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I don't know if every transgender person claims to have inner experiences similar to those of the opposite sex, but "I feel happier and more fulfilled when I'm presenting as a woman because I like the way people treat me" strikes me as the kind of sentiment many trans women would say accurately describes their inner lives. If a big motivation for transitioning (or even just "passing") is the social component, why is this desire legitimate in the case of transgender people but illegitimate in the case of transracial people? Why is "I like the way people treat me when I present as a woman, even though I'm male" a perfectly legitimate desire to hold, but "I like the way people treat me when I present as black, even though I'm white" offensive and wrongheaded?
All of this is further complicated by the fact that, while taking hormones and undergoing surgery will change a trans person's inner experiences to be more similar to those of a member of the opposite sex, many trans people never take hormones or undergo surgery, and the suggestion that trans people who don't medically transition aren't really trans is widely seen as an offensive form of gatekeeping in trans activist circles ("truscum" is the preferred term). For many trans people, the extent of their transition is social: they have no interest in changing their bodies in order to change their inner qualia, changing the way people treat them is good though for them. Once again, I ask why this preference is legitimate in the case of gender, but illegitimate in the case of race.
You could say the exact same thing about male sex offenders who suddenly "discover" an internally felt female gender identity upon conviction. If the existence of a few transracial grifters cynically claiming to be a different race for personal gain invalidates transracial as an identity, precisely the same argument applies to transgender. For what it's worth, Freddie himself doesn't go this far, acknowledging that he thinks there's something "tragic and wounded" about Rachel Dolezal.
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