Tuvel's argument for transracialism

This article by Rebecca Tuvel has caused some stir.  Having finally read the article myself, I must admit that I do not see why people want the journal, Hypatia, to retract it.  It seems to me that much of the public controversy over the article stems from deep divisions within the relevant fields related to the article (women's studies, gender studies, philosophy, etc.).  As often happens in situations, it feels like the two sides are mostly talking past each other and we never get to the root of the disagreement.  In any case, I am more interested in the nature of Tuvel's argument (an argument that I have myself used in class before in discussing race and gender) and what, if any, cogent objections to that argument exist.

[As a side note: If I were the editor of Hypatia, then given all the tumult around the article, I would be inclined to organize a special edition of responses to the Tuvel paper.  If the paper is as flawed as has been alleged, then perhaps those who see it can help us who don't see what the flaws of the reasoning/method are.  I am not opposed to disciplines having smaller, more technical discussions within a group of people who share certain assumptions and understanding of the topic.  However, in light of the fact that Hypatia is a very interdisciplinary journal that publishes articles on all kinds of topics from all kinds of areas, it seems that this issue of whether or not Tuvel's article has engaged with enough transgender scholarship is not exactly relevant here.  In philosophy (as in other disciplines), there are more specialized venues and more general ones.  I take it that Hypatia is a more general venue and so an article that puts forward a strong and interesting argument shouldn't be excluded from publication just because it is not as engaged with scholarship in a highly specific area.]

Tuvel's argument is a parity argument: if we accept transgenderism is legitimate, then we should accept (on the same basis) transracialism.  Tuvel orients the discussion around the issue of when it is legitimate to put restrictions on an individual's freedom to self-identify with a particular group.  And her argument is the Millian one that we shouldn't restrict individuals' liberty to self-identify with any particular group unless doing so would prevent harm to others.  Because the harms of transracialism are no more than the harms of transgenderism, we should accept the former if we accept the latter (see esp., p. 272).  As she notes, however, self-identification is not sufficient for being a member of an identity category because to accept that would be to make these categories too "permissive."  (She considers the case of individuals who want to identify as nonhuman, "otherkind," as a counterexample to making one's identity turn only on one's self-identification.)  Thus, she claims that there are two (jointly sufficient) conditions for being a member of a certain race: 1) whether one self-identifies as a member of that race, 2) whether the individual is treated by society as a member of that race.

The crux of Tuvel's argument is a consideration of four objections to the idea of transracialism.  Here are the four objections she considers:

1. One can't claim black identity unless one has grown up with black experience
2. Society doesn't accept transracialism, whereas it does accept transgenderism
3. Transracialism is an insult/harm to members of the race one transitions to
4. White to black transracialism is an exercise of white privilege

Against the first point, she argues that a) it isn't clear why past experience (or how much past experience) is relevant and b) that if we accept this as a legitimate restriction to the category of race, then there is no principled reason why we can reject it in the case of gender.  

Against the second point she argues (contra philosopher Cressida Heyes) that even if society lacks the  understanding to make sense of transgenderism (because it sees race as involving ancestry, unlike gender), this doesn't provide any justification of society's practices and understanding.  Tuvel has us consider someone born into a context where gender is defined in terms of the genitalia possessed at birth.  Would we say that in this situation the non-cis individual should not be allowed to switch from the gender assigned at birth?  If the answer to this is "no," then how can the answer to the transracial case be yes?  In short, Tuvel's claim here is that we can't answer a normative question (a question about what is ought to be acceptable) by referring to actual practices (since those actual practices may be flawed in certain ways).  

Against the third point she argues that we must distinguish between cases where an individual is merely pretending (perhaps in order to achieve some other end) and cases where an individual genuinely and deeply identifies with a racialized group other than the one to which they are/were identified by society.  For individuals who genuinely identify, what harm/insult is being done to the race with which they self-identify?

Finally, she argues that white-to-black transracialism isn't obviously a case of white privilege.  If the worry is that white people could always "go back" to white privilege if they wanted, then presumably the same point applies to male-to-female trans individuals.  But since we don't have any ethical problem with the latter, then we shouldn't have any with the former, either.  On the other hand, if the worry is that black individuals cannot as easily switch to white.  Tuvel's point is that if the relative difficulty (in terns of social acceptability) of transition from x-to-y (versus y-to-x) is morally relevant, then (assuming female to male transition is more easily accepted than male to female) we should also accept that there is a problem with male-to-female transitions.  But since we don't think this distinction matters in the case of gender, it shouldn't matter in the case of race, either.

So those are her arguments.  I am not convinced that there are no morally relevant differences between transgenderism and transracialism, but if there are, I don't know what they are yet.  I think it is an fascinating issue to discuss and I think Tuvel's arguments deserve to be addressed rather than dismissed.  I also fail to see in what ways she is disrespecting transgendered individuals or the work of those engaged in transgender scholarship.