Exactly.
That's how race works. In order to (for example) be an Indigenous Australian, you need to be accepted by other Indigenous Australians as one, self identify as one, and have an element of decent (usually biological) from one.
If I'm an Elf, who is born to Elven parents, living in an Elven society, view myself as an Elf, and am accepted as an Elf, who are you to tell me I'm not an Elf?
Or is that I am an Elf, who views himself as an Elf, is accepted as an Elf by everyone else, and lives in Elven society... but somehow also NOT an Elf?
Schroedingers Elf? Both an Elf, and not an Elf simulateously?
How does that work exactly?