Like many young women, Dr Ronnie Gladden grew up wanting to be like Snow White, fantasised about a Pride & Prejudice lifestyle and wanted to emulate Elle Fanning’s fashion.
Ronnie dreamed of lying out in the sun getting a tan and of having blonde hair that grew lighter in the summer.
This wasn’t a typical set of ambitions, however, because Ronnie was a black boy growing up in Cincinnati’s west side.
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.
Despite being born black and male, Ronnie – who uses the pronoun they – now identifies as a white woman, regardless of outward appearances, saying there is a ‘repressed White female identity’ inside them begging to be released.
Dr Ronnie (pictured) is now is a a tenured professor of English at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, a public speaker, and actor
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.
A famous example of a transracial person is Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP leader, who, in 2015, was unmasked as a white woman whose family is primarily of European descent.
The revelation provoked outrage around the world and on social media after she said the ‘idea of race is a lie’.
Speaking during an interview with BBC’s Newsnight that year, she claimed that ethnicity is not biological and compared being ‘transracial’ to being transgender – prompting X (formerly Twitter) users to accuse her of using ‘white privilege’ to make her arguments.
Despite the criticism, Rachel doubled down on her transracial identity, describing herself as ‘unapologetically Black’ in a 2019 documentary.
Rachel has praised Dr Ronnie Gladden’s work, saying it ‘encourages us to expand our concept of acceptance and inclusion.’
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.
Dr Ronnie’s book White Girl Within describes the inner battle of existing with incongruent identities
Dr Ronnie (pictured) started experiencing transgracial feelings as a four-year-old – and they have continued throughout his life
They claim 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 their book. ‘It’s only so because society says it is.’
Ronnie undertook surgery, with a first nose job at 19, combined with ‘some work on the lips’.
They also wear foundation in a lighter shade than their skin but they acknowledge that their 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, they 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.’
They 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.’
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 realisation as ‘surprising, perplexing, daunting, and extremely inconvenient, to say the very least’.
They told Medium that the ‘psychological weight’ of that realisation sent them into ‘the depths of a depression and a minor oblivion.’
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.
Dr Gladden experienced violence as a child and young person – including the murder of their half-sister while in middle school. In addition to other childhood trauma, the writer has described their father as abusive.
Poignantly, they reveal how they believed they could have stood up to the violence if they had been a white girl, saying: ‘I thought that there was a power of beauty, a power of skin.’
According to the writer, they could have given the message to ‘back the hell off’ with ‘that kind of authority embodied within white femaleness’.
Ronnie, who has been in therapy for almost two decades, said that transitioning from the inside out is something they’ve spent much 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 male and white female.
According to Ronnie, while growing up, they saw themselves ‘reflected’ in a number of women, including Full House character Kimmy Gibler, rock star Joan Jett, and actor Anne Hathaway, describing the sensation as being ‘insistent, consistent and persistent throughout the years’.
Their expansive education, they have said, was a journey that helped strengthen their mental health.
Among their studies, Ronnie attended International Summer Schools at the University of Cambridge, and then continued to work within academia, travelling widely teaching, performing, and mentoring.
Despite first having the feelings of being a white female at just four, by middle-age, Dr Ronnie has written about how they were 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.’
Speaking during their TedX talk, the academic, who regularly speaks about identity, diversity, and inclusion for K-12 schools, universities, and nonprofits spoke about how transgracial identities have been represented in popular culture.
Among them, they listed Whoopi Goldberg in the movie The Associate, portraying a white male.
They also cited Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in the Marvel franchise, saying ‘through her character Mystique, she was able to represent an amalgamation of different kinds of races, ethnicities and even species’.
The tome features a series of letters, from Ronnie to themselves, discussing coming to terms with the transgracial identity
Describing how they reached their own identity, Dr Ronnie wrote in their book that they are a female brought along into the time of an adult season’.
Yet the journey is not a straightforward one: they note their development ‘was not linear’, and they are still ‘working to get caught up with everything’.
Among them are ‘my voice, my looks, my actions, my stride – and my time’.
Describing their acceptance of their identity, they wrote: ‘Ronnie, your life and form always eclipses me. It’s true, I’m a White girl. And for the longest time I’ve been your White girl. I know I’m me because I see it.
‘The subtext abounds. It’s those eyes from three-dimensional White females that see me buried in you. Their instinct knows it and feels it.’
