J.J. Marie Gafreda and Cynthia Yaki join host Emily Edwards to debate the controversial issue of transgenders in the gay community. They discuss the pros and cons of the transgender community, and what it means to be a lesbian in a male dominated world.
00:00:00.000I'm not going to step into the victimization element of it.
00:00:04.000The problem that we have is he is not biologically, he is not scientifically a woman.
00:00:10.000He is a woman only on the basis of his mental illness, on the basis of his disease.
00:00:18.000We have right now on the line J.J. Marie Gafreda, author of Left Hander in London, Transgender Male to Female, and then Cynthia Yaki.
00:00:28.000You can find her at a conservativelesbian.com who lines up on the other side of the issue, open out of the closet lesbian, who lines up more conservative.
00:00:35.000We want to have this debate, discussion.
00:00:38.000Cynthia, are you on the line with us now?
00:00:47.000So, we were talking about, firstly, JJ, you mentioned your story, how you came out, you felt that you were living something that wasn't true to yourself, you didn't feel authentic.
00:00:56.000Now, how long, JJ, have you transitioned into being a female?
00:02:22.000You're supposed to be submitted, I guess, to transgender men to women.
00:02:26.000Are you saying more so that you think it's insensitive for, I guess, a man to transition to a woman and then claim to have suffered from the same discrimination or disadvantages as a lesbian like yourself?
00:02:38.000Oh, I don't think that's the issue at all.
00:03:07.000You know, do anything actively against lesbians.
00:03:09.000I'm the president of the Indian Rainbow Chamber of Commerce.
00:03:13.000So, you know, we have LGBTs and any other of the letters that they have.
00:03:19.000So, you know, for me, I represent the whole community when I'm...
00:03:23.000We're not in that capacity, so I don't...
00:03:26.000But J.J., to be fair here, and Fundip can join in, what if there seems to be a strong contingency in the gay-lesbian community who sort of think that the transgender community doesn't share a lot in common and is coattailing on it?
00:03:38.000If you look at the numbers, it's not across the board.
00:03:40.000There are a lot of people out there like Cynthia.
00:03:50.000Well, I would say, you know, first of all, we're not, and I can speak for myself, you know, I know a lot of transgender people, but, you know, I don't consider that we're hijacking anything.
00:04:03.000There are similarities with other, you know, lesbian and gays and bisexuals and what have you, because there's discrimination.
00:04:11.000You know, when Indiana passed a religious freedom law, that was targeted against all of us.
00:04:17.000You know, it wasn't Well, JJ, let's try and stay away from that, because that has nothing to do with discrimination.
00:05:28.000There was absolutely no need for that.
00:05:32.000But because for them to need such a law, then gays would have to have some kind of protection for employment and public accommodations and housing, which they are not provided in Indiana.
00:06:18.000For someone like you, J. Day, who's obviously very sensitive and seems to be a very caring person, can you see how that might cause women from birth who've been raised as women, who've faced what they see, you know, what many women, I'm not agreeing with, you know, they've seen, I guess, patriarchal privilege.
00:06:33.000It's sort of insensitive for you to swap that after a few years and then claim to be a part of their class?
00:06:38.000Well, I mean, first of all, I'm not claiming to be a part of anything.
00:06:46.000I can identify with a lot of things that other women have.
00:06:50.000I've been a consultant for 30 years, and now that I am a woman, being treated very differently and being treated like I don't know anything, It's a very big wake-up call, and I knew...
00:07:07.000But do you really think, JJ... I'm just going to be honest.
00:08:13.000So I don't want to go there and get us so far off from the weeds.
00:08:16.000Let's let J.J. and Cynthia were making some good points, and then Fundip wants to go into Star Trek or the new Star Wars, God forbid, midichlorian BS. No, no midichlorians.
00:08:33.000Now, Milo Yiannopoulos, who is gay, he agrees.
00:08:37.000And what I find fascinating, not having a dog in this fight, not being gay or transgender, JJ, it seems that a lot of gay people have said what you have said, that they feel the movement is being hijacked, and they're not a fan of it.
00:08:50.000Well, first of all, that's the first time I've been told that I have a mental illness, so...
00:08:58.000I went through a lot of therapy when I was getting ready to transition, and my doctor and my therapist, none of them ever said I had a mental illness.
00:10:44.000I'll call you a new name, but I will not change the pronouns by which I refer to you, and I think it should be against the law for you to be able to change legal records, to change your sex on your legal records.
00:11:42.000We're trying to moderate this here, and Cynthia, I appreciate it.
00:11:44.000But, JJ, I think there is a point, a takeaway here.
00:11:47.000Because you talk about people who should treat you as a woman and may be insensitive.
00:11:50.000Can you understand that maybe there are people like Cynthia, obviously, who won't be as aggressive, though I appreciate her passion, who think it's insensitive and feel less safe in an all-female space if someone...
00:12:05.000Well, I mean, there are women that look more like men than I do.
00:12:21.000I mean, you know, you do the best you can with what you have.
00:12:23.000I mean, are we saying that if I looked better, if I was prettier, or if I could go through 10 hours of facial feminization surgery like Jenner did, then I would be more accepted in the community.
00:12:59.000She never claims victim status, but I will agree, and fund up and I have said this, I believe that lesbians are discriminated by some bigots in this country, and she's faced that, and I think it's important to someone like Cynthia to have what they see as an all-female space.
00:13:11.000And when they see someone as a man, regardless of how you identify yourself, that's how they see you, that's the perception.
00:13:18.000Can you maybe be sensitive to the idea that there are women who aren't bigots, who aren't going to be comfortable with no longer having an all-female space?
00:13:29.000It's like, I don't see how it would be any different.
00:13:33.000And, I mean, then, you know, if you want to get into nitpicking, I mean, there are people that are intersex that are, you know, that have components of both or, you know, there are a lot of different types of conditions.
00:13:46.000I mean, do we have to have a checklist to say, this person is female enough because...
00:13:52.000Okay, well, we're going to go to break, but I want Cynthia to hold that thought and actually address that.
00:13:56.000And Cynthia, we appreciate your passion.
00:15:04.000We were yelling at each other at midnight in the lobby of a hotel in Virginia at BlogCon, and somehow we turned both instantly at the same time on a dime and just loved I told her that I loved her and that, you know, listen, the most important thing for Christians is to love, and even if we disagreed on certain issues, that, you know, listen, and the same applies to J.J. Love is important for agnostics as well.
00:16:19.000As a transgender person, this is news to me that we have this much power.
00:16:24.000There aren't that many transgender people, so I don't see us having a tremendous amount of political clout unless we're working with other people, because there just aren't that many.
00:17:05.000Why is it that Christians are worried about the non-redefining of marriage and the actual redefining away from biology, away from fact, Of sex, of your sex.
00:17:20.000There is no such thing as a gender construct.
00:17:26.000People are being softened up for totalitarianism with the idea that gender is something that is a construct and that is imposed.
00:17:34.000It's the new Soviet man all over again.
00:17:38.000And it's absolutely the worst form of gender stereotypes, which Women of my generation fought hard to get rid of.
00:17:46.000Well, I think, Cynthia, that's an interesting point, because I will say this, in my opinion.
00:17:50.000My deal is the language police, JJ. And you mentioned you want to be referred to as masculine pronouns, and people now say that it's hate speech if you don't.
00:18:01.000I wasn't even trying to offend, and it's just, I hear your voice, JJ. I have your picture up in front of me, and it's just, that's the way it comes out.
00:18:14.000Okay, but there's a movement now to make it hate speech, to ban this as hate speech.
00:18:18.000So do you believe at all that if someone says, hey, I don't hate you, but I'm not going to use feminine pronouns, what do you think about that?
00:18:25.000Is that something that needs to change?
00:18:26.000Is it hateful, or is it just someone like Cynthia?
00:18:36.000People refer to me with feminine pronouns, and they...
00:18:43.000They call me by my name, and the issue, well, I'll just say this.
00:18:49.000There's a difference between people that call me the wrong pronoun by accident, whether they knew me before or whether they hear my voice or whatever, however it is that they call me that, and people that are trying to be nasty to me.
00:19:15.000I've had people that have intentionally called me the wrong name in letters in order to let me know that they don't like it, that I'm female.
00:19:25.000And, you know, if somebody doesn't like it, that's fine, but, you know, I don't need to earn it.
00:19:31.000And, you know, I work with other women, and, you know, I consider myself...
00:19:38.000Involved in a lot of the issues that other women have.
00:20:12.000And legally you should not ever be able to say so.
00:20:14.000People are absolutely out of their minds if they say that this is a trans right to have this delusion.
00:20:22.000And the fact is that the way trans have put this over is by having psychotic episodes when they are not allowed to absolutely dominate and dictate how everyone is going to behave and to force people to accept their gaslighting.
00:20:36.000The psychological term for the way that trans people operate is gaslighting.
00:20:40.000And what causes trans people to commit suicide is the large number of people who say, I'm sorry, no, I am going to believe my eyes and not your lies.
00:20:50.000You are gaslighting and you are a man.
00:21:51.000It's even higher for ones who go through the surgery who would be more perceived as women.
00:21:56.000How do you address that and say, hey, this doesn't share a lot of the same congruencies as, you know, like something, listen, to be honest, that I suffer from.
00:22:03.000I have depression, but I acknowledge it and I don't think it's something to be lauded.
00:22:07.000They're the very same rates and statistics.
00:23:42.000When you have people attack, like, you know, in this case today, if people are attacking me because they're saying, we're arguing with you because we're saying that you're not what you think you are, and you're taking away from the rest of us by existing...
00:24:08.000No happy feeling of femininity is going to make you a woman.
00:24:13.000This is a fact, and what causes suicide among trans people is to go farther and farther down that road to be enabled and then to find out, no, they didn't actually get to change sex.
00:24:24.000Their body is still going to be insisting that they were born.
00:24:29.000They were trying to externalize what would make them fulfilled and happy, and then it doesn't happen.
00:24:36.000So it's the left and progressives who are enabling this gender construct baloney and who are enabling this delusion that surgery is going to make you a different sex, which is absolutely false.
00:24:48.000And then, of course, it doesn't happen.
00:25:07.000JJ, you're saying people are discriminating against what you want to be.
00:25:10.000I think what Cynthia is saying and what I would agree with on her side is she's saying, no, we don't have to accept you redefining something.
00:25:41.000I think it breaks a lot of people's hearts, but it also breaks people's hearts if they believe something to not be true in other ways.
00:25:48.000I mean, JJ, what about this, you know, there are a lot of people...
00:25:50.000The problem is that once you start chopping yourself up and the fact that they have to add drugs in order to complete this, it means that they're...
00:25:59.000Their mental delusion is just not enough.
00:26:02.000Well, I think there's an irony here, Cynthia.
00:26:04.000That tells you that biology really has something to do with this.
00:26:35.000A big breakthrough for me was when I stopped trying to figure out what happened and what caused it and just said, you know, I just need to do whatever I need to do.
00:27:22.000And, you know, when I interact with people, I expect to be treated, you know, with respect and people calling me the correct name, what have you.
00:27:34.000And I, you know, to me, it's not a very interesting debate on my side to say, you know, I'm not going to accept you as a woman.
00:27:42.000I'm like, well, okay, but, you know, that's not the way That I like to be treated, and that's not what I'm experiencing.
00:27:50.000Maybe we're more progressive down here in Indiana, but...
00:27:54.000Well, listen, JJ, I will tell you this, JJ. That wouldn't really be the recommendation for this show.
00:28:01.000I don't care if you run around in a dress.
00:28:04.000I don't care if you feel like a pretty, pretty princess.
00:28:07.000Run around in a dress for all you, and to your heart's content, but use the men's room.
00:29:19.000We come back with lesbian and transgender activist and the ultimate stripper song Poison by Alice Cooper plays.
00:29:25.000So before we go, JJ, Cynthia, thank you so much for coming back.
00:29:27.000JJ, you just made the point about using a woman's restroom and you made your argument as to why you feel that way.
00:29:32.000Well, let me kind of give that to Cynthia.
00:29:34.000Before I do, I mean, it's a place where women feel sexually vulnerable.
00:29:38.000It's a place where sexual assault often occurs.
00:29:41.000And at a certain point, my only argument here is you're discriminating against somebody.
00:29:44.000And in this case, you're discriminating against the vast majority of women who feel unsafe, who feel uncomfortable, in order to accommodate less than 1% of the population with transgender people.
00:29:53.000So either way, you're discriminating on some side.
00:29:56.000I'm not discriminating against anybody.
00:32:46.000Well, I think we're having a disconnect here, JJ, where you're only talking about personal experiences, which, granted, are going to be seen through the lens of your life, and Cynthia's talking about societal ramifications.
00:32:58.000But, JJ, we have to let you both go, and we do appreciate you both coming on.
00:33:01.000JJ, where can people best find you, firstly?
00:33:05.000On Facebook, I have a page, LeftHanderInLondon, people can go and like that.
00:33:09.000Jenner has a million likes, I have 170, so you can do that, and then LeftHanderInLondon.com.
00:33:14.000And then Cynthia, where can people find you best?
00:33:20.000My handle is at ConservativeLes, and my blog is at ConservativeLesbian.com.
00:33:25.000If people would like to help fund me, help me write a book about the attitudes and positions I've just discussed, I'll put up a post later today to take donations for Kindle formatting and editing and so on.
00:33:38.000Okay, thank you both of you very much, and we want to have both of you back on soon.
00:33:52.000We will be back after this word from people who keep the lights on and who knows, maybe some people writing these ads are lesbian and or transgender and we're all just one big happy family.
00:34:05.000Hey, if you like this, be sure to subscribe by clicking my face here on YouTube, clicking the video next to me or subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or louderwithcrowder.com.