Call From a Transgender Conservative

📅 2. November 2024 ✍️ By Kim Jones ⏱️ 11 Mins Read 🗂️ Der Blog 🕒 Last updated: 2. November 2024

Jun 2, 2015

RUSH: Here’s Danielle in Troy, Illinois. Danielle, great to have you on the program. Welcome.

CALLER: Hello. First, I want to say as a longtime listener and first-time caller, it’s a great honor to speak to you.

RUSH: Thank you for being with us today, sir.

CALLER: So I wanted to say, first of all, I’m a 30-year-old transgendered woman. I just started out on my transition. I’m conservative, very conservative, and I wanted to talk briefly about the whole Caitlyn Jenner situation —

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: — and how I find it incredibly infuriating how these bleeding hearts on the left think that they’re doing us all a favor by coddling us and acting as though we can’t survive without them.

RUSH: That’s how you see this, huh? That’s interesting.

CALLER: That’s exactly how I see it, ’cause first of all, it’s none of their business. They have no right to be in it. They have no right to talk about any of it, and —

RUSH: Well, now, wait. Wait, wait, wait. I understand that, but Caitlyn has not actually done this under cover of darkness. Caitlyn’s kind of —

CALLER: No.

RUSH: — been public about this.

CALLER: Right, right, I mean —

RUSH: I mean, that kind of invites the media in, and believe me, this is a place the media loves going.

CALLER: Yeah, that is absolutely true. And I think Caitlyn is doing us, in the long run, a good service because she’s not a bleeding heart herself. She tends to lean more towards the conservative side by her own words. No, I’ve noticed with, like you mentioned earlier how, I forget who it was, but we need to have this conversation.

RUSH: That would be Christine Brennan of —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — some sports wherever.

CALLER: I’m not so sure that we really need to have a conversation because every time we have a conversation it seems like there’s just a large quantity of resentment formed by those who —

RUSH: See, that’s the purpose. No, that’s it, that’s exactly it, Danielle. The purpose of the conversation is to expose the resentment. That’s exactly what the purpose is.

CALLER: The resentment isn’t there in the first place, because I’m speaking from my own experience. I go out and I go shopping all the time, and I go to, you know, just anywhere I want to go. And what I find out is most people on the right, most people on the left, most people in general just don’t care, as long as you don’t throw it in their face.

RUSH: Look, you need to help me along here.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: At what stage are you in your transition?

CALLER: So right now I just started the hormone treatment, so I still live most of the time as Daniel. But when I’m at home or when I’m at school I live as Danielle, and —

RUSH: All right. So when you go to the grocery store or the beauty parlor or whatever, it’s not apparently obvious to anybody that —

CALLER: It is when I open my mouth.

RUSH: That’s what I mean, but you say that people are tolerant, whatever. Nobody knows who you are, unless you tell them, right?

CALLER: Yeah, exactly. Nobody cares. And I have told a lot of people because they don’t know how to react at first, you know, ’cause they think they see a man in women’s clothes or they’re not quite sure. So I just tell ’em it’s okay, you know, don’t fret the details. This is what it is, this is what I’m going through, and most time they’re like, “Oh, well, good for you. I hope you’re happy and good luck,” and most people just don’t care.

RUSH: And they move on?

CALLER: Yeah, exactly. They just move on.

RUSH: Well, see, that doesn’t further any agenda. When people — because you really have I think nailed it here. When we hear people say, “We must have this conversation,” I’m telling you, do not doubt me, Danielle, that the purpose is to expose as many people as possible who don’t like it and then to focus on them as a bunch of bigots, hateful, mean-spirited, extremists, and then the next leap is to call them Republicans.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: That’s the ultimate objective of the conversation.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: But the conversation can’t happen if you don’t — I mean, you walk into wherever you’re going, if you don’t say a word, I mean, if you walk in the door and the first thing, “Hi, I’m in the process of transgendering from male to female and you better accept me or else.” Do you say that when you go into someplace?

CALLER: Oh, absolutely not.

RUSH: Do you say anything?

CALLER: No, generally not. I mind my own business.

RUSH: Okay. Now, you have to help me out. Can people — when you walk into some place and you don’t say anything, is your process right now obvious?

CALLER: Yes and no. Okay, I have a fairly deep voice, and I have a rather apparent Adam’s apple, but I guess I’m one of the fortune ones that’s not six foot five and, you know, built like a —

RUSH: But you are now wearing women’s clothes?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: You’re wearing women’s clothes. Do you shave your legs?

CALLER: I do.

RUSH: Okay. But you have your Adam’s apple and your voice, so you think people might, given the comparison between your appearance and the way you sound, you think people might suspect that —

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: — you are in some transgender process here, and even then, they don’t say anything to you?

CALLER: Right. Most of the time they don’t. So occasionally they might have a little trouble with the pronouns, not sure which ones to use, and that’s when I —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — kind of say, it doesn’t really matter. You know. I just —

RUSH: So you wouldn’t describe yourself then as an activist for this; this is just something deeply personal to you?

CALLER: No, I really wouldn’t — well, okay. I was trying not to become an activist, but I am finding myself slowly becoming an activist, but from the common sense approach where basically, if you’re transgendered, don’t walk into a store and say, “I’m transgendered, you all better like me or else.” You know, take a common sense — I try to advocate to all my friends who are going through the same thing, you know, just stay low. Don’t stand out in the crowd because —

RUSH: Okay, why do you want to become an activist then? What would you say activism for transgenderism is?

CALLER: Well, right now I would say activism for transgenderism is a political tool for the left —

RUSH: No, but I mean how does it manifest itself? If you’re saying you’re becoming an activist, does that mean you do walk into places and say, “Look at me, I’m transgendering and you better accept me”?

CALLER: No, absolutely not.

RUSH: No, I’m trying to understand. What is the activism then?

CALLER: The activism is, well, I’ve actively started writing a couple blogs on the subject.

RUSH: Ah. Okay.

CALLER: I’m trying to get more active in the St. Louis community in that transgender community to try to help other girls in my situation make better decisions in how they transition. Instead of, you know, just going into the stores without a care in the world. You have to take a lot of care in your appearance, otherwise people are going to notice, and then you are going to invite criticism, and then things are gonna spiral out of control.

RUSH: What do you mean, specifically, “care”? I mean, most people do, so what do you mean —

CALLER: Most people do, but I think for some transwomen they have to pay a little bit more attention because of the dark beard and that. So if you shaved a couple of hours ago and you throw on a layer of makeup, chances are you’re still gonna see some sort of beard.

RUSH: Ah, yes.

CALLER: So you have to be a lot more careful.

RUSH: Right. I hadn’t thought of that. I could see where that would be a problem. What are gonna do about the beard? Do hormones take care of that at some point?

CALLER: Hormones have an effect on the body hair, but all they do for the facial hair is slow the growth.

RUSH: Have you ever thought about laser treatments?

CALLER: Yes, actually I’ve been in laser for the last year and I just endured, right before calling the show, I just endured an hour of electrolysis hair removal on the face, and, see, I pay cash for everything because I don’t want help from any government organization, any left organization. I don’t need the insurance to pay for it because I know the taxpayers from Obamacare are paying for a lot of that. I don’t want that help. I don’t need that help. I’m my own person.

RUSH: How old are you?

CALLER: I’m 30 years old.

RUSH: When did you discover that you wanted to transgender?

CALLER: Well, I’ve always known something was different from the age of five.

RUSH: Five? Wow.

CALLER: Yeah. So it’s been with me all my life, and in most cases it is, but a lot of us don’t know how to articulate it until we’re older.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And we learn about it.

RUSH: You mentioned, I think, you said something about friend. Do you have a lot of friends going through this with you or doing the same thing at the same time?

CALLER: I have a handful of friends that are, yes.

RUSH: How long have you known them?

CALLER: I’ve known a couple of them for the last two years, and I’ve known another couple of them for about a year now.

RUSH: Okay, so you got to know them via the transgender —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — not people you grew up with, okay. So you haven’t encountered — well, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Let me ask, have you encountered any mean-spirited, disapproval type reactions from people when they —

CALLER: No.

RUSH: — discover or when they assume that you’re doing this?

CALLER: Quite the opposite, actually. Quite the opposite. I mean, I live in a small town, Troy, right outside of St. Louis. I go shopping in nearby towns that are relatively small, fairly conservative area, and I —

RUSH: What about your employer?

CALLER: So my employer doesn’t know. I work part time at a hardware store in town, and by the end of the summer the hormones are gonna have some effect, so I’m actually leaving there in August, you know, taking the next couple semesters of school off while I transition, then I’m gonna start looking for a career. So my bosses right now don’t know.

RUSH: Oh, they don’t know? And they are gonna know at some point, and you think because they’re gonna find out you’re gonna have to leave the hardware store?

CALLER: Well, it’s not because of my employers that I’m gonna leave the hardware store. I work a lot with the public and so I just don’t want to be asked a lot of questions —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — all the time, or I don’t want them to be asked a lot of questions.

RUSH: Well, now, you are unique, because most of the people that we are aware of doing this want to be the focus of attention. They want those questions and they want to answer those questions and they want to tell people everything about it, and they want to be very public in what they’re doing. It’s not something private. That’s how we know about it.

CALLER: Right. And they’re not entirely wrong in wanting to do that. I have absolutely no problem asking questions or talking about it. Obviously I called your show. But I don’t want to do it to work. I’m there to work. They’re paying me to do a job, not talk about my personal life.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: And that’s just how I feel about it, and so —

RUSH: So what’s your reaction, again, when you see Caitlyn Jenner being public at practically every phase of this, Vanity Fair cover, knowing who Caitlyn was. I mean, he was about — she was about as hunk of male as you can get.

CALLER: Yes. I’m happy for her. I really am. I hope the best. I’m glad that she’s in the public spotlight.

RUSH: But you resent the way she’s being used by people?

CALLER: Yes, absolutely, I resent the way that she’s becoming a political tool for a lot of those on the left. I mean, if you really want to talk about being dehumanizing and you really want to talk about, you know, belittling somebody, I mean, they have a monopoly on it, the left does. And to me there’s nothing more dehumanizing than reducing an individual to nothing more than a tool.

RUSH: Political tool at that. Well, look, Danielle, I appreciate the call, and I thank you for answering the questions. I haven’t had a chance to ask these questions of too many people, so I’m glad you got through. I appreciate it. I’m really long on the segment that’s why I have to go, but all the best to you. I hope it all works out as you hope.