Caitlin Jenner and Privilege
(This is a first draft, and it still needs a conclusion, I welcome your commentary.) (edited)
When she came out, many were proudly with her, and many were proudly against her, but a great number were proudly uncomfortable with her. It’s that last group that Ms. Jenner appears to be trying to please right now. Her status as a trans woman and a celebrity athlete put her in the spotlight and gave her a voice. She had a great opportunity, and a greater responsibility to use it. The truth is that many people too young to remember the Olympic star Bruce Jenner, know her only for her trans status and her fight for acceptance. In the world of social media, the embrace, and outrage brought her, those of us old enough to know her past will say back, to the spotlight.
Her distance seeking from the LGBT community seems surprising, and maybe shocking to many due to some of our preconceived notions of the political views of those we praise for being out and, we assumed, proud. Okay, so what do we do with her now? In an interview with Ellen, she said she was “on board” with marriage equality, but only because she didn’t want to stand in the way of another person’s happiness, because that word “marriage” was really that important. That’s acceptance, but it’s lukewarm, and it’s that weakness on what has been the paramount issue of this civil rights issue that’s making people crazy.
So what do we do with her now? It’s clear that she’s a conservative Christian and a republican. For some that would signal a need for her rejection and dismissal. She’s not really one of us, and was just a drag queen either making fun of the community, or… or what? The trans community had lacked a significant and vocal spokesperson until she arrived, but her failure to fully embrace the changes in social policy, and culture are disturbing to say the least. What was needed was a lion, and what happened was closer to an old basset hound barking a bit before going back to sleep.
What’s happening needs to be understood. We have to realize that regardless of her gender identity, she lived in a world of privilege. She was a respected athlete and celebrity, not to mention part of the wealthy elite in this country. In short, she had enough money to actually be a republican, but furthermore, regardless of her hidden sexual identity as a woman, for most of her life she was outwardly a man, an athletic man, and with ten children, an outwardly proven virile man. At this point we could frame a great case for a well armored closet, and that may not be far from the truth. As Bruce, we have a powerful man, in many senses of the word, who could walk freely hiding that one little secret. She could rest in privilege due to her status as a heteronormative man, a wealthy and celebrated man, and (as an athlete) as a physically powerful man. That triple privilege shaped a personality bound for narcissism.
While it’s wrong to simply dismiss the risk she took coming out and undergoing her transition, it is worthy to look at just how separated she was from the rest of a community that had undergone physical assault simply due to the desire to exist as it is. She was nowhere near the Stonewall riots, and she never saw more than she wanted of the pain that trans people deal with on a daily basis until she took that brave step to come forward and out into an unkind world that rejected her. Of course she did this still armed with two of her three pieces of her privilege. Yes she would no longer be seen as a heteronormative man, but she still had wealth and status. In addition, she was met with significant support from a beaten down community that was recently seeing real steps in the way for acceptance from the rest of mainstream society. She had our defense to replace the privilege she had abandoned.
So what now? She’s not quite the hereon we wanted her to be, but she’s not really an adversary. This would be a good time to call for more acceptance for a complex individual who is both a brave individual and a person speaking from a place of privilege. But I’m not sure that’s really appropriate right now. The LGBT community is still faced with discrimination regardless of the turn of society’s slow wheel. We still have opposition willing to see themselves as the victims of some religious persecution against a slowly growing tide of people not willing to hold with the prejudice of the past. We have presidential candidates seeking photo ops with Kim Davis and likening her to Martin Luther King, and a backlash that reveals that while we have come far, we have much further to go.
Catlin Jenner’s PR campaign for her own acceptance is just not good enough. What she’s done is worthy of respect, but it’s just not enough. While she plays golf, there is a woman being physically assaulted by a lover who found out that she was a trap. While she does interviews, there are people risking their lives for being different, and while she shows what would normally be acceptable hesitation at the changes in our society, there are thousands of married couples who very seriously, and personally, worry about what would happen if a social conservative comes to power and pushes in the next conservative Supreme Court justice.
When she came out, many were proudly with her, and many were proudly against her, but a great number were proudly uncomfortable with her. It’s that last group that Ms. Jenner appears to be trying to please right now. Her status as a trans woman and a celebrity athlete put her in the spotlight and gave her a voice. She had a great opportunity, and a greater responsibility to use it. The truth is that many people too young to remember the Olympic star Bruce Jenner, know her only for her trans status and her fight for acceptance. In the world of social media, the embrace, and outrage brought her, those of us old enough to know her past will say back, to the spotlight.
Her distance seeking from the LGBT community seems surprising, and maybe shocking to many due to some of our preconceived notions of the political views of those we praise for being out and, we assumed, proud. Okay, so what do we do with her now? In an interview with Ellen, she said she was “on board” with marriage equality, but only because she didn’t want to stand in the way of another person’s happiness, because that word “marriage” was really that important. That’s acceptance, but it’s lukewarm, and it’s that weakness on what has been the paramount issue of this civil rights issue that’s making people crazy.
So what do we do with her now? It’s clear that she’s a conservative Christian and a republican. For some that would signal a need for her rejection and dismissal. She’s not really one of us, and was just a drag queen either making fun of the community, or… or what? The trans community had lacked a significant and vocal spokesperson until she arrived, but her failure to fully embrace the changes in social policy, and culture are disturbing to say the least. What was needed was a lion, and what happened was closer to an old basset hound barking a bit before going back to sleep.
What’s happening needs to be understood. We have to realize that regardless of her gender identity, she lived in a world of privilege. She was a respected athlete and celebrity, not to mention part of the wealthy elite in this country. In short, she had enough money to actually be a republican, but furthermore, regardless of her hidden sexual identity as a woman, for most of her life she was outwardly a man, an athletic man, and with ten children, an outwardly proven virile man. At this point we could frame a great case for a well armored closet, and that may not be far from the truth. As Bruce, we have a powerful man, in many senses of the word, who could walk freely hiding that one little secret. She could rest in privilege due to her status as a heteronormative man, a wealthy and celebrated man, and (as an athlete) as a physically powerful man. That triple privilege shaped a personality bound for narcissism.
While it’s wrong to simply dismiss the risk she took coming out and undergoing her transition, it is worthy to look at just how separated she was from the rest of a community that had undergone physical assault simply due to the desire to exist as it is. She was nowhere near the Stonewall riots, and she never saw more than she wanted of the pain that trans people deal with on a daily basis until she took that brave step to come forward and out into an unkind world that rejected her. Of course she did this still armed with two of her three pieces of her privilege. Yes she would no longer be seen as a heteronormative man, but she still had wealth and status. In addition, she was met with significant support from a beaten down community that was recently seeing real steps in the way for acceptance from the rest of mainstream society. She had our defense to replace the privilege she had abandoned.
So what now? She’s not quite the hereon we wanted her to be, but she’s not really an adversary. This would be a good time to call for more acceptance for a complex individual who is both a brave individual and a person speaking from a place of privilege. But I’m not sure that’s really appropriate right now. The LGBT community is still faced with discrimination regardless of the turn of society’s slow wheel. We still have opposition willing to see themselves as the victims of some religious persecution against a slowly growing tide of people not willing to hold with the prejudice of the past. We have presidential candidates seeking photo ops with Kim Davis and likening her to Martin Luther King, and a backlash that reveals that while we have come far, we have much further to go.
Catlin Jenner’s PR campaign for her own acceptance is just not good enough. What she’s done is worthy of respect, but it’s just not enough. While she plays golf, there is a woman being physically assaulted by a lover who found out that she was a trap. While she does interviews, there are people risking their lives for being different, and while she shows what would normally be acceptable hesitation at the changes in our society, there are thousands of married couples who very seriously, and personally, worry about what would happen if a social conservative comes to power and pushes in the next conservative Supreme Court justice.