Like many young women, Dr. Ronnie Gladden grew up wanting to be like Snow White, fantasized about a Pride and Prejudice lifestyle and wanted to emulate Elle Fanning’s fashion.
Ronnie dreamed of lying in the sun to get a tan and have blonde hair that would lighten in the summer.
This was not a typical set of ambitions, however, because Ronnie was a black boy growing up on the west side of Cincinnati.
Now middle-aged, Ronnie is a tenured professor of English at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, a public speaker and actor, and uses this platform to promote what he calls a “transracial” identity.
Despite being born black and male, Ronnie, who uses the pronoun they, now identifies as a white woman, regardless of outward appearances, and says there is a “repressed white female identity” within them that begs to be released.
Dr. Ronnie (pictured) is now a tenured professor of English at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, public speaker, and actor.
Ronnie is part of a little-known community of “transracial” people, meaning they are transgender and identify as transracial.
Transracial people believe that race is a social construct and therefore a “choice,” but the idea of ”changing” race is highly controversial.
A famous example of a transracial person is Rachel Dolezal, former leader of the NAACP, who, in 2015, was unmasked as a white woman whose family is primarily of European descent.
The revelation sparked outrage around the world and on social media after she said “the idea of race is a lie.”
In an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight that year, she claimed that ethnicity is not biological and compared being “transracial” to being transgender, leading X (formerly Twitter) users to accuse her of using “white privilege” to present your arguments.
Despite criticism, Rachel doubled down on her transracial identity and described herself as “absolutely black” in a 2019 documentary.
Rachel has praised the work of Dr. Ronnie Gladden, saying that he “encourages us to expand our concept of acceptance and inclusion.”
Dr. Ronnie, who has a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Northern Kentucky University, It subscribes to the idea that there is no innate or biological difference between races.
Dr. Ronnie’s book, White Girl Within, describes the internal battle of existing with incongruent identities.
Dr. Ronnie (pictured) began experiencing transracial feelings when he was four years old and they continued throughout his life.
They claim that race is a social construct that is based on how people see and treat others and how they treat themselves.
“I know race isn’t real,” Ronnie writes in his book. “It’s only that way because society says so.”
Ronnie underwent surgery, with a first nose job at age 19, combined with “some lip work.”
They also wear foundation in a lighter shade than their skin, but recognize that their outward appearance does not convey to the world their inner feeling of being a white woman.
“My skin is quite brown in terms of complexion,” Ronnie said recently. BBC Radio 4. My hair is thick. It has twists and waves. It’s doing a lot of different things, but I see it as an expression of my mind.’
In the same interview, Ronnie described how Feeling like a white woman goes back to a very young age.
Already in preschool, when they were four years old, they wanted to be like their white classmates.
The academic explained: ‘I remember (…) being outside on the playground and wanting to cheer in the same way I saw my classmates: in the way their hair responded to the wind and fluttered. I wanted to have rosy cheeks.’
Describe in more detail the sensation during a TedX Speaking, Ronnie explained: “I present as black and male, but internally I possess a white girl inside.”
And they continued: ‘At that time, I knew (…) that I was attracted to white feminine aesthetics. I magnetically connected to hair texture, skin complexion, bone structure, social cues and the mathematics of it all.’
Dr. Ronnie Gladden’s work has been praised by Rachel Dolezal, who says she identifies as a black woman despite presenting as white and being of European descent.
Ronnie described this discovery as “surprising, disconcerting, disheartening and extremely inconvenient, to say the least.”
they said Half that the “psychological weight” of that realization sent them into “the depths of depression and minor oblivion.”
According to Ronnie, people may argue that as a young child surrounded primarily by white children, “it would make sense for me to feel like that’s what I should look like.”
However, the feeling has extended into adulthood.
Dr. Gladden experienced violence as a child and young woman, including the murder of her half-sister while she was in high school. In addition to other childhood traumas, the writer has described his father as abusive.
Poignantly, they reveal how they believed they could have coped with the violence if they had been a white girl, saying, “I thought there was a power of beauty, a power of skin.”
According to the writer, they could have given the message to “fall back” with “that kind of authority embodied in white femininity.”
Ronnie, who has been in therapy for almost two decades, said the transition from inside to outside is something they have spent a lot of time thinking about.
This is something they explained in detail in their book White Girl Within: Letters of Self-Discovery Between a Transgender and Transracial Black Man and His Inner Female.
The book takes the form of a series of letters written from Dr. Gladden’s identities as a black man and a white woman.
According to Ronnie, growing up, they saw themselves “reflected” in several women, including Full House character Kimmy Gibler, rock star Joan Jett and actress Anne Hathaway, and described the feeling as “insistent, consistent and persistent throughout everything.” time.” years’.
Their extensive education, they said, was a journey that helped strengthen their mental health.
In between his studies, Ronnie attended international summer schools at the University of Cambridge and then continued to work in academia, traveling widely teaching, performing and advising.
Although she first felt like a white woman at just four years old, as she reached middle age, Dr. Ronnie has written about how she still faced “unfinished business” when it came to working to maintain these different identities.
But despite these struggles, Ronnie wrote: “Through all of film noir, I know the light of my white womanhood swirls and stalks. “I thought it would always have to be like this.”
During his TedX talk, the academic, who regularly speaks on identity, diversity and inclusion for K-12 schools, universities and nonprofits, spoke about how transracial identities have been represented in popular culture.
These included Whoopi Goldberg in the film The Associate, who plays a white man.
They also cited Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in the Marvel franchise, saying that “through her character Mystique, she was able to represent an amalgamation of different types of races, ethnicities, and even species.”
The volume presents a series of letters, from Ronnie to themselves, in which they talk about coming to terms with transracial identity.
Describing how they achieved their own identity, Dr. Ronnie wrote in his book that they are a female brought in at the time of an adult season.”
However, the path is not easy: they point out that their development “was not linear” and they are still “working to keep up with everything.”
Among them are “my voice, my look, my actions, my step and my time.”
Describing their acceptance of their identity, they wrote: ‘Ronnie, your life and your way always outshine me. It’s true, I’m a white girl. And for a long time I’ve been your white girl. I know it’s me because I see it.
‘Subtext abounds. It’s those three-dimensional white women’s eyes that see me buried in you. His instinct knows it and feels it.’
