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This Is How to Do “Trans”
Mrs Rodin and I recently watched an interview with Blaire White conducted by Viva Frei (available on YouTube, Rumble, and VivaBarnesLaw.Locals.com). The YouTube version is truncated and the Rumble and Locals versions are behind a paywall, so I will try and highlight the interview for you if you don’t have access to the whole thing.
Let me set the stage by quoting just one Tweet from Blaire White:
LGBT activists won full legal equality, and the only thing left to do was leave kids alone.
Just don’t [redacted] with the kids.
That’s it. The bar was THAT low and they couldn’t meet it.
Blaire White is a biological male who suffers from gender dysmorphia. She is quite clear that she has had and continues to have that medical condition. She does not claim to be normal and does not expect anyone to use her preferred pronouns — she has no “preferred” pronouns. She also prefers to be known as “transsexual” and not “transgender”.
In the interview she outlined her history: Growing up in northern California she always felt that she was a girl in a boy’s body. She knew that feeling was not normal. She lived in a nuclear family with two brothers. Although the household had far too much drama, she does not throw her family under the bus. She simply feels that she is what she is and has what she has (gender dysmorphia). It was even more pronounced when she hit puberty. Although labeled a “fag” by some schoolmates she never was sexually attracted to gay boys/men (or women). She did not adopt girls clothing, but did adopt a “punk/goth” look that was more sexually amorphous as a teenager. Only when she went to college did she present as a woman and begin taking hormone treatments.
When she started taking hormone treatments she became very aware of the biological differences between men and women. She could feel herself changing physically and emotionally. And it put her at odds with campus feminist doctrine that gender was simply a social construct. She knew differently. (As we watched the interview, Mrs Rodin remarked: “That person has a woman’s brain!”)
She started a YouTube channel while in college and the interview included a clip from an early video. Although early in her transitioning process, she was clearly feminine. Since then she has had cosmetic work to enlarge the breasts and some facial work to sculpt her looks in the manner that many actresses do, but her foundation was slight and feminine to begin with.
Ms White has not had sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) and does not believe SRS to be a good idea. She is chemically castrated from the hormone treatments and has substantial loss of sexual urges. Her relationships tend to be more emotional than physical (and the interview did not go into any details) and she is not a part of the “hookup” scene.
For her, transitioning was the best way to cope with her gender dysmorphia. And by not getting SRS she has avoided the potential health problems and sexual challenges of men who have done so and are trying to establish a heterosexual analog. She is who she is, her body is what it is, and relationships will occur or not occur within that reality.
Ms White does not believe biological men should be in women’s locker rooms or competing in women’s events. She does not think men can simply put on women’s clothing and make up and demand to be treated as a woman. If they are not diagnosed with and accept that they are gender dysmorphic, then they are fetishists and have no place in women’s spaces. Men going to women’s prisons is beyond insane to her.
Use of women’s bathrooms are different from locker rooms because genitalia is not exposed. The basic rule for Ms White is that if your presentation and behavior does not alarm other occupants of the bathroom then there is no problem. If it does, then courtesy requires that you find somewhere else to do your business and/or find a way to modify your presentation and behavior so that it does not alarm women in their restroom. If you cannot, well…
Ms White’s outlook on pronouns is similar. Pronouns are functional in conversation. When she meets someone in person they don’t struggle with calling her “her” or “she”. Usually it is people online who want to call her “he” or “him” — to make a point. Which way you choose to go is a matter of indifference to her.
Ms White knows she is mentally ill, but is not crazy. Her treatment, beginning as an adult, was to bring her body more in line with her mind. She accepts the consequences of her illness and the tradeoffs involved in choices she made to make herself feel better and to operate within society in a more normal fashion.
She does not believe that children can make this choice. She believes that people who think they can — who are providing or encouraging “gender affirming care” –are doing great harm to these children. Ms White thinks that if the medical community were required to treat this as a mental illness, it would lose its cachet as a lifestyle choice and be less prone to adoption by disaffected youths (or their mothers) as a means gaining social status.
I enjoyed “meeting” Blaire White through this interview. I respect how she is living her life –the insight she has gained into her condition, her acceptance of it as a mental illness, the decisions she has made to make herself feel better while avoiding serious health issues, and the honesty with which she presents herself to the world. There may be some who feel that she is doing wrong in adopting women’s clothing and manner. Some may see this as a form of immorality, a violation of Biblical injunctions, and should not be an accepted treatment for gender dysmorphia. If so, I think that is regrettable, but I will not debate your faith. I can only say that if Ms White’s approach were adopted routinely we would not be suffering with Drag Shows for children, “gender is just a social construct”, and other progressive perversions.
In a war for a better, more sane, society I accept allies who may be mentally ill, but not crazy.
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I especially noticed that she is consistent through all her arguments. She wants to protect children, and seems to respect the overall norms of society. She is honest in how she presents herself and I don’t think she’s crazy.
I am sympathetic to Blaire. I agree with the bathroom rule: if I don’t know or am not sure you are not female and you do nothing to make me uncomfortable, then I have no reason to question you. Blaire takes responsibility for his/her condition, for his/her choices, and does not demand that others alter their values or deny reality to accommodate either. So Blaire asks for tolerance but not approval, and that is what we have been saying as conservatives and people of faith all along. We can love you, interact with you, live with you but will not say” “You are the best thing in the entire world! You are so brave! You are so wonderful! I am so proud of you! You are a real woman! The problem is with everyone else.”
Can you expand on that statement? The phrase “woman’s brain” can mean a lot of different things.
Google tells me that Blaire White is 5’5″ and 115 pounds.
If I can’t tell someone is a man pretending to be a woman, I’m happy to ignorantly share the ladies room with the person.
But, I worry that we’re making extinct feminine men and masculine women (tomboys) by forcing the pretense on society. I had an aunt with masculine traits and interests (huge football fan) married to a feminine man who wore showy turquoise jewelry and collected native American art. They had 4 children together and apart from their eccentricities, lived perfectly “normal” American lives. Is that even possible in the current cultural climate? I’m not sure.
What I took Mrs Rodin to mean was that Blaire was speaking and thinking in ways that another woman associates with woman. The expressiveness, the outlook, that reflects how women communicate as opposed to men.
We are. You can tolerate eccentricity and deviations from the norm so long as they do not present as predatory. When you celebrate you encourage more of what you celebrate. And in today’s context this means creating a lot of sterile and ailing humans.
It’s deeper than that. I’m not sure how to say it other than to describe the physical and functional differences, and there’s a huge gap between that and behavior. The man’s mind / woman’s mind distinction is deeper than language, and therefore difficult to describe with precision or objectivity. You’d know better than me, but the way you present her comment indicates to me that Mrs. Rodin perceived it.
Since this transgender thing started I’ve been asking, “how do you know you’re a woman in a man’s body?” I’ve been female my entire life and apart from my body, I can’t describe what makes me a woman as distinct from a man. Partly because I don’t know what it’s like to have a man’s brain!
And, I should add, I’m probably one of those women with more masculine traits. I have a math and engineering brain and a low tolerance for emotional drama. But, I never considered myself in the wrong body for even a nanosecond.
I think the trans phenomenon in the male-to-female direction was partly a kind of push-pull effect. I had two daughters and then a six-year-later son. :) So, I was immersed in both the girls’ and boys’ worlds. The lasting impression those experiences made on me was that men are much harder on boys and other men than they are on girls and women. Which is nice if you’re a girl or a woman. Meanwhile, girls and women are much easier on boys and men. They are harder on girls and other women.
I think it is a familiarity bias issue; it’s not a maliciousness. Men look at boys and men and say, “I know you and what I can expect.” The same happens with women. But when men look at women and girls, a mystique kicks in. And the same is true of women looking at men and boys.
But if you’re a guy, it can look and be much easier to find acceptance and comradery on the female side of life. I heard this a lot too during the gay rights activism times that preceded the trans times. :)
Religions have gone through some of this too. My parents left their childhood Baptist church to join their local Congregational church because, they said at the time, the Congregational church was not as strict.
Every person wants the same things: social acceptance somewhere, a group to belong to. People they can relax with.
If we want to reverse these insane trends, we probably need to look at the social life of young people.
Good points. I think that there is the “true trans” and the “cool trans”. I think your comment addresses the latter and Blaire represents the former. Some number (pretty small) have an organic mental illness for which they need to do something. What Blaire has done for herself seems about as good an outcome as one could hope for with a manageable, but incurable condition. The problem is when an industry arises as it has that profits financially and emotionally from making something “cool” that is “untrue”.
I agree and have thought similarly. I think effeminate men had it very hard and could understand the allure of just pretending you were a woman to avoid the bullying.
That’s been one of my major points for decades already. Nobody can know they should be the opposite sex, because nobody can know what that’s actually like. All anyone can know is that they don’t feel right as they are, which is a call for psychological help, not chemicals or surgery.
That may have been true in the past, but doesn’t seem to be so much that way now. Considering how boys are treated in schools by mostly-women teachers, etc.
I listened to a podcast featuring an interview with Blaire White. She is the kind of trans I can respect as a human being because she respects others who want to keep things normal . . .
He asks for tolerance, not approval. That’s how I try to respond to everyone I encounter who has a mental illness.
I don’t think bullying is driving the trans tsunami
Not now, no. But it used to be mostly boys wanting to be girls. The ratio has flipped in the last few years. What we are seeing now is very different.
Well girls are rewarded for exhibiting masculine traits . They are further rewarded for being trans. Is it any wonder many want to be trans?
And yet real boys are drugged in elementary school because they’re too “active” and stuff… Bananas.
No. No. No. No. No.
They don’t get to trot out one of their perverts who is less perverse than others and get to claim him as the standard they are hoping to attain. It is not their standard that they hope to attain.
They use this man to appear to be reasonable, but they are not reasonable. This man is a pervert. He is still not to use women’s restrooms. He is still not to compete in women’s athletics. He still does not get to claim any “pronouns” to identify himself. Nor may any of his more extreme fellow travelers.
I don’t know where he gets the idea that perverts have “won full legal equality.” They have claimed it. There’s a big difference.
This is how the left crammed homosexual marriage down our throats after being voted out time after time, even in California. They put on a public face of being oh so reasonable and responsible.
He and his ilk are being used to overturn every vestige of normality from our society and culture. Don’t fall for his erstwhile reasonableness.
Oh Sis. . . .Wow. You’ve nailed it. Your unique overview of that oh so interesting family. Our aunt actually played the bass drum in high school marching band.
I don’t think you need to worry about Blaire influencing what is going to happen, @skyler. She is hated by the trans activists, so the crazy will continue. I respect that you regard anything trans to be a perversion, thus Blaire by definition is a pervert. Trans is certainly not normal, but I tend to reserve the “perversion” label for predatory behavior and/or some forms of self-harm. Blaire understands that she is not normal. And she doesn’t think that any “true trans” is normal. They are mentally ill and need to find a way to manage their illness. And, no, they cannot be permitted to engage in predatory behavior, nor should children be mutilated by “gender affirming care”.
I was a terror in elementary school. They would have put me on a Ritalin drip . . .
Yes, but did the teacher tie you to your chair, like what happened to Mr. C?
Quit calling him “she”.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I did use he/she but that was as close as I could come.
OK, how about “ ‘e “? But seriously, Blaire isn’t asking to be addressed by a particular pronoun. Had ‘e done so I would have have said “he”. I am very much against compelled speech. But as ‘e has the courtesy of not trying to make me use a particular form of address, and because ‘e is honest about mental illness and the behaviors that cross the line, I return the courtesy. YMMV.
But the funny thing is using someone’s incorrect 3rd person pronoun when he’s not even in the room to hear it isn’t out of courtesy. It has an element of compulsion or complicity. It’s for the same reason I won’t call two men “husband” to each other. It’s a fiction I won’t submit to. I can be courteous without using newspeak.
No, not ” ‘e “. That’s not a pronoun. You’re writing about a man pretending to be a woman, or a “he” pretending to be a “she.”
We’re admonished by Solzhenitsyn to “Live not by lies.” Jesus said “The truth shall set you free.” You are enabling a lie, and dragging your reader along with you. Quit it.