The following excerpt is 'cannibalized' from my Substack article, Can One Change One's Race?
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Can I change my race? No. I can no more change my race than I can change the fact that I was born in California. I might have been born elsewhere, of course, but as a matter of contingent fact, I am a native Californian. Despite the logical contingency of my California birth, there is nothing I or anyone, including God, can do, or could have done, after the fact, to change or annul that fact about my place of birth. And there is nothing I or anyone can do, or could have done, after the fact, to alter my place of birth, time of birth, weight, or any other contingent detail.
The same goes for race. My race is determined by my biological ancestors. Since both were white, I am white. To change my race I would have to change a past fact, namely, that I am the product of the copulation of two white parents. But that fact, being past, cannot now be changed or annulled. The argument, then, is this:
1) If I can change my race from white to black, say, then I can change some fact in the distant past, namely, the fact that I am the offspring of two white parents;
2) It is not the case that I can change any past fact including the fact that I am the offspring of two white parents;
Ergo
3) It is not the case that I can change my race.
The argument assumes that it is nomologically necessary (necessary given the laws of nature) that parents of the same race have offspring of the same race, that, e.g., white parents have white offspring. The assumption is obviously true.
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