The Tumblr Teens Convinced They Were Born the Wrong Species, Sex, and Even Race

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{snip} Perhaps the most disquieting of these people are those who claim to be trans-ethnic or trans-cultural.

Trans-ethnics believe that they were born into the wrong race. Interestingly, it only seems to be caucasians who suffer from this particular affliction; black teens seem happier as they are. Indeed, caucasians represent an overwhelming proportion of all these trans groups.

But a growing number of young white teens, predominantly girls, are using words such as “transnigger” to describe themselves, to the bafflement and occasional fury of black people. {snip}

It never seems to be the literal physical attributes of another race or any perceived advantage of belonging to another ethnicity that drives people to declare that they’re “not white in the head.” Rather, trans-ethnic people seem more consumed with assimilating what they feel to be the oppressed aspects of that race–for example, demanding special privileges because their “authentic” black self.

The tragicomic result, which we have seen played out on Tumblr and Twitter in our research, is white middle-class American girls demanding time off from college examinations to deal with the trauma of black shootings. Sometimes, shockingly, they even invoke slavery, which would appear to be the point at which trans-racialism overtakes species dysphoria as a serious psychiatric problem, at the level of clinical lycanthropy.

Others don’t go to the length of claiming they are of another race to demand the privileges and associations of alternate cultures. They simply claim to be “trans-cultural”–i.e., they look white, they are white, but really feel they ought to have been born as, say, a Romany traveller because of the “deep spiritual connection” they feel with supposed gypsy culture.

Modern online identity for teens who grew up with Tumblr and Twitter is a shopping basket into which they throw identity labels to concoct their own “unique” personality: a bit of black, a bit of genderfluid, a bit of “autism” (Millennials have cottoned on to the fact that they can excuse all manner of personal failings with that one). Not only can lonely individuals mark themselves out as special snowflakes but also invoke their own particular mix of underprivilege to combat criticism and ridicule from others.

Two characteristics of otherkin, transniggers and transromany, though, are, firstly, how much their identities seem to change over time–perhaps to suit their current lines of reasoning or prevailing fashions. Witness the explosion of young people describing themselves as some form of transsexual, or invoking gender fluidity in their social media profiles, since Laverne Cox appeared on the front cover of TIME.

Young people have always imitated the latest thing as a way of drawing attention to themselves, but never before has society been so completely defined by identity politics, and never before has a consumerist wonderland of alternative racial, cultural, sexual–to say nothing of interspecies–identities been readily Googleable.

Young people know that in an era where sentences beginning “Speaking as . . .” confer valuable social cachet, they had better start acquiring some oppressed characteristics before expressing their opinions in public. (Most of these conditions coincide with extreme forms of narcissism, pathological lying and sociopathic tendencies. Draw from that what you will.)

Our second observations is how often these identities seem to emerge at opportune times, which perhaps suggests that much of this phenomenon is not really mental disorder at all but is merely staged for attention and leveraged as conversational weaponry, further clouding the question of inescapable psychological dysfunction and giving rise to suspicions akin to our opening gibe about gluten intolerance.

For instance, consider the blogger Charles Clymer, who got into trouble recently with feminists for some perceived infraction of the third-wave rule book, and then abruptly came out as “genderfluid”–right when he needed an out from the brewing storm. (You might have thought genderfluid was something that came out just before the baby, but apparently not.)

And then there are the numerous self-described transsexuals whose personal disclosures and “art projects” always seem to be accompanied by requests for money–and, of course, healthy dollops of online drama, played out on social media and in forums, YouTube comment sections and message-boards. Patterns are emerging that are impossible to deny.

It’s also hard to escape the conclusion that there may be a continuum between some sorts of “gender fluidity” and the rapidly expanding racial, cultural and species confusion, deeply entwined with sexuality and self-identification, of young people today. Which begs the absurd but inevitable question: how long before otherkin are demanding operations from the taxpayer to make them look more like wolves?

That might sound like an absurd–even an offensive–thing to ask. But imagine what you’d have said just ten years ago about transsexuals, and fifty years ago about gays, and you quickly realise that, at some point, society is going to have to draw a line.