We find ourselves today living in a post-George Floyd world of Wokeism where talk of equity, environmentalism, and social governance (ESG) have replaced accusations of microaggressions and discussions about the extent to which White privilege exists, if at all.
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And while there is still plenty of racism making the news headlines, by and large, it’s been supplanted by the next liberal social injustice de rigueur—that of transgenderism “rights.” The issue, however, is that they demand Joe Q. Public willingly endorse an untenable lie.
During the early and mid-20th century—and continuing right on up through 2008’s Robert Downey Jr. spoof film “Tropic Thunder”—several notable Hollywood actors and actresses made cameo performances using Black minstrelsy, better known as blackface (Native American or other BIPOC minstrelsy notwithstanding).
Over time, especially after the passage of the landmark Equal Rights Act of 1964, theatrical blackface eventually was shunned due to its overt racial insensitivity—and rightly so, as defense of the practice, today has been relegated solely to philosophical discussions of its historical use when racial opportunities were not what they are today. Regardless of its racist undertones (and disregarding its use as far back in time as the days of Shakespearean performances at The Globe in England), absolutely no one would ever take seriously an actor wearing blackface who professed with all sincerity to being, in fact, Black. If an actor had professed thusly, they would’ve been laughed out of the movie studio’s front office and permanently (pardon the pun) blacklisted.
Hollywood may be one of the most progressive cities on the planet, but even they would draw the line at such ludicrousness.
The reason for this is simple: despite donning theatrical makeup and a costume, external changes do not legitimize a white actor’s claim of being Black because legitimacy is dependent upon establishing genetic, physical, and genealogical evidence to verify the claim.
Yet here we are today, in 2023, staring into the abyss of state legislatures around the country attempting to codify transgenderism “rights” into law without respect to the more fundamental affirmation of the extent to which biology determines gender. These Progressive legislators insist on gendered terminology like woman or man must necessarily be divorced from their respective biological constraints because—as radical trans activists love to point out—”gender and biology are two different things.” Well, yes, that’s true, but not in the way they pretend it to be.
The fallacy of their reasoning lies in them divorcing themselves from the fact that gender is derived from biology and is not just an arbitrary psychological construct unknown to anyone but the individual.
As a clinical laboratory scientist, I know a few things about the human body and anatomy. There are fundamental biological differences between the sexes; in addition to the XX and XY chromosomal foundation embedded into every cell of the human body, men have a different Q angle—the lateral line of pull of the quadriceps muscle relative to the patella, affecting the downward force through the leg and knee. This is one reason why men are faster than women when sprinting or running. The Q angle is reduced in men, providing a more linear piston-like movement in the leg.
The pelvis is fundamentally different between men and women as well; a female pelvis is larger and wider than a man’s and has a rounder pelvic inlet, while male iliac crests are higher than females. Men have larger larynxes than women and thus deeper voices, more muscle mass, greater bone density, and—literally—thicker skin. A simple Google search on the physiological differences between men and women yields a staggering 121 million returns. Yet despite an overwhelming amount of long-established scientific evidence, we’re seeing reports of educators claiming forensic anthropologists cannot tell the difference between a male and female skeleton!
This is insanity beyond that of Orwell’s “1984” doublespeak. It is insidious, insistent, irresponsible, and indefensible.
What Progressive legislators and academic (I use that term loosely) zealots are engaging in is what I refer to as biological blackface. Biological blackface is the purposeful delegitimization of the opposite sex from which you were born using hormonal therapy, cosmetic surgery, theatrical makeup, and fashion.
I refer to transgenderism as biological blackface not only because it is physically impossible to change one’s biology (male to female, or vice versa) but because such ambiguity of long-established fact is offensive, dehumanizing, and delegitimizing to women who were born biologically female. Regardless of a whole litany of “treatments” meant to align the outward physical appearance with one’s perceived inner identity, no treatment can undo the biological foundation for gender that a conjoined sperm and egg create.
A man who uses any or all of those means of biological blackface to convince himself and others he’s a woman has no more scientific legitimacy than would Marjorie Reynolds in the 1947 movie “Holiday Inn” had she claimed she was Black because she donned face paint and fake braids. Likewise, the same is true of a woman who insists she’s a man because she injects testosterone into herself to spur facial hair growth. Externalities are not what makes a man a man or a woman a woman, but rather it is biology.
- If I were to darken my skin using black walnut extract, doing so would not make me Black.
- If I were to change my hair color and style, they would not make me Black.
- If I were to talk in Ebonics, listen to rap music, and play for the NBA, those things would not make me Black.
Being Black means you possess certain genetic, physical, and cultural characteristics that are the same as for people existing in or descending from Africa. It is not dependent upon the extent of melanin in one’s skin (although to a large extent that is true), nor one’s nose width, lip thickness, musculature, or hair follicles, and it certainly is not governed by the wearing of African tribal clothing.
No amount of skin-based melanin modification or elective surgery can ever negate the reality of my Northern European heritage; I could replace my entire wardrobe with nothing but kente and dashiki fashions, and yet I would be no more racially identifiable with James Earl Jones than any other Caucasian. And if I did those things, I’d be mercilessly scorned, mocked, ridiculed, and abused if I claimed— with conviction —that because those things make me feel Black, I, therefore, am Black.
Yet this is the very rationale that trans activists demand of society writ large, as well as demanding we disregard biology as having any relevance to determining one’s gender. They believe taking hormone suppressors and undergoing cosmetic surgery (and that’s what it is, little more than superficial body modification) are sufficient forms of external validation for convincing others to suspend their sense of reality as they seek validation for what they feel themselves to be. It’s madness, unrooted in science or possibility.
In clinical terms, transgenderism is known as gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is defined by the American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, and other medical organizations as a mental health disorder—the key word being mental. It is demonstrably not a physical, genetic, or biological condition that can be “corrected” by changing one’s outward appearance. It is fundamentally a disorder of the mind, a conflict between one’s biological reality and a self-perception of being something else. Yet reality lies in the physical; the psychological is malleable and unknowable.
For the sufferer of gender dysphoria, therapy and reconstructive surgery may be of use in assisting them in addressing their perception of innate femaleness or maleness, but that no more makes them an actual woman (or to a far less common extent, man) than my dressing in a “furry” costume and wearing a prosthetic tail makes me an actual cat.
Affirming a lie does not make it truth, regardless of how many times it’s repeated.
The belief that one’s internalized mental conflict supersedes and negates biological identity—and worse insists upon the law to force me into compliance with endorsement of said internal conflict—is not only false but scientifically indefensible. We do not normalize schizophrenic or multiple personality disorder behavior, just as we don’t normalize pedophilia, necrophilia, or bestiality. Those, too, are all mental health disorders—but it does not serve the greater societal good to indulge the whims of those suffering from their condition in an attempt to normalize their mental health issues.
Transgenderism is unmitigatedly offensive to the biological woman who must compete against biological men and all their inherent biology-derived advantages. As a society, we changed our collective tolerance to and use of blackface once we understood how degrading and dehumanizing it was to Blacks, and we now must stand up against those who advocate in favor of the degrading and dehumanizing effects against biological women by those in the radical transgender movement.
