If a man identifies as a woman, that initially seems like it defies reality, because they are a male, not a female. But advocates of transgenderism have said that gender and sex are not the same thing. Gender is neurological, and sex is biological. And because of that, people have said that the state of your gender is independent of your sex. If it's a different thing, then it's not defying reality to say your gender is different from your sex.
But if you ask most of these people if people should be able to change their skin color, most of them would say no. Some might even go as far as to say that that's racist. But why? After all, you can separate neurological and biological race the same way you can separate gender and sex. If we apply the exact same rules, then a white person who identifies as black is not "denying reality," because their neurological race is independent of their biological race.
And since transgender people are allowed to permanently change their bodies with surgery in order to align their physical form with their gender as much as possible, at least when they're 18, then "transrace" individuals should be able to do the same: tattoo their body all over with the skin color they want.
But in terms of neurological race, how exactly can you "feel" black? Well, the same way you can "feel" female: cultural norms that firmly establish specific ideas with specific genders. Thus, gender becomes apart of our identity. Without this, you become like trees, which do have male and female, but you cannot possibly tell the difference and you don't feel the difference. And yet, race also has cultural norms that firmly establish specific ideas to specific races. It's called culture. There's black culture, white culture, Mexican culture, Japanese culture, etc. So a person can in fact "feel black" even if they are white.
As you can see, the exact same rules can absolutely apply to race, which is troubling for some advocates of transgenderism, because they don't want that, but they do still want transgenderism. The only differences that gender has with race are irrelevant things that do not break the foundation of pro-transracism, such as the strength differences between sexes vs the lack of strength differences between races.
Conclusion: Transgenderism and transracism are approved by the same logic. Therefore, if transgenderism is allowed, transracism should be too.
One could support transgenderism but oppose transracialism based on a cost-benefit analysis. Let's suppose that in each case, allowing people to identify as they wish will make those people happier but cause some amount of social friction and offense. The difference is that society has already normalized transgender identity to a large enough extent that a lot of people are going to view themselves as transgender no matter what even if society tells them they're incorrect, and most of the offense from changing gender norms has already happened such that people have just accepted/gotten desensitized to it.
Since a lot of people view themselves as transgender already, the genie is out of the bottle. The happiness and mental health of a lot of people depends on how well transgender identity is accepted. While people wearing clothing associated with other sexes may have been controversial at first, it's now ubiquitous enough that more people continuing to do so isn't going to cause much additional offense.
In contrast, very few people identify as transracial, so the aggregate benefit to mental health from supporting transracialism is much lower. And things like blackface or white people saying the n-word are still stigmatized enough that they would cause significant offense if even just a few high profile people did them. So the costs for promoting transracial identities are much higher, and the benefits much lower.
If a man held a gun to someone's head and told them to eat dog food or he'll shoot them, but if they do do it, he lets them go, any reasonable person would say that they should eat the dog food, because that will save their life. That will save them from the consequences from the man. But that's a separate issue from whether or not eating dog food is okay. After all, those same people will still agree that eating dog food is bad.
So when you say that the societal consequences of becoming transrace are significantly worse than becoming transgender, at least in today's time, you're not really saying that being transrace is not okay or allowed, but rather that it's simply difficult to be transrace in today's society.
But the topic of this debate is to figure out if you can be logically consistent in saying that transgenderism is okay, but transracism is not, in a practical context. You can say that eating dog food is not okay, but still advise that person to eat the dog food, simply because of the consequences from the man. That doesn't make it okay or allowed.
So in this context, one could say, "I advise you not to become transrace, because the societal consequences are bad. But in a perfect world, you should be allowed to be whatever race you feel you are, to express who you really are, and become transrace. This world is simply a cruel world where transrace individuals aren't allowed to express themselves."
This is saying that transracism is okay, but that the societal consequences are bad, so you should not become transrace for your own safety. Notice how this expresses the same sentiment you expressed, while still ultimately approving of transracism.
