Identity VS Reality VS Definitions

If you’re a researcher or provide services to a target population, how do you work with identity vs reality vs definitions? How does your datasets deal with: White people who do not identify as white Non-transsexuals who identify as being transsexual Transgender people who do not identify as being transgender Black people who do not identify as being black In other words, how do you work with self-identity? For instance, Hispanic people are counted as being white and not Native American even though their physical morphology comes directly from their Native ancestry. I – a white person who does not appear to be anything other than white – am generally counted as being Native American because my grandmother was “full-blood” and my grandfather was “half”. When tracking the HIV epidemic, I’ve seen folks put a white person under a HIV grant for African Americans because their great-great grandmother was black

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