People love Blaire or at least they appear to love Blaire. There are comment sections full of praise and worship for her especially on YouTube.
I like and agree with a fair amount of what she says and the positions she takes on many things, (even though I think many of her positions are rehearsed and put forward to garner approval), but there is a line between the type of person Blaire is and the type of person that I am. That line will forever seperate us.
To the average onlooker, when she’s sitting next to all these transgender people on stages and TV shows, Blaire is a transsexual.
She’s still quite young, she has a small and delicate frame, and she’s quite acceptable (appearance wise) as a female, and her voice is nearly perfect.
Heck, even I could just about buy that she is a transsexual.
Except….
Except that I’ve met people like Blaire before. In real life.
Young, (or at least youthful), slight in frame, easily “pass-able”.
One in particular springs to mind, let’s call her Stacey.
I met Stacey when I was transitioning. She was in her 20’s, we where the same age at the time, but we where complete opposites from a physical perspective.
She was short, small hands, small feet, perfect build, great hair, very little body hair.
Me?... puberty had been very cruel to me, I was 5’11, badly receding hairline, big hands, big feet, big frame, big ears even. Blonde facial hair (if you understand the relevance of blonde facial hair you, know where I’m coming from). It seems I got all the worst possible genetics from each side of my family, at least for someone with my condition.
I envied Stacey.
Stacey was already on hormones when I first met her. I was on hormones a few months later, by the next time I saw her.
I can’t quite remember but I think she’d had a boyfriend, and she had tried her luck with women as well. I’d never had a relationship with anyone.
The last time I saw her, she’d not long had vocal surgery to feminise her voice. She was amazed at what I’d achieved with my voice with no help whatsoever. (The trick is to sing, find songs from female singers and try to emulate, if it’s in you, you’ll work it out soon enough).
We met through a mutual friend who was post-op and older than us and who tried to help people by running kind of a support organisation (not a support group as such, but more like a phone support line with a drop in centre).
That same friend used to tell me not to be envious of Stacey, that her and I were different and that she’d seen people like Stacey before. They’d blow in and out, sometimes it was a month, between visits, sometimes it was 8 months, but you never saw any progress, they got to where the were and now they were stuck.
They always had a “plan” for how they where going to go and get the “surgery”, but that plan never materialised.
They could do everything else, the boobs the face, the voice, but could never quite get around to the bedroom equipment. Or else they had a reason why they couldn’t do it.
I vaguely remember phoning my friend when I was recovering from my reassignment surgery, to tell her that all had gone ok, and Stacey happened to be with her. She (Stacey) got on the phone and congratulated me, and told me how she’d be getting her surgery soon, but she didn’t have a date yet.
I never heard from her after that.
When I see Blaire, I think of Stacey.
You see, the thing about being transsexual is that what is between your legs is a BIG problem, it's not the ONLY problem, but it's up there with being the biggest.
Does reassignment surgery fix that problem? no, but it makes that problem manageable and there are no other realistic long term treatments that have proved to me to be successful.
(and no, I don't advocate for children transitioning).
Whilst Blaire talks a very convincing talk and tells people she is a transsexual, her actions and thought patterns don’t (I believe) support that diagnosis.
Explain?…..
Well to start with, Blaire believes that “trans-women” are not Women.
So lets break that down a little, the popular question going around lately is:
“what is a woman?”….
To which my response is:
The term “woman” (in my understanding) refers to a societal position typically held by an adult human female.
Notice I said typically. Typically as in, not always, but most of the time. What I believe makes someone a “woman” is lived experience.
So, you would say that, transsexuals don’t live the same experience as biological females, to which I would say, bullshit.
Transsexuals don’t mensurate.
Not all females do.
Transsexuals don’t have babies.
Not all Females do.
Granted, most females experience those things BUT, if those lived experiences are the only ways you measure womanhood then I’m sure there are a great many biological females who don’t measure up and would like to talk to you.
So can a male born transsexual be a “woman”?
Yes, I believe they can if they make certain choices.
Are all male born transsexuals women?
In this day and age I’d say they certainly are NOT.
Now, a completely different question is: are male born transsexuals female?
I know what I believe in my own mind, but all current science says NO, they are male.
Man <-> Male, Woman <-> Female
These words are NOT interchangeable although people try to use them as though they are (if they were, why would we need two different words for the same thing?). One refers to a biological state of being, the other refers to a role in society.
Right, so what have I established here with regards to what Blaire has said?
Well although she didn’t mean it the way I’m going to interpret it here, she is in fact correct, “trans-women” aren’t women, but not all Transsexuals ARE “trans-women” either, some are just women.
Next up.
Blaire believes that “trans-women” are a class of men.
I’m sorry but this statement is straight out of the Transgender play book. It is an impossibility to be two different and opposite things at the same time although transgender people would like you to believe that they can feel like a man one day and feel like a woman the next and it’s up to you to work out which one they are at any given time.
Now If instead of that, Blaire had said she believes: “trans-women are a type of male”, I’d have no real issue, she’d be (in my opinion) factually correct.
The last problem I have with Blaire (for now) is in this interview and around 37 minutes.
Blaire talks about “pass-ability” (for want of a better word) and how some people are less likely than others to pass and that this should be a consideration when confronting the prospect of “transition”
And THIS is what I meant earlier on when I spoke about the line between people like Blaire and people like me and how we will never truly be the same thing and WHY I say Blaire is NOT a transsexual.
What Blaire has done, just like what Stacey did, was all about choice and opportunity.
Blaire has chosen to be who she is, she’s chosen to be a “trans-woman” and she’s chosen for everyone to know that she IS a “trans-woman”. She continues to choose to keep her birth anatomy and belittle those who have had what she describes to be an inadequate treatment when in reality, it's not about that, it's about a mans penis being important to him.
Like Stacey, Blaire had an agreeable body type and she thought she could do it, and that it would be an easier existence for her than being a small gay man. She could have the concessions afforded to an attractive woman, rather than being treated like crap and possibly victimised for being a small gay man.
Transsexuals don’t get to make those choices. We only get one choice, and that is, to fix our problems to the best of our ability, or to blow our brains out.
