Why would libertarians care about this topic especially ?
Because it shows what happens when the world treats identity like an official category that needs to be sorted and approved. If someone can claim an identity that doesn’t match their birth background, it forces people to ask who gets to decide what “counts.” From my libertarian view, the minute government and large institutions start tying status, jobs, or benefits to identity labels, you’re basically inviting fights over paperwork and “authenticity” instead of leaving people alone to live their lives.
A lot of libertarians also see this as a consistency test. If society is moving toward the idea that self-identification matters a lot in one area, it’s not crazy that someone will push that logic into another area.
Adults should have broad freedom to define themselves and present themselves how they want, as long as they aren’t using government power to force everyone else to play along. The state is clumsy, political, and usually wrong about anything this personal.
The main point is: don’t hand the government more authority over identity, and don’t build systems that make identity claims a ticket to special treatment in the first place.
And on a personal note, I find it pretty ironic that Lemmy seems pro diversity and pro labels only when they fit into a list of “approved” identities. The hate and DMs I’ve gotten here, just because transracial is not widely accepted yet, make it hard to believe this is really about inclusion for a lot of people. It feels more like some users are copying whatever their corner of left leaning culture says is acceptable, instead of acting from any consistent values.
I have had people on this platform tell me to kill myself. Whatever someone thinks about transracial, that kind of response is not inclusive. It is just cruelty.
But if you go look up some articles that argue for/against transracialism to be accepted, you’ll see that we are facing the exact same arguments and hate that transgender people faced (and often times still face), before it became more widely accepted.
Rebecca Tuvel, In Defense Of Transracialism - https://philarchive.org/archive/TUVIDO
Lewis R. Gordon, Racialization And Human Reality - https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/racialization-and-human-reality
Spencer Case, The Limits Of Identity: Running Tuvel’s Argument The Other Way - https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/2/2/205
I like her and I think she gets treated unfairly. Shouldn’t people be able to identify as whatever they want, and I don’t think it’s fair she catches so much grief for it.
Why is it ok for one claim, and not the other? If Lemmy calls her a “race faker” then aren’t there people who are “gender fakers?” (I don’t agree with either take, by the way)
She once told Vanity Fair, “If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m Black, and there’s a difference in those terms.”
It’s one thing to claim to identify and feel more comfortable with black culture, but another thing entirely to claim to be black. One is a legitimate choice, the other is fraud, to say nothing of the fact that it is disrespectful to people whose race has had to overcome a lot of inequities and atrocities, only for her, who descends from those caused those atrocities, to fraudulently adopt that legacy as her own.
I’ve known people like her before, maybe not as extreme or notorious, but they glom onto black culture because they think it’s cool. In reality, they are racists who recognize it, and are uncomfortable with it, so they go way to far in overcompensating for it.
