light skin due to forced assimilation #transraceconf

You cannot be a transracial Aboriginal person. There are lots of white ppl who call themselves Aboriginal but they haven’t been shamed like Dolezal

@BindiBennett makes the important point that if Aboriginal people are not in the room they get talked about anyway so it’s important for her to be here #transraceconf

@BindiBennett says she’s going to start charging white people for use of the words like yarn and mob. White people ‘take tokens and the lives of other people’. Transracial ppl don’t stay in Aboriginal communities bc they don’t find what they’re looking for: transcendence

@BindiBennett remarks that no one in her family is over 70!

You can’t be Aboriginal without the history of trauma and dispossession that all Aboriginal ppl have. ‘You can trans all you like but it won’t fill the hole in your soul!’

I had to get slightly upset bc the question came from a migrant that thin white identity in Australia is a good thing bc it allows Aus to be reshaped into a just liberal democracy. I’m like not while we’re all living on colonised land!

I’ve left now. Can’t stay for the Tuvel talk but my overriding problem is that you cannot talk about race as an abstract concept. It leads to analogies that just don’t work. Not just with transgender, the most obvious, but participants invoked all kinds of analogies

which for me ended up signaling pretty clearly that the philosophers of race aren’t v interested in real life circumstances and how oppression and colonisation work in the everyday