Against 'Transracialism': Revisiting the Debate (2025)

Thinking through Rejections and Defenses of Transracialism

Philosophy Today, 2018

This article explores several philosophical questions raised by Rebecca Tuvel's controversial article, "In Defense of Transracialism. " Drawing upon work on the concept of bad faith, including its form as "disciplinary decadence, " this discussion raises concerns of constructivity and its implications and differences in intersections of race and gender.

“To be or not to be?” - an essay about the debate that emerged from the opposition of Rebecca Tuvel's article and it’s examination regarding the concept of humanity

2018

Transracialism and White Allyship

Philosophy Today, 2018

My reading of Tuvel's defense of transracialism focuses on her critiques of three main objections to a transracial identity. Tuvel attempts to show how her defense of transracialism stands in the face of these objections. However, I argue that her position is not sufficiently immune to them. In other words, my response delineates the ways in which all three objections remain, and effectively undermine her argument in favor of transracial identities. Additionally, through the question of white allyship, I ask about the moral and political consequences of choosing to identify as transracial. I show that, without a clear account of what an existential choice of racial transitioning implies for allyship across race, Tuvel does not sufficiently establish the differences between the historical constitutions of racialized and sexualized identities. In failing to engage with these moral/political implications, Tuvel's position does not address the complex relationship between individual agency and collective accountability.

The Benefits and Burdens of Engaging in Argumentation: Trans*feminist Reflections on Tuvel's "In Defense of Transracialism"

Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, 2018

After considering some ways of assessing argumentation, I present an ethical assessment of Tuvel’s argument in her article “In Defense ofTransracialism.” My claim is that some transgender women engaging with Tuvel are exposed to certain kinds of injustice associated with argumentational work, namely, disproportionate burdens and risk of psychological harm.

From Black Transgender Studies to Colin Dayan: Notes on Methodology Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley and Matt Richardson

Small Axe , 2014

Kováts, Eszter (2019) “Not A Thing?” Rogers Brubaker’s Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities and Its Relevance for Central and Eastern Europe. In: Identities, Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture. Vol. 16, No. 1 2 (Summer Winter 2019) pp. 124-130.

In my book review I analyzed Brubaker's volume on the transgender/transracial controversy and its relevance in the CEE region. As well-known, the Dolezal-Jenner issue in 2015 (can Bruce Jenner identify and be celebrated as Caitlyn Jenner whereas Rachel Dolezal's claim to be black is to be condemned?) stirred some heated debate in the US, and then through Rebecca Tuvel's philosophical article in 2017 also in the academia transnationally. I tried to set out why this debate and more broadly the gender debates of the English speaking countries should be read together with the right-wing contestations of "gender" and "gender ideology" (known as "anti-gender mobilizations").

Can the Trans Body Speak? On (Post)Normativity and (Anti) Blackness in Trans Studies

South Atlantic Review , 2022

White Supremacy and Patriarchal Cisgenderism in US Nation-Building and Resistance by Transgender and Non-Binary People of Colour

2018

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Radicals play magic tricks with gender, race and biology

Ni patrie ni frontières, 2019

Comment on Rogers Brubaker and Matías Fernández 'Cross-Domain Comparison and the Politics of Difference' for British Journal of Sociology

British Journal of Sociology , 2019

Before she was famous as a transgender reality star, Caitlyn Jenner had been an Olympian who epitomized masculinity in the 1980s on the cover of Wheaties cereal boxes. Laverne Cox from the television show Orange Is the New Black has been a spokesperson for issues in the transgender community. When black-identified Rachel Doležal leader of a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was outed as white, she both confused and angered many Americans, especially African Americans. In this ‘transgender’ moment, the media asked whether Doležal was the embod- iment of ‘transracial’, a term already used in the cross-racial adoption commu- nity. Although Doležal never used the term ‘transracial’ to identify herself, the media posed the obvious question: was it possible to be born white and become black the same way it was possible to be born male and become female? It is into this context that Brubaker and Fernández have inserted their piece, ‘Cross-Domain Comparison and the Politics of Difference (current issue)’. Brubaker has built his career encouraging social scientists, especially comparative historical and ethnicity and nationalism scholars, to unpack the essentialized categories they use in their research. In this paper, the authors seize on this period of ‘unsettled identities’ to call on comparative scholars to question predefined entities of analysis such as gender and race....