The viral acronym “RCTA” on TikTok refers to a community of people who believe they can change from one race to another.
What is RCTA?: The acronym RCTA stands for “race change to another.” An alternative to the term is “ECTA,” which means “ethnicity change to another.”
Although many RCTA-identifying people do not necessarily wish to change their appearance to look like another race, they believe they can identify with a different race by manifesting and using subliminal stimuli.
The current wave of RCTA-identifying people is mainly focused on “transitioning” into East Asian ethnicities due to their love of anime, K-pop or K-dramas.
Why is RCTA controversial?: The RCTA community has been heavily criticized on TikTok, with many users deeming RCTA-identifying people as ignorant and highly offensive. Critics believe that the RCTA group cannot fully understand the experience of belonging to an ethnic minority group, noting that they cannot go through the same prejudice or racism that minorities experience.
Similarities to transracial: RCTA is similar to the concept of being transracial, which refers to transitioning to another racial identity or expression that differs from one’s race of birth.
One of the most recognizable transracial people is Oli London, a British influencer who underwent multiple plastic surgeries to look like BTS singer Jimin and previously identified as a Korean woman using “they/them” pronouns before transitioning back to a British man.
“Basically [RCTA] has the same concept as being transracial; however these RCTA-identifying people believe that they are more educated than them because they tried to learn more about the inner culture and languages which still doesn’t make it good,” TikTok user @kyamewa explained.
The user opened up about being bullied and experiencing racism when she moved to Canada because she did not speak English. She concluded that wanting to change races due to pop culture or shame of one’s race at birth is harmful as it devalues the discrimination that ethnic minorities have been through for years.
