Hi Marcus,

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I discovered your YouTube channel a couple of months ago and was immediately hooked – you’re obviously a charismatic and intelligent guy, and I do find the dry bluntness incredibly funny.

Despite not being trans myself, I have had cause to think about the subject a lot over my life because:
a) I have always felt more ‘masculine’ than ‘feminine’. I am a bit of a relic – being in my thirties - and it wasn’t really a “thing” when I was growing up for my peers to clap each other on back for claiming to be trans. For me, it amounted to furtive research in to how one could feasibly become a transman – with a couple of YouTube channels in particular that I found fascinating. Ultimately, I decided that if it was a question of snapping my fingers and being a boy, I would, but I do not feel uncomfortable living in a female body. It is external factors that make me feel like I can’t be myself as a female, and once I had more choice about how I lived and who I associated with, it weighed less on my mind. I still feel like I would prefer to be a man, but I know that I am not trans.

b) Flip side of being out of an enforced ‘feminine’ environment with traditionalist expectations: a portion of my friendship group have really, really bought in to the ‘woke’ ideology regarding gender identity. A lot of white kids from relatively middle class homes seeming to want to feel righteously oppressed – and demanding that I blindly accept everything they say on the subject, never question any points made (even out of a place of genuine curiosity, not the presumed desire to simply attack), and ignore the fact that – there are simply different levels of priority when it comes to issues we should be concerned about. I am not going to pretend that someone deciding they are ‘non-binary’ deserves as much attention and headspace as the issue of, say, people being murdered elsewhere in the world for being gay…I have found it incredibly frustrating, and it’s been cathartic to hear many of the points you’ve made in your videos.

BUT

I am conflicted about the following aspects of the stance you take…

• Is it a pre-requisite that you align yourself with ‘conservative’ politics because of your thoughts on these particular issues? You have mentioned that you are ‘conservative’, and other influencers of a similar ilk to you (Blaire White being the most obvious example) seem to rejoice in it. I’m British and refuse to use bullshit Americanisms so I am not a ‘Liberal’ – I am left of center. No, not a Communist – but a believer in the welfare state, foreign aid, and the ‘social justice’ policies that I think actually make sense (you may argue that we have everything in place in this part of the world already – but, even if this is the case, you must concede there was a time in the not so recent past that people had to fight for the freedom and equality we enjoy today…).
  On one level, you are appealing to the ‘free thinkers’ - but you do lose me when you give people with pretty abhorrent right-wing views on other topics a free pass, or flagrantly cozy up to them. Do I have to be in awe of Matt Walsh’s ‘genius’ (MY SON PLAY WITH FISHING ROD, MY DAUGHTER PLAY WITH DOLLS, GETTIT??? :-O ) and play down the racist and sexist actions of rabid conservative politicians? It’s a shame if so.

• This is more a case of me trying to understand the nuance of some of your philosophy… If we’re going to highlight the irrational mess that is the woke position on gender – it’s necessary to make some concessions. The one I observe with you, is your frequently referring to yourself as a ‘biological woman’. I would imagine this causes unavoidable feelings of dysphoria when you say it but is necessary when making the point that gender is a fact – not a whimsical bit of hocus pocus that is beyond definition and arbitrarily assigned to someone at birth.
  …However, It seems you feel making this sacrifice gives you license to be the formal judge of who is and who isn’t ‘truly’ trans, and here: it all becomes a bit flimsy…Yes, I do understand the point about having eyes BUT I think it’s important that you provide more info on what your judgements are based on (if you’re going to be a credible activist addressing these issues) – we can both make educated guesses on how someone is perceived by the gen pop, but it’s not like you can get robust data to back this up every time. When you state that someone is ‘not trans’ what is the criteria you use? gut feeling, your own experience as a ‘legitimate’ transman, the fact that you pass as a man and have been able to have the surgeries needed to make that happen? It’s one thing to point out how ridiculous it is for someone to be 6”6, stacked, with a full beard and hyperventilate when people ‘misgender’ them as a man, but another to confidently state: “that person is trans, that person isn’t…I am within the 0.01% who is genuinely trans, you are not.”

I have become more and more certain that, for you, it’s almost entirely a question of how convincing they are physically, and their voice. Nothing more. People who do not ‘pass’ can get friendlier treatment and a vague label of ‘trans’ from you if they appear sufficiently chastened and humble, and ideally bend over to the right-wing crowd I mentioned before. Just a theory.

Putting this out to the ether, with kudos for much of what you say,
Viv