Exoethnic is an alternative to the term parethnic, coined as a way of allowing system members who internally appear to be of a different ethnicity/race than the body to clarify that although it is how they appear internally, it is derived from exomemories and other worlds. It was coined anonymously in 2021. Alternate forms of this word include exoethnicity, exoethnically, and exoracial. It was inspired by the term exotrauma and exomemories.
Similar to parethnic, it is not intended to allow anyone to speak over this-world people of color, and it differs from parethnic, where the prefix par- means equal or to the side, whereas the prefix exo- means outside/external, and clarifies that the ethnicity is derived from external worlds, lives, or self-conceptions. It can be used by a system of any race or ethnicity. It is an attempt to validate the other-world experiences of system members who do not match the experience of the body, while clarifying that these experience are indeed from another realm or altered mental state due to trauma or neurodivergence, and are not the same experience as a system of the race/ethnicity of the system member, due to their this-world body not having had the experience of being treated as a member of their exoethnicity.
System members who use this term are encouraged to clarify the meaning if it is unclear, and this term is not intended to imply that one's exoethnicity is just as real as features of a physical body or that it has just as much impact in the physical realm.
Examples of the term include:
- "I am exoethnic because I have exomemories from my canon of being Latino."
- "My exorace is white due to my brain trying to escape trauma, but my body is a person of color."
Causes[]
Individuals who are exoethnic may be introjects of a caregiver who did not match the ethnicity of the body (such being the case in interracial/transracial adoption), introjects of a friend, abuser introjects, caused by a system of color's brain attempting to escape racial-based abuse by doing its best to make a part of themselves white, assimilation causing a disconnect between internal and external identity, due to spiritual origins, or many other causes.