Are there ever cases of people feeling they were born in the wrong body regarding a quality other than gender - for instance, race?

I’m not sure that it is widely recognized, but is sometimes referred to as racial identity disorder, or ethnic identity disorder. Although it is not the reason behind all cases, a common behavior that you may have heard of is when someone with darker skin attempts to bleach their skin to appear whiter.
I don’t really know much more than that, so hopefully someone else will be able to expand on what I do know. I just don’t think that it is a widely accepted concept at this point in time.
I’m trying to find an article for you, but I don’t see anything worth reading. I’d wait to see other responses before taking my word for it. I’m just going on what little I’ve heard.

Thanks Neffie. I’ve definitely heard about people using skin bleach. It definitely doesn’t seem as well-known as transgenderism. I wonder if the emotional process is at all similar.

I read an article quite a while back about a girl whose body image didn’t include legs. She wanted to have her legs removed. I can’t imagine things like that are very common. I can’t find the article now which is too bad because I’d like to read it again.

@Mariah ohh, I recall hearing a similar story about the legs. I want to say that there is a different name for it when it is something like that, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it is. Now you have me curious.

Aha, I found…not the same article I had read, but at least an article that names and discusses what seems to be the same condition. http://www.rense.com/general11/arms.htm

GQ. I am sure there are such cases. If I wasn’t crazy busy at work and constructing my own Monday fluther questions, I’d do serious research on this. Perhaps later, love.

I’m in the wrong species. I want to be a wolf. Human life sucks.

@Adirondackwannabe Sucks to be a wolf these days too.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Depends where you are. I was at a wolf sanctuary this past weekend.

No. I have joked that I may be confused but I am not gender confused or race confused. Although I have felt I was born in the wrong century.
I live in the now though, don’t waste any energy on wishful thinking, other than the occasional lottery fantasy. haha

@Coloma Just to clarify, transgender people are not confused – it’s a common misconception.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

Right, I am sure most aren’t but some might be, at least for a time.

There are the so-called Otherkin. I expect that these and similar might be addressed with therapy, if anybody would bother.

@Coloma Century? I feel like I’ve been plopped onto the wrong planet sometimes :D
@nullo Reading about Otherkin was interesting! I’ve never heard of them, but it doesn’t surprise me that these people exist—

Forgive me if this is ignorant, but it’s just my first impression. The ‘otherkin’ thing sounds like some type of trend. Racial or gender identity disorders are significant, life-altering emotional, mental, and physical struggles. Are they genuinely comparable?

@ANef_is_Enuf I’m not sure… I think some people truly, honestly feel like they don’t belong in the human race. I know some people who consider themselves Indigo Children and they believe really strongly that they are ‘born to be different.’

I think the question now is (a little devil’s advocacy here)—where do beliefs and identity differ. If someone believes with every ounce of their being that they are an angel (I knew one guy who did) and believes it is his identity, how is that different from someone who feels that biology got it wrong?

I guess I don’t know.

I don’t know for sure either- the best answer, I guess will be from someone who has those identity feelings.

I feel like it would require further investigation. I mean, identifying as a different gender or ethnicity makes sense in that it is a tangible thing. We know that there are other genders. We know that there are different ethnicities.
Comparing that with someone that believes they are an elf, which there is no feasible proof of having ever existed, just makes the latter seem like a delusion… not an identity disorder.
But I’m no professional.

Oh great. Now my “plopped from another planet” joke sounds dangerously like a delusion.

Well, this applies to girls suffering from anorexia, which is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. They constantly feel that there’s something wrong with their body.

They think of a body with a healthy body weight as a wrong body.