Last week, America’s most current spotlight of a trans girl, Blaire White, hosted a debate with up and coming non-binary feminist intellectual powerhouse Contrapoints. The debate was a bit more than the “heated” blazed across the title of the video.
Personally, Contrapoints has blown me away. Her talking points in the debate—despite the overwhelming comments of White fans declaring her the winner—are too powerful to just sweep under the rug. I recommend watching the whole thing.
After the debate was done, I personally had to go and watch
every one of her gloriously unapologetic YouTube videos. I suggest this one, it's wonderful:
And I found myself wishing I had discovered them back in November, back when I became plagued by new anxiety, and began to see the world far less hopefully than I had been. Back when I started reassessing. In the end, I find her views are very much in line with mine, on pretty much everything. Even when it comes to feminism and non-binary transgenderism, she’s made me at least take a second look at how I approach it from here on out.
And I found myself wishing I had discovered them back in November, back when I became plagued by new anxiety, and began to see the world far less hopefully than I had been. Back when I started reassessing. In the end, I find her views are very much in line with mine, on pretty much everything. Even when it comes to feminism and non-binary transgenderism, she’s made me at least take a second look at how I approach it from here on out.
That said, I felt that Blaire’s strongest argument was about pronouns. I completely agree with Blaire on how pronouns work. You can't demand
people call you something. And I would say that goes along with being
non-binary trans or the classic transsexual... pronoun usage is something that
happens almost involuntarily unless you condition yourself to say otherwise.
And personally I will go ahead and try to meet someone’s preferences if someone
asks me to, but if you overreact to an involuntary spontaneous assessment of
your gender at first meeting and start shaming people and making demands, then
no. I might even misgender you on purpose at that point, just so maybe you can
see the difference. Even if you are a full transsexual, it doesn't give you the
right to act like an entitled watchdog pronoun-bully. It makes you just as bad
as the people that purposely misgender you.
We negotiate our identity. It is a social contract. It is earned as we grow and understand each other. It cannot and should not be whittled down into a simple ultimatum. One final comment confirmed, "You can't force people to call you honest as you lie and steal from them."
From there I would say that the things science has discovered about the nature of sex and gender, as well as the transitioning of trans men and trans women all lend greater credibility and institutional backing to a trans person's gender identity. The people that deny this are denying science, and it's also perfectly O.K. to point that out. It's also O.K. to make an emotional appeal. Everyone does, even if they pretend they never do. But ultimately, your identity in society is series of a negotiations, person by person, and institution by institution. No one gets to just dictate it.
Transitioning trans people tend to be well aware of this. It's a fight. It's a struggle, and a right of passage (except discrimination can make it far worse) like a girl's journey into womanhood. But we'll return to this point later.
We negotiate our identity. It is a social contract. It is earned as we grow and understand each other. It cannot and should not be whittled down into a simple ultimatum. One final comment confirmed, "You can't force people to call you honest as you lie and steal from them."
From there I would say that the things science has discovered about the nature of sex and gender, as well as the transitioning of trans men and trans women all lend greater credibility and institutional backing to a trans person's gender identity. The people that deny this are denying science, and it's also perfectly O.K. to point that out. It's also O.K. to make an emotional appeal. Everyone does, even if they pretend they never do. But ultimately, your identity in society is series of a negotiations, person by person, and institution by institution. No one gets to just dictate it.
Transitioning trans people tend to be well aware of this. It's a fight. It's a struggle, and a right of passage (except discrimination can make it far worse) like a girl's journey into womanhood. But we'll return to this point later.
Now, that said, I have a tough time
agreeing with many of Blaire’s other points...
Most of them seem to come out of a misunderstanding of
definitions, research, credibility, ect. or just plain faulty reasoning when
she is connecting her points together. Halfway through the debate she makes the
argument that gender dysphoria is a very tough thing to live with, and that
some people who have grown to over six feet, have exceptionally broad shoulders,
are extremely hairy, ect. don't find feminine HRT and transitioning to be much
of an alleviation for their symptoms of gender dysphoria. And she uses this as
justification for why she really does wish there was a simple “cure” to being
transgender.
On the surface, simply looking in, this would make pretty
decent sense.
But let’s recognize it for what it is: An emotional appeal.
The self-proclaimed queen of unabashed rationality is making an emotional
appeal for this particular set of trans women. Why?
Remember that. Because later, on the subject of teen transitioning, she disagrees with the term "wrong puberty".
Remember that. Because later, on the subject of teen transitioning, she disagrees with the term "wrong puberty".
Well, if this is about the mental difficulties of full-grown male-to-female transsexuals
with regard physical transitioning (actually more akin to body dysmorphism, and
not really gender dysphoria)—which Blaire here recognizes and even presents as
a talking point—then how can a child’s traumatic feelings about their own
development not be included? How can she ignore that these children, quite
traumatically, feel they’re undergoing the “wrong puberty” and want to stop it before they do become full-grown? How
can that also not be part of this discussion, from the very beginning?
Hasn’t Blaire stopped to consider that perhaps, with a
well-made professional diagnosis of gender dysphoria—with professional
gatekeepers—teen transitioning, and catching gender dysphoria early could be
this very cure that she is looking for? The cure that would have helped those
body dysmorphic trans women she was talking about earlier?
See, if she is going to make a valid emotional appeal over
something like late teen transitioning, she has to, (1) consider what happens to those people down the road, into adulthood, and (2) at some point, she must draw on
actual statistics for the regrets she is talking about. Instead, the only thing
she provides us with is personal anecdotes, which can only go so far.
She laments that she will never have children, admitting it was something where she didn’t truly see the full picture when beginning her transition.
She laments that she will never have children, admitting it was something where she didn’t truly see the full picture when beginning her transition.
What this leads to, rationally, is that we would have to
start questioning her personal
therapists, doctors, ect. as to why she regrets so badly choosing to transition
when she did, over having children. How did this escape their personal care? All of her points here
seem to be a bit more of an unrealized personal
vendetta, because they focus on her personal
feelings and anecdotes, but fail to address the system as a whole.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the true tragedy of Blaire
White. She literally just confessed how unhappy she is. “Internalized trans
misogyny” much?
Actually, though this (and other drama noted in some of her
other videos) has very obviously been internalized, I wouldn’t really call it “misogyny”.
I recognize this all too well. Blaire’s arguments are
nothing new. I recognize these are the same arguments trans people have been debating
amongst themselves privately for a long time. I remember seeing these things talked
back in forth back on transgender message boards in the 90s, when I was on the
outside looking in, trying to decide if
I should tell my parents so I could see a doctor. Here is, quickly, one of the earliest academic articles I could find on how things were developing back then. Trans people were not as
accepted back then. The treatments and hormones available were also not as effective as they are now. Gatekeepers, therapy, and attempts at discouragement were the norm, before WPATH updated its Standards of Care in 2011. Personally, these are the things that scared me from seeking help earlier.
White is coming in at the end of history and saying nobody has ever tried finding a cure before now. I don’t understand that kind of ignorance, though I do understand her feelings and frustrations.
So, none of these arguments are new. And instead of Blaire being able to deal with them privately, and eventually find peace, the public has turned this discussion in to something which non-medically-professional cis people—who have no true understanding of, or business with these things—are using to malign trans people based on “passability”.
The poor girl needs you to leave her alone more than she probably even realizes, at this point.
But you begin to understand why Blaire feels the way she
does. How she holds her infertility over her own head as proof, deeply within
herself, that she is not fully a woman.
I have my own children from a previous marriage. However,
even then, I still wish I could have more. So I do understand, wholeheartedly.
And I feel for you, Blaire.
Yet, I know many cis women (including my own sister, last I
spoke to her) who feel devastated because they cannot have children.
I don’t run in trans circles much anymore. I’m not a heavy
advocate like I have attempted to be in the past. At least, I haven’t really
spoken up on the subject for a while, until Blaire came on the scene. The
reasons why are (1) I have two little munchkins to worry about, which are so
much more important to me than any of this stuff, and (2) because I find, until
you leave that whole community, you tend to perpetuate girlhood—you don’t grow.
Saying this tends to upset other trans people the same way
teens hate being told they’re not full adults yet either.
All joking aside, my leaving the “community” was because there is such a maturity gap between most trans women and cis women. And it’s a vicious cycle. Because grown women—in my case, other moms—relate with other grown women. And I am sorry, but I have never met a trans woman that fits this description at the beginning of her transition, and unfortunately it’s something many trans women never even leave—and I believe this is because they continually get foundationally hurt by the rejection of cis women, instead of learning and growing from those rejections. It’s tough to go through puberty as an adult. And some people never move on from it…
All joking aside, my leaving the “community” was because there is such a maturity gap between most trans women and cis women. And it’s a vicious cycle. Because grown women—in my case, other moms—relate with other grown women. And I am sorry, but I have never met a trans woman that fits this description at the beginning of her transition, and unfortunately it’s something many trans women never even leave—and I believe this is because they continually get foundationally hurt by the rejection of cis women, instead of learning and growing from those rejections. It’s tough to go through puberty as an adult. And some people never move on from it…
Considering all of that, catching gender dysphoria as early
as possible avoids puberty pushing your body beyond a place that medical
science can alleviate: Which was Blaire’s original emotional appeal. Remember?
More importantly, it allows you to seamlessly transition from childhood into womanhood, as it should be.
More importantly, it allows you to seamlessly transition from childhood into womanhood, as it should be.
From my personal perspective--I don't know of any research
that has been done on this aspect—I think minds are prepared to go through puberty
once, at a specific time, within the life of most mammals--most large organisms really--and it should happen
then. I feel, as well as notice in other trans people, that living and
attempting to build upon any part of an adult life as a gender mismatched from
how you identify, even after you have transitioned, it creates a harmful
disconnect between past and present/future identity. You can work through it
and find peace with it, but not all seem to.
This is different from gender dysphoria, in my opinion. Something
completely new, that perhaps psychologists have yet to even recognize. I’ve had
to overcome it myself, I know it did feel different from my original pain, and
it took me some time to figure it out. Eventually I did overcome it.
However, trans women who began transitioning when puberty
was supposed to take place do not seem to ever have this disconnect, and from
what I've seen, tend to live their life totally seamlessly.
I understand there is worry about a misdiagnosis, or making
a wrong decision. But even among adult trans people who transition, that is on
the rare side. Perhaps that is the case with Blaire, and it is sad to think…
But when it does become apparent, I personally believe it has more to do with
the disconnect I am talking about here than anything else, even gender dysphoria.
In other words, teens who transition at puberty—those I’ve
seen—don’t become trans people who are transfixed on ideas of "my old
life" and "I am a new person". Instead, they seem to be better
able to accept their life from start to finish, rather than dividing it into
"Before Transition" and "True Self". And this is where
Blaire, despite all of her beauty, still seems to be at odds.
Apart from all the anecdotes between Blaire and myself
here, the real, hard facts are that the doctors and researchers involved feel puberty blockers are
safe, effective, and even necessary treatment for severe gender dysphoria, even in teens. Hormones are not as readily agreed on, but even then, there may be, on a case-by-case basis, some legitimate reasons to use it.
That is what
really matters in this discussion.
For someone that is supposedly more interested in the science behind the topic, and not sensationalizing trans women, Blaire does seem to be socializing and politicizing the conversation an awful lot.
For someone that is supposedly more interested in the science behind the topic, and not sensationalizing trans women, Blaire does seem to be socializing and politicizing the conversation an awful lot.
Finally, Blaire, if you’re reading this, maybe this will
help: They just performed the first womb transplant on a cis woman. She had a
baby and there is a conversation developing around womb transplants for trans women, as the doctors involved say it is theoretically possible. Maybe it’ll happen for you.
I hope so, if that’s what you truly want. But that kind of thing will only happen if we keep on allowing the science to move forward, instead of holding it back because we can't yet consolidate the consensus with our personal drama.
I really didn't want to return to the Blaire White conversation this quickly. In fact, I really wanted this post to be more about Contrapoints, and perhaps even Bill Nye's new show. However, a few weeks ago I noticed Blaire was getting a lot of hate, simply for speaking a different point of view on feminism and non-binarism, so I thought we should give her a chance to add new ideas to the conversation. As I have said, feminism--even the LGBT community--feels like a cult sometimes. Believe me, I'm a connoisseur. A cult survivor. I still think we should consider the legitimate ideas Blaire has brought to the table. But it's also now my opinion that her worldview doesn't completely hold together: its weak. And it also threatens the progress that millions of trans people and doctors have worked so hard to achieve.
I really didn't want to return to the Blaire White conversation this quickly. In fact, I really wanted this post to be more about Contrapoints, and perhaps even Bill Nye's new show. However, a few weeks ago I noticed Blaire was getting a lot of hate, simply for speaking a different point of view on feminism and non-binarism, so I thought we should give her a chance to add new ideas to the conversation. As I have said, feminism--even the LGBT community--feels like a cult sometimes. Believe me, I'm a connoisseur. A cult survivor. I still think we should consider the legitimate ideas Blaire has brought to the table. But it's also now my opinion that her worldview doesn't completely hold together: its weak. And it also threatens the progress that millions of trans people and doctors have worked so hard to achieve.