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Introducing Caitlyn Jenner

This week, Caitlyn Jenner made her public debut via a stunning, Annie Leibovitz-shot Vanity Fair cover and profile. “Call me Caitlyn.” Yes, ma’am.

Her Twitter account is up to, as of this posting, 2.24 million followers. Celebrities (starting with Jenner’s own daughters) have tweeted support. President Obama has saluted her courage. In July, she’ll receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs. Of course, there have been some transphobic reactions (as, unfortunately, we can always expect), and some news outlets and commentators are still struggling with pronouns. But as she invites us, on Twitter, to “get to know her,” people are choosing to do that.

We’re also reminded that as we celebrate Caitlyn, we should remember that her victory is about more than just the way she looks in an evening gown. And we should also think about the challenges faced by other trans people who don’t have her privilege or visibility.

And from Laverne Cox, who had her own stunning magazine cover last year:

I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is receiving. It feels like a new day, indeed, when a trans person can present her authentic self to the world for the first time and be celebrated for it so universally. Many have commented on how gorgeous Caitlyn looks in her photos, how she is “slaying for the Gods.” I must echo these comments in the vernacular, “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!”

[…]

Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities. The love and devotion she has for her family and that they have for her. Her courage to move past denial into her truth so publicly. These things are beyond beautiful to me. A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves .

[…]

Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks. Trans folks of all races, gender expressions, ability, sexual orientations, classes, immigration status, employment status, transition status, genital status etc.. I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us. The struggle continues…

And the ultimate note, of course, from Jenner herself:


3 thoughts on Introducing Caitlyn Jenner

  1. I’m all for trans women being respected, but I’m so done with this hypervisibility bullshit that makes tons of cis people greet trans women with “Did you hear about Jenner??” now that they have yet another token trans woman to use in order to show what good allies they are. I understand that’s a very cynical view, but I’m just completely fed up with mainstream media treatment of trans women.

  2. I’m always torn when I see stories like this.

    On the one hand, I’m glad that Caitlyn Jenner gets to live as she wants to live.

    On the other hand, I think of all the trans women (and trans men, and, and…) who don’t. Who don’t have her wealth and privilege, and can’t afford all those surgeries and photoshopping. Who will never pass, or who barely pass and forever worry about getting “clocked” and getting weird looks and snide comments (or worse.) Or those who can’t afford to come out, because it cost them their jobs, their homes, their families, their entire support network.

    It’s nice that Caitlyn Jenner is being accepted and celebrated. But I think in the long run it will be the unglamorous, unbeautiful* trans and genderqueer people who, by living their lives and implicitly or explicitly demanding respect and acceptance, will bring about real change.

    *Here I’m using “beautiful” in the sense that Vanity Fair and the rest of the celebrity press would understand it.

    1. The way I see it, it takes many, many, many bricks to build a road.

      Caitlyn Jenner is a trans woman who made it on the front page of a publication with global reach, and NOT as the punch line of a cruel joke. She is wearing 1950s Hollywood glamour clothes….but she is not presented as “a man in a dress” or as a drag queen. She is presented as a woman.

      It was only, what, 3 years ago that Chelsea Manning went to wikileaks, and was persistently misgendered for years after her actions? Not just misgendered by the flailing and foaming-at-the-mouth brigade, but every media outlet under the sun. Now, Caitlyn Jenner has come out as trans, and she is being called by her name and being properly gendered by one of the biggest media companies in the western hemisphere. That’s a big deal.

      There is a LOT left to do to help trans folk and non-binary folk join the rest of society as equal members….but it takes a lot of bricks to build that road. This is one brick, and it’s a brick that even 3 years ago couldn’t be laid down on the substrate of society. And you’re right, those bricks will be laid down by the unglamourous, and they will be laid down on the lives of their best and most beloved before them.

      But still. One more brick.

      I’ll take that.

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