Being Transrace Japanese

The topic of being transrace keeps coming up on stream, and I keep saying I'm going to write something about it, so fuck it here we are.

You may or may not know that I am transrace. I talk about it a lot, yes, but I talk about MAP stuff more. Why? Just because most radqueer communities tend to lean heavily towards MAP subjects, but what you may not know is that, before I knew I was a MAP and joined MAP communities, I figured out I was transrace and joined transrace communities.

Before we go any further, let's define some things. If you're older, or just a MAP, or someone outside of the radqueer bubble, you may not know what being "transrace" is. It is what it sounds like, identifying as a race differing from your biological ethnicity or ancestry. If you're familiar with transgender people, then it's like being transgender but for race instead. A lot of the community has historically used the term "transracial", but since transracial adoptees were already using this term a lot of transrace people started using alternative terms instead, the most simple being transrace. 

So, yes, I am transrace, and have been identifying as such shortly before identifying as a MAP as well. Before joining MAP communities I actually joined transrace subreddits and discords, administrating spaces for other transrace people to get together. Places like r/Transracial are where I met a lot of the radqueers I still talk to today. At the time none of us were radqueer, but as we learned more about it we opened up our minds and realized we weren't separated from it.

I am transrace Japanese (or transjapanese) to be specific. I started questioning so when I was 14 or so, the same time I started questioning my gender and sexuality. One of my first experiences with race dysphoria was hating how dark my skin was. To be fair, my skin isn't quite that dark, but my self image pictures my skin as being very light, to the point where I've questioned if I'm transalbino. The point is, this was a dysphoria that I was starting to experience, and I wondered "if people can identify as other genders, can people identify as other races too?"

That question stayed in my mind, and it did for years. Every so often when I was feeling dysphoric I'd think about it again. At that point I knew I was transgender, so now the idea of being trans something else was even more curious, especially since I'd never heard of the topic coming up in queer spaces. For all I knew, I was alone.

But I wasn't alone, and eventually I found that out. The question finally left my mind, and entered a search box: "transracial." I had quickly discovered that, no, I was not alone. There were other people with the same experiences. People who hated who they were born as and wanted to be someone else. It took me a while, but I eventually made the leap and joined these communities. I made friends there, learned about others' experiences, and learned that there were also people who identified as "transage."

Years before I had learned about therianthropy and otherkinity; questioning MAP stuff at the time I was exploring MAP communities, and now I was learning about all these different types of identities. Slowly it was all coming together. Before long I would officially find the radqueer community and discover that there were a lot of people with diverse orientations and identities. A lot had decided to distance themselves from each other, thinking they should stand on their own and that the others were the ones who really should be frowned down upon in society. But a lot of people also saw what I did, people from all walks of life who were all queer, but for whom society told them they weren't.

That's where I am today, building up that whole community, but once upon a time I was just exploring the edges of it. I'm in deep now, but it's important to step back from the whole and look at its parts now and then, which is what I want to do today. I want to talk about my experiences being transrace, in order to educate those who aren't transrace, to help people who are questioning, and to share who I am with the world.

As mentioned, I am transrace Japanese. I am not biologically Japanese, nor do I have any Japanese ancestry. I am a bit sensitive about my biological ethnicity and ancestry for dysphoria reasons, so I will not touch on that here, all you need to know is that I'm Japanese, and unlike what antis would have you think, no I'm not just some white weeb (not that there's any issue with being white and a weeb.) 

My main points of dysphoria are my skin color, eye shape, and facial hair pattern. The latter I never hear anyone talk about. As mentioned, I want to be as pale as realistically possible, I want monolids and more "Asian looking" eyes, and I ideally want no facial hair, but the way my facial hair is is very typical of my biological ethnicity. Japanese people are obviously not all the same, as no people of a race are all alike, but, like every race, there are characteristics shared due to evolution, such as skin tone and facial structure, and those contribute to how I want to look.

It's more than just looks though, I also want to be a part of Japanese culture. I long to know what life is like in Japan, to partake in its media culture, to have Japanese foods, to know Japanese people, etc. 

The stereotype is that transjapanese people are people who watched too much anime and became weebs and started to identify as Japanese, but for me (and many others, I presume) it is much the opposite. I actually never really liked anime before, or shows at all for that matter. But after becoming more comfortable with my identity and starting to watch shows more, anime became a way to affirm my identity. Not only that, but Japanese video games as well. I've always liked Japanese music, especially city pop. My exposure to that genre is actually part of what made me seriously consider being transrace. I daydreamed about the idea of moving to Japan, changing my name, becoming one with the population there, and becoming a musician. A silly dream now, but that is obviously something one does not even consider if they aren't transrace.

Other ways I affirm my identity are eating Japanese foods (which is a sliding scale cuz obviously international food in America is gonna be hit and miss), wearing Japanese clothes, studying Japanese culture and history, and going to Japanese adjacent places such as import stores. I would like to learn the language someday, and I predict that that would be extremely affirming to my identity, but alas, learning a language is hard. Someday I will, perhaps it might even make a good stream topic.

A part of my identity that I have more complicated feelings on is how I am attracted to Japanese people; I tend to find Japanese girls to be more attractive than any other race. Some might call this fetishization, but much like other forms of attraction it is something I did not choose, and inherently harms no one. 

There is some overlap between being transrace and transage. I don't talk about it a lot but I am transage 16. I have a longing for the school life I left behind when I became an adult, and there is some amount of school culture in Japan through things like school uniforms, kogal subculture, etc. In addition to this I also have a school uniform kink, and as a lifestyle choice (not necessarily a sexual one) I like to wear schoolgirl-esque outfits (oddly enough I'm not a fan of the seifuku; I prefer blazer schoolgirl outfits, or even just skirt + white button up shirt.) I find a lot of joy in playing games or watching anime that take place in schools, wishing I could be one of the students. 

My identity is something I have been learning more about over time. In ways I think it has changed, but in other ways I think it's always been like that and I just needed time to find out. Nearly 10 years ago I was just dysphoric and wishing I could live a life in Japan, now I have pride in being transrace, I eat Japanese food, I play Japanese games, and I have people who support me.

My wife is radqueer too, and while it may or may not be transrace, it fully accepts and supports my identity. It makes it happy when I find new ways to affirm my race and feel euphoric. I am out to all my friends as transrace. I'm not quite "out" to everyone else in my life, but they know my name and could look me up and find out if they wanted to. 

Coming out is hard. I've done it with everyone I really care about; if I want to be friends with someone then I want our relationship to be built on trust, and trust requires honesty. Some people react worse than others, but the ones that do are the ones that shouldn't be in my life at all. I won't make time anymore for fake friends who won't accept me. That being said, more people would accept it than you think. When I came out to my ex-girlfriend at the time, she had never heard of transrace before (or anything radqueer for that matter), so she was excited to be learning something new and supporting her girlfriend. Unfortunately I was not so lucky with my best friend at the time, who had heard about transrace people already and formed a less than favorable opinion.

I am very glad to have found the transrace community all those years ago, if I never had I never would've found all this. Back then I never thought I'd meet anyone like me in-person, but before that I didn't think there was anyone like me at all. If you had told me back then that I'd be forming in-person communities and helping transrace people (among other radqueers) meet each other I'd have told you you were crazy. But it's true. I held onto hope and it brought me to a better place, a place I hope to help others go. But that is a place you can only find if you start to wander; staying still and hiding will lead you nowhere.

Thank you for reading my post about being transrace! I hope this was informative to both transrace and cisrace people out there about what one person's experiences can look like identifying as another race. It should go without saying but my experiences don't represent the community as a whole, and no two people are going to experience their identity in the same way. Everyone is different, and the spectrum of race is a wide one with lots of overlap. 

Stay safe, love yourself, and keep being radical.

- Ally K <3