Hey, glad this is a sticky. As a queer gender nonconforming person myself, I've been wondering a lot about what makes "racial identity" different from "gender identity". I'm not a "trans hater" and neither are my queer & trans friends who have been obsessed with discussing this over the past week. This is genuinely an interesting philosophical / scientific / theoretical question to us as queer and trans people. So that out of the way:
Basically, the crux of this entire sticky / argument is A. Discrediting Rachel Dolezal as a person and B. that identifying as a different gender identity than the one you were assigned at birth is biological / dysphoria is biological, but identifying as a race different than one you were assigned at birth cannot be biological / racial dysphoria does not exist.
As for A, I tend to understand those arguments more. Rachel Dolezal does appear to have lied about many elements of her past that were unnecessary to lie about, regardless of what race she identified with (ex. growing up shooting with bows and arrows), suggesting that lying is possibly a pathology. Two, she does appear to have used identifying as black for personal gain in the anti racist movement.
HOWEVER, Rachel Dolezal aside, and just looking at the broader picture? Not every person who identifies as another race needs to lie about other aspects of their childhood, nor would they need to be president of their town's NAACP. I don't know Rachel. I don't know if she's a liar, or a cheat, or did/didn't get sexually assaulted (really?). Frankly, I don't really care. What interests me more is the broader question - can one (ANYone, not just Rachel Dolezal) self identify their race? Are there parallels between racial self identification and gender self identification?
It rests on the "brain gender" theory, in which studies have suggested that folks are transgender because there is a disconnect between their "brain gender" & the gender people perceive them as based on their body type/voice/secondary sex characteristics/etc. This causes dysphoria. Race, on the other hand, is biological only inasmuch as it indicates how much you can sit in the sun without getting burned, or what bone structure / facial features your parents had. It's impossible to experience dysphoria based on "wanting skin that can be in the sun more". It's basically as if you were dysphoric about not being a table. SO the argument against comparing transgender to "identifying as a different race than your own" (boy is that clunkier than transracial ahaha) goes, anyway.
The problem is, a lot of nonbinary and/or trans folks would disagree with this "brain gender" thing and would say that is not their reason for identifying as trans. Yes, some studies suggest there is a correlation between gender identity and certain brain features. But not every trans person (er most don't!) undergos a "brain scan" before being determined trans, and what your brain looks like is no litmus test for being trans, nor do all trans people think it should be. Some of us trans people aren't into gatekeeping like that - if you feel you would be happier / more comfortable being perceived as the other gender, regardless of your brain / shape / size...so be it. And the radical feminist in me - NOT terf mind you - has a huge issue with you suggesting that certain people "feel" male or female. Plenty of people don't, incl agender folks and atypical cis folks. Also, some trans people don't experience dysphoria.
Personally, I always saw my own "gender identity" as "woman" AND "nonbinary". That means I'm a woman because people perceive me as a woman, and I've experienced misogyny and sexism, and it's impacted my life / identity in a huge way. Not because I "feel like" a woman in my "brain". And a lot of folks who identify as women would agree with me. On the other hand I identify as nonbinary because positive expressions of my gender cannot be confined to "maleness" or "femaleness". They simply "are"- I like blue independent of feeling male or female. I like crew neck sweaters independent of feeling male or female. There is absolutely nothing I do that I can attribute to being "female" or "male".
So, for me, gender and gender identity feel like entirely social contructs, NOT based in the biology of my brain. For others, it may be different. But if discrediting Rachel Dolezal means "defining" trans in a way that doesn't encompass everyone's identity, or presumes people have an "identity" or "brain sex" that they reject having, I have a problem with your assertions.