Black male author says he identifies as a white woman

Dr Ronnie Gladden, a US-based speaker, actor, tenured professor and author, says he now identifies as a white woman though he was born a black male.

Dr Ronnie said he grew up wanting to be like Snow White, fantasised about a Pride & Prejudice lifestyle and wanted to emulate Elle Fanning’s fashion.

He dreamed of lying out in the sun getting a tan and of having blonde hair that grew lighter in the summer. 

However, being a black boy growing up in Cincinnati’s West Side meant his ambitions were not realistic.

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 “transgracial” identity. 

Ronnie – who uses the pronoun they – now identifies as a white woman, regardless of outward appearances. According to him, there is a “repressed White female identity” inside him begging to be released. 

Ronnie is part of a little-known community of people who are ‘transgracial’ – meaning they are both transgender and identify as transracial. 

People who are transracial believe that race is a social construct and therefore a “choice”, but the idea of “changing” race is highly controversial. 

Dr Ronnie, who holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Northern Kentucky University, subscribes to the idea that there is no innate or biological difference between races. 

He claims race is a social construct which is based on how people see and treat others, and how people treat themselves.

“I know race is not real,” Ronnie writes in his book. “It’s only so because society says it is.”

Ronnie underwent surgery, with a first nose job at 19, combined with “some work on the lips”.

He also wears foundation in a lighter shade but acknowledges that his outward appearance does not relay to the world their inner feeling of being a white woman. 

“My skin is pretty brown in terms of complexion,” Ronnie recently told BBC Radio 4. “My hair is thick. It’s got twists and waves. Is doing a lot of different things, but I see that as an expression of my mind.”

In the same interview, Ronnie described how feeling like a white female dates back to a very young age.

As far back as pre-school, aged four, he wanted to be like their white girl peers. 

The academic explained: “I remember […] being outside in the playground and wanting to animate in the same way that I saw my classmates – in the way that their hair would respond to the wind and would flap around. I wanted to have the rosy cheeks.”

Describing the feeling further during a TedX talk, Ronnie explained: “I present as black and male, yet internally, I possess a white girl within.”

He continued: “Back then, I knew […] that I was drawn to the white female aesthetic. I magnetically connected with the hair texture, the skin complexion, the bone structure, the social cues and the mathematics of that all.”

According to Ronnie, people may argue that as a young child surrounded by mainly white children, it would “make sense that you would feel like that’s how you should look”.

However, the feeling has carried through to adult life. 

According to Ronnie, while growing up, he saw himself “reflected” in a number of women, including Full House character Kimmy Gibler, rock star Joan Jett, and actress Anne Hathaway, describing the sensation as being “insistent, consistent and persistent throughout the years”.

Despite first having the feelings of being a white female at just four, by middle-age, Dr Ronnie has written about how he was still facing “unfinished business” when it came to working on holding these distinct identities.

But despite these struggles, Ronnie wrote: “Through all the noir, I know the light of my White femaleness swirls and lurks about. I thought it would always just have to be this way.”