So while pretty much nobody asking "how is this different from being trans" re: Jessica whatsername is acting in good faith, some important info:

Transracial is a term that exists. It just doesn't mean what Dolezals want you to think it means.

Transracial refers to, at its most narrowly, non-white adoptees of white families, or adoptees of one race adopted by another (the second is less common). There's a unique racial experience involved with being a non-white child of a white family.

I don't identify as transracial because I'm not adopted. HOWEVER, as a significantly Less white-passing child of two white-passing parents, it's a term I'm very protective of.

And while I'd have to hear from transracial adoptees on this one, I'd be interested in a version of the term used by people who - generally - differ in racial makeup from their parents to sometimes alarming effect. See: mestizx families, mixed-race families, half-children...

There is no similarity between somebody Dressing Up as Black Latinx when they're not, and somebody who is transgender. There *is* similarity between somebody who is not entirely sure what race they are, because they've been raised one way and treated or "feel" another.

This similarity hinges on one of the less talked about parts of being trans; that you're generally treated as the gender you are long before you realize it. I was not, primarily, treated as a girl. I was treated as Some Variation Of Tomboy.

Still dealt with misogyny! But I wasn't really treated as /female/. @maidensblade has threaded very eloquently on how this is even more prominent and important when talking about trans women - "closeted trans woman socialization" i believe is the term used?

So when it comes to transracial adoptees - and otherwise "racialized kids of white families", you're raised to act and believe that you're white, and then treated and "socialized" as if you're not. The clash is jarring, at best.

In my case, I was subject to antisemitic, anti-Black and anti-Rromani jokes LONG before I had any inkling that I was anything other than white. So I perpetuated white supremacy while also being subject to and targeted by it.

Of course, gender and race also function differently anyway! But enough people who are trans are othered long before coming out that it's actually not a terrible comparison.... if you're coming at it from a perspective that actually understand transness.

Race is imposed and gender is internal. In a simplistic fashion. But every time a racefaker gets outed, it hits a very specific community INCREDIBLY hard, and that's actual transracial people who are already dealing with immense amounts of impostor syndrome.

As far as transracial+ people go, I'm exceeding lucky. I pass, kind of. Enough that people mostly just kind of think i'm Spicy White or Italian, if I wear the right makeup and the right clothing and am careful with my accent. (A deaf accent, ironically enough.)

But some transracial adoptees are Black. Like, darkskinned Black. Or otherwise BLATANTLY not white. And that's where the disconnect can get bad enough to end up with dysmorphia or other issues. And that's without the cultural or linguistic separation that happens.

Racefakers are not like trans people. Racefakers are like those cis women who pretend they're trans women because they think trans women have more clout, or that awful main character from the Adam movie.

Transracial+ people (as in, transracial adoptees and other people who identify with that reconnection struggle but aren't adoptees) are the closest equivalent to trans people... and still have to account for the imposed, external nature of race versus gender.

(For ex., I know I'm a boy and therefore, I'm a boy. The perceptions of others were more of a post-hoc "shit this has always been a thing!" But figuring out that I was Not Actually White was hinged on those perceptions - because race doesn't exist outside of perception.)

I also want to point out that while transracial is a term that i think all non-white adoptees of white families /can/ use, it ends up Being used in cases where the white families prioritized color-blindness and assimilation. Don't lie to your kids about race! It doesn't work!

If you're white and going to adopt kids of colour - which I kind of advise against anyway given the INCREDIBLY fraught institutional history working against your personal ethics - Don't. Pretend. They're. White.