Last week, I covered the premiere episode of I Am Cait. It was interesting television and it ended up being slightly more compelling than an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, although you could feel a vein of KUWTK in IAC. My biggest complaint about the premiere episode was that Caitlyn seemed superficially self-absorbed and searching for validation throughout every conversation, every meeting, every interaction. What’s interesting about IAC is that they dealt with that idea head-on in the second episode.
In last night’s episode, the word “privilege” was probably uttered about two dozen times and it was always directed at Caitlyn. Caitlyn has privilege. She doesn’t deny it, probably because she really hadn’t considered it before a few months ago. Caitlyn-as-Bruce had lived in a bubble of privilege as a wealthy white man, privilege as a celebrity, privilege as a Republican. Caitlyn has been living in a bubble, going through her transition privately and without the help, advice or friendship of other trans women. In last night’s episode, that all came to a head. Caitlyn invited a group of trans women to her Malibu home and then they went on a road trip to San Francisco. And it was surprisingly substantive.
Sure, there was superficial stuff in the episode too – Caitlyn worries her voice is too deep, Caitlyn has a crush on Candis Cayne – but what struck me was that Caitlyn is fine with being called out by the people in her new community. She faced some hard truths about what trans women face on a daily basis. What could have been a harsh experience all around ended up being educational for all, which is sort of the point of the show.
During the conversation about what the average trans American might face – discrimination, terrible health care, job discrimination, turning to sex work to pay for one’s operations, Caitlyn seemed tone-deaf. She mentioned reading Janet Mock’s book (the trans women were not impressed) and then Caitlyn admitted that she hated the idea of trans people relying on social programs: “You don’t want people to get totally dependent on it. That’s when they get in trouble: ‘Why should I work?’” That was like the record-scratch moment of the show. Professor Jenny Boylan (who was part of the group) admits that Caitlyn has the right to be as conservative as she wants, but Caitlyn needs to check her privilege at the door, saying: “Many transgender men and women need social programs to survive, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Living in the bubble is an impediment to understanding other people. If Cait’s going to be a spokesperson for the community this is something that she’s going to have to understand.”
And that’s it in a nutshell. That’s why I think this show (and Caitlyn in general) will do more good than harm. Caitlyn isn’t afraid of being educated. She’s not afraid of being called out. She’s not afraid of looking like a politically conservative douche (“why can’t all trans people be rich and famous, eh?”). It’s messy and instead of putting up walls or sticking her head in the sand, Caitlyn is just in there, trying to figure it out and making mistakes along the way. And that’s more compelling than Caitlyn trying to figure out what to do about her voice or whether she has a crush. It’s about the emotional, intellectual, political and spiritual side of transitioning as much as it’s about the physical, superficial side of transitioning.
Photos courtesy of Caitlyn’s IG, E! News, Fame/Flynet.
I’m admittedly impressed. Impressed with the show for making education and growth a major focus, and impressed with Caitlyn for being open, willing to listen, and willing to walk this sometimes-awkward road for the world to see.
To bring it back to the superficial, she looks like she’s really growing into herself. Very pretty. And I feel bad for her as far as her struggle with her voice. Isn’t there anything she could do about that if she wanted to?
I recall Caitlyn and Kim, plus Kim’s friend discussing the issue of Caitlyn’s voice. Caitlyn brought up the idea of surgery and Kim was taken aback. She said that it could be risky and Caitlyn could lose her voice
It’s truly sweet that Kim is concerned. However, that’s pretty rich coming from her. The FDA says there are certain studies which indicate that the number of liposuction- related deaths is between 20 and 100 deaths for every 100,000 procedures. Sure, Kim, educate other people on the risks, so long as we know none of that applies to you
Call me cynical but I really doubt that Kim gives a hoot about anything Caitlyn-related. IMO her concern is all a ruse. She would do anything for exposure, as we all know, so she agreed to appear on that show. Kim is self-obsessed so this was just another opportunity to be in front of the camera.
Yes, I am too. The point was to show that she’s wrong. Everyone is wrong sometimes. She seems to be challenging herself honestly, and that impresses me.
Thank you for your comment. There were comments on another article last week that were completely off-base and obviously from people who had not seen the first episode. This show has never pretended to make Caitlyn a martyr, perfect, nor the end-all-be-all of the LGBT community. As I stated last week, Caitlyn is shown as having to come to terms with her own identity…and how that comes about in relation to family and other members of the LGBT community—a process which is no doubt difficult and not necessarily positive at times. In that vein, I think this show is accomplishing a lot. It feels like one is literally joining Caitlyn on her journey to find herself, including all the people, conflicts, good times, experiences along the way. Like the commenter above, I actually am quite surprised at how human and likable it has made Kim and her sisters. When I saw Kim last week and on this week’s episode, I was actually thinking how wonderful she comes across on this show.
Christo and Beverly, thank you guys for your replies. While I do take issue with several aspects of Caitlyn, the person, I do think some people go a little overboard with the, “how dare you call Caitlyn a hero?! What about every US citizen that has ever served in the armed forces?” stuff. I don’t think she ever tried to present herself as a hero, or as the perfect representative of the trans community. She’s just someone who’s trying to find herself, and she wants to share with you. I do think she’s shown an enormous amount of respect to the trans community, and to me, that’s what counts when it comes to the show itself. And it seems like she’s great at inspiring empathy, which does make her a good messenger IMO.
@Shambles – “The FDA says there are certain studies which indicate that the number of liposuction- related deaths is between 20 and 100 deaths for every 100,000 procedures.”
If I’m not mistaken, Kanye’s mother died of a liposuction-related death. One would figure that this would make a difference, but vanity trumps all.
“But vanity trumps all.”
Mm, mm, mm.
*shakes head*
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve been having some trouble with my skin lately, and sometimes it makes me a little sad. But then I take a look at the Kardashian women, and I feel a little better. I would rather have a few blemishes than be a mannequin with opposable thumbs.
First of all, being politically conservative does not make someone a douche, any more than being liberal does. Being a douche stands on it own without political affiliation.
Second, “…educational for all, which is sort of the point of the show.” Seriously? Come on. The point of the show, as the point of any show is to make money. That is the bottom line if we are going to be honest here.
Saying “people shouldn’t rely on social programs because then they won’t want to work” in THIS context, after she heard how hard it is for transgender people who are not loaded to survive and to do what Cait is doing, makes her specifically a conservative douche.
It’s particularly rich coming from someone who’s only “work” in the recent years came from being a reality TV star (as far as I know). Honey, I assure you, the laziest “welfare queen” would absolutely not mind starring in a reality TV show.
I’m pretty sure Calpernia Adams teaches voice techniques to transgender women…
She still thinks like a rich Republican male and no amount of surgeries and hormone therapy will change that.
MTE. She will never “get it” because she’s never lived it. Getting called out about assistance? Seriously? Does she really think the average trans person can just pay for the procedures required without some serious financial acrobatics? It was a “let them eat cake” when they have no bread moment. Ugh. Just ugh.
Does she really believe the average person on welfare stays on welfare for more than two years or that many of them aren’t holding really low paying jobs while on welfare? Does she also think that the average job with the average insurance covers those procedures and treatments?
I don’t think never having lived it is an excuse. I’ve never lived it, but I understand that not everyone had parents with a comfortable income who loved them and cared about education – if any of those things are missing, or for any number of other reasons, you can end up struggling through no fault of your own and not because of an unwillingness to work. He’s old enough to have seen the light regardless of his own station in life. He just chooses not to because it’s so comfortable.
GNAT — agreed, so well said.
GNAT,
I agree with you in theory, but practice shows that a lot of people DO think that they “deserve” what they have and that it’s all thanks to their hard work, COMPLETELY overlooking the factors that you mentioned. It’s not to say that people who are well off didn’t work hard, you can easily be born well-off, and squander your opportunities, or you can increase them.
But I do think that a lot of people underestimate how much of a boost it is to have middle class+ parents, both parents, caring parents, etc. We tend to take that for granted.
Timbuktu is right on the mark. None of pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. I was able to go to college to start my journey to a Ph.D. in two physical sciences only because my mother gave me free room and board rather than pushing me to get a job and help her out. She took a crappy job at the school to make sure I could get free tuition if I couldn’t get a scholarship. We were officially under the poverty line at the time. But she was moving heaven and earth to make sure both her kids were able to get the education she couldn’t have, because she herself had to get a job after high school for financial reasons. She even put her younger sister through nursing school. We all owed her big time. Many people don’t have such advantages. And Cait should especially know that, because she was able to train for the Olympics thanks to her first wife working to support them while she trained.
Yes. That’s all: Yes.
+1
So true.
Indeed, Kay, she still lacks empathy. Does she believe being a transgender gives her cheap grace and understanding, gives her special dispensation? She’ s still Bruce realised as an unempathetic female. It’s still all about her, about her wanting and using support but , in effect giving little back. She thinks publicity is enough.
People can evolve and these experiences may actually change that viewpoint. This show is attempting to open Caitlyn up to the person she truly is as well as to the world around her for others like her.
Really? That’s for people dealing with the cold, cruel world out there. Change can happen. When you’ re celebrated and receive cold, hard cash in return, I’ m thinking there is little urgency to change. She is paying lipservice as long as the Benjamins keep flowing.
@hmmm Thanks for your opinion. Using your logic, EVERY SINGLE PERSON getting paid to do anything is automatically suspect in their motivations. I agree that there is always room to question, but I disagree with the inevitability of your conclusion.
Let’s just take your strain of logic to its illogical end:
Obama gets paid as President; therefore, (using your logic) everything he advocates for…LGBT rights, women’s right, healthcare, etc…. is TOTALLY SUSPECT because he gets paid a salary as President.
Nurses and doctors get paid money to treat patients; therefore, (using your logic) everything they do is squarely and solely tied to their income and has nothing to do with concern/altruism.
Again, just taking YOUR LOGIC to its inevitable end.
@Christo. The observation is solid, aimed specifically at one person whose behaviour has shown consistently over time a lack of caring , desire for attention and money, and a deep shallowness. There has been no epiphany and I doubt there ever will be.
I’m glad she’s being called out on her ignorance. But this also gives her and others an opportunity to learn more about the struggles of transgender people who aren’t rich white celebrities and a chance to grow from that. Privilege can sometimes make a person less aware of problems that people who aren’t exactly like them have to deal with, or how and why certain things they say and do are problematic. What matters more is whether or not the person is open to learning and changing, or if they act like a defensive bigoted ass when called out and refuse to do any type of self-reflection or listening.
This
Thank. You.
“privilege as a Republican”
???
What does this even mean? Some Republicans are rich, white, or many other privileged things. So are some Democrats. I’m not a Republican – do you automatically get extra privilege when you become a Republican? Maybe I should become one then.
I didn’t understand what she meant by that either, unless it was a privileged attitude? Like “why do you have to depend on social programs – just get a job,” when many trans people are discriminated against and can’t get good jobs? I might be wrong, though.
That was what I was thinking. How does being a Republican have anything to do with privilege? I grew up in a lower economic class, my family relied on welfare programs for a time, and I am a Republican. Voting Republican has never granted me some advantages. If anything it’s been the exact opposite as I have felt vilified by friends and family just because of having conservative-leaning political policy beliefs, not expressing them just having them. I acknowledge that yes there are many areas of where people need to be educated on the advantages they have in life over others and to be respectful and appreciative of them. But at the same time there are a lot of times we are assigning #privilege to things that don’t apply. Those types of labels don’t educate – it creates divides and separates us as a society. Yes, Caitlyn has some advantages but her identifying with a particular political party isn’t one of them because the context doesn’t apply to her situation of transitioning to a different gender. If she identified as a Democrat, would the phrase ‘privilege as a Democrat’ have been written? If you question it like that it makes one wonder where the #privilege really lies.
As much as I love this site, both the writers and most of the commenters have no love for the Republican party. I consider myself to be Libertarian and still feel like my kind is generally shunned. If you’re not all for everyone having everything even if they don’t work for it, you’re a conservative meanie. Granted most with this thought process have never worked in the social services field and been in the belly of the beast. I have, and I went from a fairly liberal gal to the evil semi conservative you see today. It’s all well and good until you see the reality of people who think they’re owed something by the government day in and day out.
@Joy +1,000!
@Joy, @ Nicolette…… +3,000!
@joy: Same here Joy. I never talk about it on the site because God forbid you don’t believe services for all is helping people. Not saying that somehow instead, but when you have families where generation after generation do not even try to work there’s a problem with that.
I know, what is that supposed to mean? Does Caitlyn really think being a Republican requires one to be wealthy? Ridiculous. Either you think the role of the government is to be involved in every facet of citizen’s lives – left wing, usually, but not always, Democrat – or you think government screws up enough already and you prefer it involve itself in people’s lives as little as possible – right wing, usually, but not always, Republican. It has nothing to do with being wealthy, or not caring about the poor. it’s about how much control the government has in our lives. Most wealthy celebrities, BTW, profess to be left wing/Democrat, and are all for the Feds control everything, in everyone else’s lives but their own. They, of course, have a legion of lawyers and accountants who keep the government out of their lives, and out of their bank accounts, which makes them Republican in deed if not in ideology.
+1. Most celebs do profess to be liberal Democrat, and many do so to keep working. There is a conservative group that began with just a few individuals including Gary Sinise and it has grown to over 2,000 members. For all the tolerance and equality that liberalism preaches the hypocrisy is that there really isn’t any tolerance for any other views. There’s something wrong if those in the entertainment industry have to keep their political beliefs under wraps to get work.
Hollywood is very conservative behind closed doors. The racism, homphobie and sexism are omnipresent.
They just like to publicy call themselves open minded and liberal. They aren’t.
The biggest joke is Sean Penn calling himself a liberal, he is a racist sexist scum.
Can I just point out that it wasn’t democrats who have supported action to block my access to treatment for ovarian cysts and wanted to drug test me when I applied for unemployment after my job was eliminated?
As to conservatives in Hollywood having to hide their views to work, Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Jon Voight, Gary Sinise have all made that claim yet they all work regularly, along with Fred Thompson, The Arnold, Bruce Willis, Dennis Miller, RDJ and others
@Nicolette: It’s not liberal intolerance and hypocrisy. Free speech gives a person the right to spout whatever slurs and views they want, bigoted or not- they can be homophobic, they can be sexist, they can be racist, they can promote the idea that Christians are morally superior to non-Christians, whatever else people want to say. All without the government punishing you for it. But free speech also supports the right of others to criticize you and your organization for the beliefs you express, and the right of the company you work for, advertisers funding you, or anyone else affiliated with you to decide that they no longer want to support you, sponsor you, or have you representing them, they don’t want to promote your bigoted message, and that they don’t want your beliefs associated with theirs. Those people’s rights matter too. And that’s whether you identify as liberal, conservative, or libertarian- if you express discriminatory attitudes toward groups of people who are lower on the hierarchy than you, people have the right to harshly criticize you and not support you. It doesn’t mean that your rights are being violated. It’s an example of both you and those opposed to your beliefs exercising your free speech rights at the same time.
What Lilacflowers said.
@Kay – again, you’re confusing things. Being a left winger has nothing to do with being open minded. Conservatives want you to have freedom to make your own destiny, without government interference. IMO, that’s being open minded.
@epiphany
who doesn’t screw up? People? Churches? Republican party? “Making your own destiny” sounds very fabulous… when you’re healthy, white, American, etc. I have no idea how people can seriously argue against social nets. Are you immortal? Do you really have so much money or so much family support that if you became disabled tomorrow, you wouldn’t need any help? Well, good for you, but I don’t! So, does “making my own destiny” mean, then, “if you don’t have a large family or a large fortune, then at the first tragedy that befalls you, crawl into a corner and do die quietly, please, we have no time or patience for your kind”?
I don’t see universal health care as government controlling me, I see it as the government protecting me from going broke over an illness or injury.
I don’t see free education as government controlling me, I see it as the government opening my horizons and giving me options.
I don’t see access to family planning as government controlling me, I see it as the the government allowing me to control my own life, rather than telling me that my only options are abstinence or the Duggars.
Republicans readily embrace government control when it suits them, as well. Like when they want the government to forbid homosexual marriages. Or is it the government controlling US that we mind, but we’re all for the government controlling OTHERS, especially the ones we don’t like?
Well said Timbuktu.
There are those among the Republican party (the very vocal ones at least) that want to do away with any type of social welfare programs and that could be what the Republican reference was too. Is it only Republicans that feel this way? No, but if Caitlyn is a Republican, then that is why this party was brought up and not the other.
This, over and over.
That’s not true. It’s a deliberate misread by media narrative on what Republicans actually say. Sure, there are a few really jerky–but rare–individuals who believe there should be NO social programs. Most Republicans want basic social safety net programs to stay. Many Republicans want those programs audited or cut at the FEDERAL level because they believe they are state responsibilities.
I’m a conservative libertarian, so I usually vote Republican. I have never wanted to end housing subsidies, health care subsidies, or food programs. I have, however, advocated for the constitutional boundaries of the federal government to be maintained, and I have advocated for states to foot the bill in their own borders for larger portions of the aid available for the nation’s poor.
The notion that Republicans hate poor people and want to cut all social programs is a lie that non-Republicans have embraced because it makes them feel better about dehumanizing anyone who disagrees with them on how to deal with our nation’s problems.
Frankly, I’m sick of being told I hate old people and sick people and poor people simply because I have a different view of the best solution for taking care of them than a Democrat does.
MrsNix, marry me.
(Cue the same sex marriage snark here someone wants to post because I agree with your statements……and yes I am a LGBT ally.)
So sick of the binary political thinking I can’t stand it anymore. Here it is: I’m pro gay rights, pro a woman’s right to choose. I support reasonable Affirmative Action. I believe strongly that our immigration policies need reform, but I’m not for amnesty for illegal immigrants.
I believe in a strong military and strong foreign policy, I’m conservative financially and believe we should all take care of our own, I dont worship at the alter of Other People’s Money.
Absolutely yes I believe there should be social safety nets for crisis situations. But if you are on welfare I think you ought to work for the government to earn it. Go ahead, staff the DMV with people receiving welfare, staff child care for govt employees with people receive welfare, etc.
And I have absolutely no problem with asking a welfare recipient to pass a drug test–I had to pass one to get the job that paid the taxes to fund the welfare.
“Take care of our own”?
I’m a first-generation immigrant, all of my family is still back in my country of birth, and I’m not religious, so I am not part of any church. Who’s supposed to take care of me and my children, if I can no longer do it myself? Is it my fault that I don’t have a large and/or wealthy family that can support me long-term if I become sick or injured? Do I have to be religious so that I can maybe subsist on the assistance of my fellow church members (and quite frankly, I know a LOT of church goers, and I really struggle to imagine them providing meaningful long-term support to anyone, not because they are bad people, but because it’s hard work and a big investment).
So, sorry, I don’t understand that part of your position at all.
Short of that, I’m with you on being sick of the binary. But as long as we have a 2-party system, I don’t think that rising above the binary is a viable POLITICAL option.
Count me in as somebody who said “WTF” when I read that. I am neither republican or democrat and I hate the sniping that goes on between the parties. It just hurts our country.
Thank you!
I agree. If you think being privileged leads to being Republican, fine. But being Republican doesn’t lead to privilege. Correlation is not causation.
I’m stuck on the “priveleged Republican” thing, too. There are so many members of BOTH parties with money. Um..Clintons come to mind. What does that even mean?? Privilege based on political party in this country is not a valid point. I’m glad that Caitlyn is willing to listen and learn. That alone sets her apart from the rest of that coven of K harpies.
She may have meant that republicans are privileged in that historically the views that many of them spout have been the dominant, mainstream ideals in society for hundreds (and elsewhere thousands) of years. Society has long supported “Let them fend for themselves” attitudes toward the poor, Christian supremacy, the right to be racist or homophobic, misogyny, sexism, and traditional gender roles, intolerance toward trans people and sex workers, intolerance toward people who don’t conform to traditional mores concerning sexuality and their bodies, free speech as the right to say whatever bigoted things one likes without others exercising their right to free speech in response to what you said, etc. And before anyone says it, yes, I already know that #NotAllConservatives and #NotAllRepublicans hold those kinds of beliefs. No derailment needed.
Except that isn’t even accurate. The Republican Party isn’t that old and you do realize that Abe Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant and Teddy Roosevelt were all Republicans?
It doesn’t really matter how old the party itself is or who identifies as one. What matters is how old the beliefs are, the impact those types of beliefs have had on different groups of people, and which people are loudly defending those beliefs the most today.
Southern Strategy, B.
Otaku
+1
It doesn’t mean anything, A, just that the author of this piece, like so many other people, just likes to get in a gratuitous, pointless slam against Republicans. I’m glad so many commenters here have called her out on it.
Totally agree with that!
How in the world do you become privledged because you are Republican?!?! That is a very narrow minded statement!
Ditto. It’s not just narrow-minded. It’s completely closed-minded and bigoted. Unless we all think exactly the same things and view the solutions to problems in exactly the same way…one side has to be bad, privileged, diminished, irrelevant?
Caitlyn isn’t a douche because she’s a Republican, and she isn’t privileged because she’s a Republican. She’s privileged because she’s been sheltered, wealthy, famous, and vapid most of her adult life. She’s apparently gonna be given the opportunity to learn and change some of that.
Whether or not she changes the way she votes is entirely separate.
It was interesting when the group were discussing trans women and sex work. Caitlyn immediately starting joking about people calling her a prostitute and Professor Jenny Boylan seemed very unimpressed. I understand that it is a learning process for Caitlyn but this episode really lowered my opinion of her.
What about her killing a person in a car accident and getting away with it or showing no remorse?
I honestly forgot about that happening (terrible, I know). Thanks for reminding me. Between that and Caitlyn’s ‘parenting’ it so happens my opinion of her wasn’t that high anyway.
Not trying to make excuses for her, but sometimes people make jokes as a coping mechanism when they’re uncomfortable (see Chandler Bing). She might have been uncomfortable since she was pretty much being taken to church, and was joking as a way to ease the tension. I doubt she meant any harm by it, but it does sound slightly insensitive.
I definitely understand what you’re saying. I just wasn’t impressed at all with her insensitivity but I do give her credit for being willing to learn.
Definitely. You’d think she’d tread a little more lightly given the fact that her peers in the trans community have been through so much. If she wants to be a part of the sisterhood, compassion is necessary.
She’s got some entitlement to unlearn, but her being willing to not just see that she’s wrong but show everyone how wrong she was is really astonishing to me. Not everyone would capture their worst selves like that in order to teach others a lesson.
Cant hate on her Putting s spotlight over her fellow trans people in harder circumstances, that said I didnt watch last night, might do it tonight tho
…you know it’s one thing to be born into ignorance but I’m always so confounded by the adult humans who have their blinders on so strongly they say such stupid things without irony.
Again I’m not shocked that ‘Bruce’ was republican/conservative, it makes damn perfect sense for a wealthy white man, what I’m surprised by is he actually believed the bull.
It’s one thing to selfishly just not care about others as long as your own wealth is secure, frankly I think a lot of the nervousness about Trump is from the fact he so boldly and bluntly says what the republican franchise has been whispering about for decades. That I fully expect. But to actually believe it? Now THAT’S amazing.
The woman who lived off her step-child’s sex tape, without any irony, says she worries other trans people willbe too dependent on social programs. Wow.
I read from Radar on line that the other people/friends of Caitlyn auditioned for the part of being Caitlyn’s friends. They are saying the entire show is scripted. This is Nothing but a way for Caitlyn to rake in the money, just like the KK’s. What does Caitlyn knows about the trans people when she had never met a trans before she came out as trans a few weeks ago.
After that accident where Bruce/Caitlyn was responsible for a deadly accident and he showed no remorse at anytime just reminds me of a very cold and calculating person, juno.
EGAD! You mean to tell me that an E! Reality show is scripted?!? Next you’re going to tell me that The Hills was scripted, too! Oh wait…
😉
All in all, that’s disappointing but quite unsurprising. I said upthread that I was impressed with the show, but if this is true that definitely taints it a bit.
The show had too much awkwardness that doesn’t come down to bad acting, so I don’t think it’s completely scripted. Except minor things like when her assistants are discussing Candis, on the bus trip – that did seem very scripted and straight out of the Kardashian handbook. And the monologues, of course. Anyway, there’s a difference between staged and scripted.. Even serious doc’s stage events (not saying this is one), with scripted shows participants already know the outcome of every convo before it starts and it’s obvious, for the most part I didn’t get that impression here.
They were smart in picking these other women to serve as a contrast to Caitlyn’s privileged life and self-centered persona, so at least their auditioning process seems to have panned out.
“The woman who lived off her step-child’s sex tape, without any irony, says she worries other trans people willbe too dependent on social programs. Wow.”
Hahahaha! I am rolling with laughter. Spot on insight!
I actually froze in shock when Caitlyn made her social programs comment.
What struck me hard about Kait’s lifestyle is she is rather flaunting how rich she is in comparison to other trans individuals. Some of those lovely people had to fight for their clothes on their backs while Cait has Tom Ford and DVF dressing her (which she bragged about in her first episode).
There was another issue that struck me as odd. Perhaps I am being too picky, but Kait had issues about getting into a swimsuit in one scene on her show, but she wore nothing but a corset-like garment on the cover of Vanity Fair. She also wore another one inside the magazine. Why is she suddenly uncomfortable wearing one? I do not get it.
Photoshop
^this
The swimsuit issue stood out for me as well, considering what Caitlyn wore for Vanity Fair. Maybe Caitlyn is nervous about being in front of other trans women in a swimsuit? The other women had transited years earlier and Caitlyn is still fairly new to her life as a woman.
If she comes to understand that reliance on social programs is a necessity, not a shame, for some people in the trans community, she might also realise that the same goes for OTHER groups in society. And that the health and value of social programs in our societies are as much a reflection of the people who DON’T need them as they are of the people that DO.
Isn’t that the point of showing her getting called out? People are jumping down her throat for being very wrong here, but isn’t the whole point to show how she was wrong and how she changed her views and came to understand her privilege? Hasn’t everyone needed education on wrong-headed views? I like that she is modeling this kind of humility and acceptance of her privilege, and that she’s trying to admit it and make a change. I admire that.
I think people’s skepticism about Cait’s personal growth and development is based on the fact that it’s a scripted reality TV show. Maybe Cait’s truly learning and challenging herself to think outside of her privileged bubble, or maybe she’s just pretending to for the show.
I would hope so, Beverly, you know?
I dunno, Kitten. I hear you. But I guess, even if it’s scripted, perhaps some of the viewers would follow a similar positive path of growing self-awareness? It might be utopian of me, but every time I hear people here in Britland expound on welfare scroungers or whatever, I always think, “Do you even realise how UGLY you sound? How UGLY you make the country I live in? I don’t want to be ugly-by-association and I want to find a way to school you so that you actually SEE YOURSELF and make some changes to your ugliness.” If this show makes even one person do that, I’d be grateful.
I understand the skepticism of reality shows. I mean, of course there’s some gap between reality and E! reality, and I’m sure Caitlyn has plenty more privilege and entitlement to unlearn. But I don’t understand why people are bashing her for having had those views given that she expressly framed them as wrong. She isn’t standing behind these very wrong points of view at all. She’s saying that she’s trying to move behind them, and that underscores her authenticity, shows that she is not trying to whitewash herself or her own issues. Even if it’s mostly an image, it’s a helpful one – we need to see MORE people coming to terms with their privilege.
I guess I understand people who think that every aspect of the Kardashian clan is a lie would think that’s a lie too, but there’s something else at work here. Frankly, and I expect to get flamed for this, I think people’s skepticism towards Cait specifically has as much to do with sneaky transphobia as Kardashian hate. I think that much like Cait, people here think that they are free of bigotry, but what we have learned is hard to unlearn. The cultural belief that transgender women are dirty tricking liars is very powerful, and I think it has something to do with the overwhelming vitriol in response to a woman who is showing her flawed humanity, her humility in the face of being wrong, and a willingness to change. I don’t think anyone is trying to be a bigot, mind, and I appreciate that people are respecting her gender identity by using the correct name and pronouns. But transphobia is more than just admitting that a woman is a woman – it’s about unlearning the cultural baggage that trans women carry. Which is exactly what Cait is doing here, which is why I salute her showcasing the humbling process of coming to terms with privilege, even if it’s partially an act.
In my humble opinion she won’ t change her views. It’ s all for show and all about her. Why? A deeply entrenched value system and celebrity coddling. And narcissism.
@Sixer, one would really hope that such enlightenment would follow but, just as you describe the situation in the UK, that same ugliness against social programs exists here. Jenner’s line about not seeing it as a way of life is standard rhetoric.
My family sees this in action daily with my cousin’s wife who bombards our email boxes with petitions to end all social service programs and, in the meantime, waste $47 of my tax money per test to drug test all recipients annually , despite the fact that court’s hold this unconstitutional and the states that have done it only caught a handful of people. Meanwhile, her granddaughter has a genetic disorder that will claim her life before she reaches school age. The government has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital care, surgeries, and home services and adaptive devices to this girl, who will never walk, needs a feeding tube, is partially deaf, suffers periodic blindness and has daily seizures. Her parents smoke pot to cope with the stress. When we point out to her the damage her own policies would have on her grandchild( she’s in complete denial. “No, they should test THOSE people, not the ones who need it.”
Universal healthcare here makes the trans thing slightly different. You get the hormone treatment and surgery for free (although you could argue there’s discrimination because the 18 week time limit for treatment is regularly broken for trans people as there aren’t enough clinics). But otherwise, yes, it’s the same thing exactly.
Here, as you know, we’ve done 5 years of an austerity regime and are embarking on a second 5 years. The last period basically attacked low hanging fruit – public sector workers and unemployed and single parents. This time round, we’ll see a rise in interest rates soon and suddenly the (homeowner with mortgage employed) people who have had it easy so far under austerity will suddenly find their huge mortgage payments won’t leave them enough to live on. And at that point, they’ll be saying exactly the same as your cousin’s wife: “I meant THEM, I didn’t mean ME”.
Sadly, I think “those people” often translates to “people who don’t look like me.”
I didn’t watch the show, and I have never been a trans person, so I understand that there are things I can’t comprehend about it, but I disagree that turning to sex work to pay for your operations is something trans people “might face,” like discrimination and poor health care. Turning to sex work is a choice someone might make in those circumstances, but it IS a choice. Discrimination and poor health care are not choices. I would not become a prostitute unless I was literally going to die if I didn’t. I certainly wouldn’t do it to pay for an operation. There is a growing trend of acting like prostitution is just another job, and people should be fine with that. In fact, now it’s supposed to be called sex work. Sorry, but it’s a job that involves the exploitation and abuse and degradation of millions of women and children every single day. It’s not the happy hooker who’s making a feminist decision. Most, if not all, prostitutes are working as such because they are desperate, starving, addicted or forced into it, and I’m not getting on board with this new trend of prostitution as a legitimate career choice. (I’m not saying that’s what Kaiser meant, I’m just speaking generally.)
Everything I’ve seen and read involving trans people has been about how horrible they felt in their original bodies. You’re unhappy that someone would resort to prostitution when there are people literally killing themselves because they can’t see a life outside of the body they were born in?
You don’t have to like or respect prostitution to know it pays and for the desperate it’s an option. I hardly think these trans women are happily climbing into strangers cars without the thought they might end up dead running through their mind. They get beaten, they get raped repeatedly…and that is still an alternative they choose because it at least offers some hope for the bodies they dream of. I have known one woman who was killed (who was a prostitute) and another who has been raped repeatedly (without being a prostitute). It’s a desperate set of circumstances because we have no real programs set up to help people who are seeking to transition.
@The Eternal Side-Eye – I have to completely agree with you here. Trans people who turn to sex work aren’t doing it flippantly; they’re doing it as a last resort. And this is what needs to change. No human being should have to put themselves in harms way as a last ditch effort to make a sustainable living. What are the other options? They’re discriminated against in the work place because so many people still want to label them as freaks or hide under the excuse of “your lifestyle doesn’t coincide with my religious beliefs, so I can’t acknowledge that you exist.” Trans people can turn to social programs or welfare, and while those can certainly be a leg up, they don’t offer a concrete solution to the problem here, which is that these are people who want to make a living and have the ability to support themselves just like the rest of us. It’s like, if everywhere you go, you’re treated like a freak of nature and some sort of abhorrent creature and you’re discriminated against, I can completely see why sex work is seen as the only option, because despite putting their own lives in danger, this is the only area where they’re actually accepted for what they are and people are actually specifically seeking them out in many cases.
@GoodNamesAllTaken – I understand the argument being made. Just as there is a call to legalize drugs so that addicts don’t have to put themselves in harms way to maintain their addiction and they can get high in a clean, safe way without criminalizing themselves, is met with much opposition, there is also strong opposition to calls to legalize prostitution as well. I don’t think that sex work is actually being defended as a legitimate job, but rather just being noted as something that trans people turn to as a last resort because they have such limited work opportunities due to the extreme discrimination they face. I watched the episode last night and multiple women stated that they were fired from every job they had after their bosses found out they were trans. It was actually a great episode, they sat around a table and discussed the issues they’ve faced as transgender people out in the world, and they all agreed they’ve faced significant discrimination in the workplace and that they hope to do something about helping transgender people get entry-level jobs to prevent sex work from being something anyone should ever have to turn to.
Discrimination is such a massive issue when it comes to transgenderism. There is a video that made the news a few years ago of a trans woman being beaten into a seizure by two women in a McDonalds. I get chills even typing that. Gay people still face discrimination, but the gay movement has come a long way from the days of Matthew Shepard and others who lost their lives due to prejudice and discrimination, but the trans movement is unfortunately still in a very ugly place when it comes to this, and this is the larger issue at hand. There are still so many people out there who want to hurt trans people for being different, so many people who specifically hate that men want to be women (this was a lot of the hatred that Caitlyn got–a lot of calls to “man up”), and so many who don’t even want to acknowledge that transgenderism is a real thing.
I agree with almost everything you said.
Most people do have the idea that prostitution is a decision when most of the time it’s a crime. People who hire prostitutes argue that it’s a myth that any woman (no word on children or males though) could be forced to have sex by pimps.
I saw a really dramatic documentary of how pimps in the USA exploit women, teenagers and even little girls from all social backgrounds, even very rich girls who were in desperate need of love and attention, turning them into drug addicts and slaves.
So yes, there is a HUGE difference between people who choose to do that, and those who were threatened to do it.
And perhaps some trans people do feel their life depends on transitioning with the aid of hormones, but it is still not the same as not being able to contact your family, getting beaten up, etc.
I assume you’ve been through it then? I’m not trying to be rude but how can you make that judgment?
“I would not become a prostitute unless I was literally going to die if I didn’t.”
That is basically the position of many if not most trans sex workers. Sex work is the only outlet for many because they are barred from traditional employment and can be legally fired for their identity at any point, and they do sex work to pay for food, shelter, etc. In addition, trans women need money for hormones/operations because dysphoria can cause suicide. Many trans sex workers are engaged in that work just to survive.
Prostitution is legal here in Germany and when that law was passed, it was celebrated as some sort of milestone for women’s rights. Women’s rights my a**. Anyway, at the time I was rather young and thought “Well, there’s a reason they made it legal, it can’t be that bad. There must be advantages for prostitutes.” And there are. Some. But years later I started reading up on human trafficking, watched a few documentaries, read books and articles and how Germany has fared since then. Well, not great. What I’m getting at is this. I’ve thought long and hard about sex workers and their “choice”. And I’ve come to the conclusion that no, it’s not something you really choose and if you do, you most likely go into it not knowing the reality of it or what it might do to your soul long-term. No child grows up thinking “I really want to be a hooker when I grow up.”
So I agree 100% with the second part of your comment. However, I don’t think it’s fair to judge other people’s level of desperation. For you and me, the idea is so repellent and horrifying that we can’t imagine it for ourselves unless we face starvation, homelessness or yes, death. I don’t know about you but I’ve never gotten even just a little close to any of those things. I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life, save for the crap anyone goes through. So do I really know? No. Do I really understand how desperate someone can be living in the wrong body? No. Say a young person faces a life like that and knows there is NO chance of ever having enough money to pay for the operations necessary. They can either accept it or say well, what’s a few awful years having sex for money compared to a life like this?
All I know is, there are enough people who make that decision who are probably no different from you or me except we were luckier. Circumstances are everything in judging choices I think.
This is a thoughtful comment. I also do not love sex work in theory, but criminalizing the women who do sex work only harms them, and they are already vulnerable. Sex workers should be offered significantly more legal protections than they have. This will help protect them from violence, exploitation, and disease and go a long way towards distinguishing consensual sex work done by adults who made their own choice vs. sexual slavery and trafficking.
Prostitution should – in my opinion – not be a crime but making legal has opened a can of worms here in Germany. It significantly restricts the authorities’ options to investigate brothels etc. They’re legal businesses and that makes it difficult to fight human trafficking for example. The argument was protect the sex workers and don’t drive them underground where no one can help them. But as we now see, it has also made it easier for pimps to basically buy sex slaves from all over the world and – literally and figuratively speaking – sell them as “normal”, i.e. voluntary, sex workers. This article has it all: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533.html
Anyway, I think people need to realize that there has to be a middle ground. Decriminalization would be one option but then we’d be back to prostitutes without health care etc.
Littlemissnaughty
Well said! And yes sadly I came across the same information when I was trying to determine whether legalizing prostitution was really the solution. Making it legal didn’t really offer the girls as much protection as it should have and simply made trafficking more successful because the men didn’t have to hide the girls as much. Sadly I think some careers need to be kept in an illegal position because there really is little to no way there isn’t some manipulation or preying on weakness.
First, we use the term sex worker because the word prostitute is so often used to dehumanize and degrade. Its a word imbued with all kinds of subjective moralism, a moralism that doesnt seem to carry on to the term “John”. Where I come from, if somebody prefers me not to refer to them with one word and provides an alternative, I respect it whether that person be trans or gay or black or a street sanitation worker or even a sex worker. It costs me nothing.
Second, I think a lot of sex workers come to it driven by desperation (whether thats drugs or poverty or unresolved life traumas or abusive boyfriends). But that should never detract from the fact that there are women who actively and consciously choose the profession. Because guess what? All women are not a homogenous unit with the same sexual biology or moral hangups. Some women could give a flying house whether society will think them “bad girls” for trading money for sex. If you really care about protecting exploited women, you want to have those who willingly go into the industry to be your eyes and ears, because they are the ones who do the reporting not the Johns. Then ensure there are social saftey nets for those who find themselves in desperate circumstances. Of course if you really just want to enforce your idea of sexual morality on others then by all means brand everyone a “prostitute” and demand they be taken off the streets, see how far that gets you.
Plus ten million!
Won’t get you far. Legalizing “sex work” doesn’t either. It’s a disgusting business and that fairy tale of the confident, happy prostitute is just that, a fairy tale. Any aid worker, social worker, police officer would tell you. Except if they like to frequent prostitutes themselves.
I’ll just respond to you all as a group since many of your excellent points overlap.
First, I did not mean to dismiss the desperation of trans people and their desire to have the operations that will set them free to be who they are, but I agree with you that I did. As I said at the beginning, there are many things I need to learn about this community, and I had not given enough thought to the level of desperation a person might feel. I assumed the suicides were a result of the way they were treated and rejected by other people.
I also am not trying to judge or punish anyone who ends up so desperate. I never said anything about “getting them off the streets” or blaming them – I think most, if not all, of them need help and we have failed them as a society by not providing more solutions to their various problems. This is not a moral issue to me except that when we accept prostitution, we accept the exploitation, abuse and often death of millions and millions of men, women and children. That’s the only moral issue I’m talking about, and if that’s a “hang-up” so be it.
Last, I’ll just address Gru. I don’t buy it. It’s not about morals or judging or anything else, except that I do not believe your happy, mentally and physically healthy woman who actively and consciously choose the “profession” exists anywhere but in your mind. How does this merry little exchange work, when you put on your objectifying clothing and go out onto the streets or into the car or hotel room with a total stranger who might decide just to use your body for sex, or since he’s paying for it, maybe he’ll knock it around a little bit, or since he thinks you and all other women are evil, maybe he’ll kill you? If he doesn’t, after his hour is up, you put your clothes back on he hands you a wad of money and you go into the next car or back alley or hotel room with the next total stranger who might have aids or an std and hit you if you ask him to wear a condom and rape you if say you won’t have sex without it. Then, I hope you go home and take a shower, but I’m not sure there’s time for that before you place your life in the hands of another sleazy, potentially violent person who has to pay for sex. Fat, smelly, ugly – does any of this matter to you? No! Because you’re the savvy little business woman who has chosen this perfectly lovely career. Please. If this way of life could keep from crushing the soul of anyone but an unfeeling robot, I’d like to meet her. You can clean it up all you want and call it whatever you want, but it’s a dangerous, harmful transaction that reinforces the belief that women are objects to be bought, paid for, discarded and objectified, and it hurts all women and children who are trapped in a life of misery beyond my imagining. And your happy little sex workers who are supposedly going into the profession to be our “eyes and ears” and provide safety nets for the exploited and abused? All I can say is they aren’t doing a very good job. How could they? They are powerless.
+ 1 to everything you said, Gru and Eternal Side Eye.
@GoodNamesAllTaken: I’m not trying to attack you or anything, but I do think it’s important for all of us feminists to remember that as non-sex-working cisgender females, we have privilege over the groups of women we’re discussing that we need to check. Both sex-workers and transwomen are very marginalized groups of women, and the feminist movement has a history of treating both groups of women badly. With transgender women, it’s been through exclusion and attacking them for their choices with their bodies and their feelings about femininity. (Not accusing you of doing this). With sex-workers, it’s been through condescension, infantilizing them and erasing their agency across the board as if they are all one monolith (which you did do a little bit), scarlet-lettering them and blaming them for rape and misogyny, (which I’ve seen other feminists do), exclusion, exploitation, and using their very identities as a slur against any woman who makes choices regarding sexuality, physical appearance, and her body that they disapprove of.
I also have to throw in a minor thing about your use of the phrase ‘objectifying outfit’. Besides the fact that the belief that every prostitute dons a revealing costume while on the clock (which would get them more notice from police officers and those who would call the police) is a myth, the word objectify doesn’t mean what you think it means. When we as feminists make the mistake of automatically referring to a woman as ‘an object’ based on the way she’s dressed or the sex she’s having, we reinforce the victim-blaming misogynistic myth that a woman’s personhood and her being a human being instead of an object is determined by how modestly she dresses and what kinds of sexuality she abstains from.
You’re very right that there is exploitation and harm in the sex industry. But I don’t think accepting and respecting sex-working women as equals and respecting their right to choose when it comes to their bodies- even if we don’t agree with the decision- is the same as accepting any abuse (including child abuse) that may take place in the industry. Imagine if your argument was about religion instead of sex work. There has been A LOT of exploitation and abuse of women and children within religion. Religion has even been used to justify and cover up some of it. And that’s not even touching some of the other things religion has been used for- war, racism, homophobia- the list is endless.
But do you respect the right of people to be religious? Do you go around assuming that every religious person is either an abuser or that every religious woman is an abused, exploited, degraded little victim with no agency? The answer is probably not, and you can respect people’s right to be religious while hating the atrocities and bigotry of religion.
Otaku Fairy,
No, I don’t feel attacked at all and you make some very good points, particularly about my infantalizing women and treating them as if we all object to or react to things in the same way. I can see how I’m doing that somewhat, and perhaps it isn’t my place to decide what is harmful to the soul of every single woman alive. I simply cannot believe that being treated day in and day out as if you are an object to be purchased, to be looked at as less than human and to be physically involved with man after man after man who cares nothing for you wouldn’t be harmful to you. I was sexually assaulted once, and the thing I remember most was the way he looked at me, as if I wasn’t human to him. I know the situations are not the same, but that empty, blank look in his eyes was the most awful part. And I don’t imagine the men who go to prostitutes look at them much differently. It would be one thing if the men themselves looked at this as a simple business transaction and treated the women with your enlightened respect. Somehow I doubt they do. They probably see them as less than human, certainly less than other women. I can’t imagine that this doesn’t start to seep into your feelings about yourself at some point.
I take your point about my use of “objectifying outfit,” and confess I do not know any prostitutes personally, and only see what I see on the streets of New York or Dallas or Philadelphia, where it is very clear by their dress what profession the women are in. That, plus the fact that I watch Law &Order a lot pretty much sums up my knowledge about how prostitutes dress, so I should not have spoken to that.
I don’t think a woman should be seen as an object just because she wears a certain kind of clothing. And certainly not because of the kind of sexuality she abstains from. But prostitution is not sexuality to me – it’s commerce. Women do not engage in prostitution because it is sexually gratifying to them, at least to my knowledge. They do it make money. As I said before, it would be one thing, I guess, if it was a simple transaction. But it’s much more complicated than that, and I think that by selling your body you are declaring yourself an object in a way, or you are conducting a transaction with another person who sees you as an object, which is almost as bad.
Finally, I see your comparison between religion and prostitution and your argument is a good one. I disagree because I believe that while religion can be and has often been abused and misused, its role in society when used as intended or used properly is inherently good. It’s only when it is misinterpreted or deliberately perverted that it becomes an evil. But the purpose of prostitution is to exploit women and children. There are no checks on it, the people who run the industry are criminals, the people who work in the industry are, whether they can help it or not, criminals, and the people who patronize it are criminals, unless you live in a state where it is legal. I believe most prostitutes range from being victims of some type of unfortunate circumstance to being held against their will completely and forced to live a life in this hell. I have no problem with accepting and respecting any human being as my equal who is not deliberately hurting someone else. I did not mean, and I don’t think I said that I have a problem with respecting prostitutes. I have a problem accepting prostitution as a legitimate career choice, because I think its existence hurts ALL women and children indirectly by perpetuating the idea that we are property to be bought and sold, but most of all, it is a corrupt and violent industry with no purpose but to exploit women and children and no responsibility or concern for how this happens or the mental and physical diseases it causes or the deaths at its door.
There’s a lot of us here, I’m just genuinely wondering: does anyone know a “happy prostitute”? Because intellectually, I’m with Otaku, but when I translate it into reality, I’m afraid I have to agree with GNAT. I really hope there are exceptions out there and I would love to hear of at least 1 or two.
I think that when we think of a happy and willing prostitute, we tend to think of fancy escorts, who accompany a rich and refined lobbyist to a high-brow event in a cocktail dress, and then have sex with him in a fancy hotel room, get paid loads of cash, and go home. But how many have it this good?
I’m genuinely interested, maybe I am being prudish, by all means, open my eyes.
She’s a narcissist who only sees her own problems, look how focused she is only on her looks. How about paying more attention to other transwomen’s problems or that her youngest daughter is turning into a blow-up doll and is in a relationship with a mid 20’s guy while underage?
Reducing being a woman to clothes and make-up is sexist too and that’s what she only seems to obsess over.
She’s Kim 3.0 (Kylie is 2.0 of course).
While I think she has all the right to be self absorbed and vapid as she wants, she still has a daugther who’s in desperate needs for help.
Sure, she’s rich, but people also forget she’s 65. Sixty-five years old. My father at 65 was set in his ways and beliefs. He was more open-minded than most and would listen to other ideas, but he was still a stubborn senior man. Thankfully, unlike most of his friends or church friends or our relatives, the 65 to 80-year-old group are beyond stuck in their beliefs and most of them are not Democrat. My father was stunned how all of that had changed I was so lucky that my father and I shared the same political beliefs and had great political discussions before he died.
I read an article on Salon.com where a man talked about his father. He said his father was a conservative for years but always balanced. He said when did it all change? That he’s older now and just listens to Fox News and has turned so intolerant and obsessive and that he can’t even talk to him anymore. Many came on and said the same thing about their parents, that it had gotten to a point they couldn’t bring up anything political as it turned so ugly from the parent. One man said he begged his father to listen to something else except Fox News and Rush Limbaugh 24/7 and his father got angry.
My point, while I digressed, is that Bruce was an older man/now a transgender woman Caitlyn, used to thinking a certain way about certain issues, and is open and listening and learning and coming out of her privileged bubble and trying to understand or at the very least, allowing other transpeople to shed light on their story which is less privileged, and I think her intentions are good that way.
Well, I’m 59 and I’m open minded (I think) so I don’t know about the age thing, BUT totally agree about watching FOX news as your only news source. FOX panders to people who want to live in their bubble by blaming everything on someone else. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault because you’re lazy, if you’re different in any way from their normal, it’s your own “choice.” If you disagree with them it’s because you’re not American enough or Christian enough or white enough or something enough. How comfortable is that? You don’t have to tolerate or try to understand anything new that makes you feel uncomfortable because it’s different, you don’t have to help anyone else because if they need help,it’s their fault, etc.
EXACTLY to her last paragraph. It’s nice that so many people here have perfect social views and have never had any wrong ones, but i have definitely believed in some stupid ideas because of privilege, and I had to unlearn them. And I’m 30, not 65. Caitlyn is modelling how to accept her privilege, see the error of her ways, apologize, and change her views. That’s tremendously hard and I applaud her for it.
But I honestly just think that is a specific person’s personality – inflexible. My mother is 65 and she is one of the most open-minded people I’ve ever met. She is also not afraid to take in new information and change her opinion when warranted.
I hate when people use age as an excuse for rude, narrow-minded or racist people (like is done for prince Phillip ALL THE TIME). Not saying you, specifically, are doing that, just generally speaking. I’ll bet Caitlyn was always like this…IMO it’s not to do with age.
Also, Jenny Boylan’s book, She’s Not There, is awesome!!
My aunt always said that people don’t change as they get older, they just get more like themselves. 🙂
When I saw her picture on the homepage, before reading the headline, I really thought for a second she was Kate Middleton.
*Closing the shallow parenthese on this matter*
Haven’t watched the show and don’t plan on. There have been many documentaries and discovery channel shows that have shown what real life for a transgender person really is. Why watch a scripted Kardashian show so that they can collectively make more money? I’m not interested and it doesn’t matter how many times someone tells me that this woman is courageous. The Kardashians have been around too long for me to fall for another one of their money making, attention seeking antics. I’ll pass.
How do you have privilege as a republican?
The assumption is that if you’re Republican, you must be rich or at least be pretty well off, which obviously isn’t true. It’s confusing today because the Republican Party seems taken over by a selfish minority, but that wasn’t always the case. But it does seem to be true that Republicans in Congress opposed such programs as Social Security and Medicare from the very beginning and are leading the fight to reduce their effectiveness now, although I would imagine they would run into opposition from their own voters who benefit so much from such programs and had suffered so much before they existed. My guess is that their attempts to gut health care reforms will also be opposed by their own constituents. But politicians of all stripes do tend to be rich, and therefore insulated from the situations that led to Social Security and other programs such as health care reforms, food stamps, welfare, etc. that have made such a difference for families in their attempt to stay together during hard times. So the historical emphasis of the Democratic Party on social programs helps some Democratic politicians to be better than they otherwise would be. But at the same time, some aspects of today’s Republican Party platform make it too easy for Republican politicians to stay clueless and selfish. Peer pressure works, I guess.
When my mother was young, in the midst of the Great Depression, her mother died and she was terrified that she and her sister would be separated and farmed out to relatives. That’s what happened to some of her cousins. Today there are some safety nets that would have calmed her fears a bit. Some financial help just when it’s needed makes a real difference. There are a lot of myths floating around (Reagan was infamous for making up stories about welfare queens) about how social programs really work. “Generations of families on welfare” is one of them- that’s very rare. Most people are on welfare for a short time. My uncle worked for the government at some points in his life, and he always said that in a government program, you needed to just keep any cheating down to a reasonable level- beyond that point, you were wasting more money trying to flush out the cheaters and risking not providing services to those who really needed it.
This isn’t just about partisan politics, but Democrats do seem more aware as a Party (not necessarily as individuals) that government can play a good role in spreading resources around in such ways. Republicans as a Party (not necessarily as individuals) seem to have an unrealistic reliance on private charity to come through in such matters even though history shows it just doesn’t. They also too often don’t seem to recognize raising children as a real job… (Do they even know what reliable childcare costs? There can be nothing left of the parent’s paycheck.) When social programs were cut in the Reagan years, non-government organizations struggled to fill the void but said they really weren’t able to do so very effectively. Children in Chicago affected by the cuts were displaying signs of protein deficiency (kwashiorkor) for the first time. Washington DC even had one soup kitchen set up specifically for children to deal with the hunger problem. The kids could come in any time and pay a penny (which they might find on the street) for some decent food. The kids were hungry and couldn’t just go home and raid the refrigerator because the fridge was empty.
Honestly, we share resources to run the police, the fire department, the schools, the military, to build roads and highways, etc. Businesses depend on all that to make their profits, so we all are supporting those who are successful in business. Why not support individuals and families when they need it? Why not consider health care just as important a common good as police protection? Other countries at our stage of development are just baffled by us. They figured it out a long time ago.
@jwoolman, democrats also do a better job at fighting fraud in those social services programs by hiring more investigators and focusing on things like provider fraud than recipient fraud. A recipient might rip off a few extra hundred a month at most. A grocer can rip off a few extra hundred a day. A medical provider can rip off a few extra thousand a day. Clinton increased fraud investigators after Reagan/Bush had as few as 2 working a region as densely populated as the six New England states. W cut those investigators back. Obama increased them again. And still, the fraud rate across all programs is 1%.
Lilac – it’s the same here. According to the government’s own figures (and our current government is one that wholly buys into the scrounger rhetoric), annual welfare fraud is 0.7% or £2bn. The figure for benefits that people are entitled to but don’t claim is 4% or £12bn. The current annual total for tax evasion (evasion is illegal, avoidance is not illegal) is £35bn.
Current government has spent fortunes on employing investigators into welfare fraud and laid off 50% of the staff investigating tax evasion.
Even if you are a right winger and hate all welfare, how does this even make practical, let alone ideological, sense?
I’ve been extremely vocal in my support of Caitlyn and while I still believe that this show and Caitlyn’s existence and exposure will do good, this episode brought me back down to reality in a lot of ways. I think I unfairly expected a little too much, even as someone who is all for Caitlyn’s journey and thinks her intentions are pure. Caitlyn still has a very conservative mindset that actually contradicts the movement she is now a part of. I will never say that I don’t believe she can have a change of heart or that she is unwilling to learn because I believe she is, but there may be some views Caitlyn holds that will never change.
My take away from last night’s episode is that we all need to not expect miracles here. Maybe Caitlyn Jenner’s only contribution to the transgender movement is that she will have been the one who made this topic a mainstream subject. Caitlyn brought this conversation into people’s home. Maybe that’ll be as far as her contribution goes, and that would still be an enormous amount of growth attributed to her. There are always the trailblazers in movements like these, and they pass the torch along to others who continue the progress and take it even further until equal rights are reached. Caitlyn isn’t going to singlehandedly move a mountain, but she is doing good work.
Still fatigued from CJ overload and won’t watch the show or the constant coverage on TV. (( reaches for remote))
Ditto.
Oh sure bish. Live your life a lie of privilege and exploit your own daughters for profit so at the end you can burst out of the closet to more fame and $. Get real and realize your conservative views have destroyed others like you. You should have empowered your girls to strive for mental greatness not high end models/escorts!
Just want to say, that I think the point has been missed that Caitlynn allowed herself to be honestly portrayed as uninformed about the difficult transitions that many trans face. It wasn’t tidied up and she wasn’t portrayed as fully formed trans spokesperson.
She was portrayed as a priviledged individual who was uninformed about the wider issues related to gender transition. And she shared her time with actual experts. I can appreciate that. I’ll be interested to see how this progresses.
Exactly.
This was my takeaway, also. I guess it’s not as fun to criticize people for faults they themselves admit to, and are trying to improve on…
Why did the camera always get blurry when they did close up shots of Caitlyn? What are the producers so afraid of?
I noticed it too. It was distracting and annoying.
Very. The producers think we are stupid and wouldn’t notice.
It’s the “Barbra Streisand filter”. In the subject’s delusional mind, THEY feel like they look younger. Instead, they look like they’ve covered in Vaseline.
Caitlyn is listed as one of the executive producers, wonder if it was her idea to use the “blurry lens”?
Pretty sure they do this to Kris sometimes on KUWTK.
Prostitution should be legal.
Caitlyn’s “not afraid to be educated” and not afraid to look “like a conservative douche.”
Well, so what, she still lives in her bubble of OMG privilege, not just regular privilege, but OMG privilege. I know I’ll be attacked, but I’m still not buying what she’s selling. A conservative republican who decided to transition at 65 years old. That in and of itself is so contrary I can’t stand it. And then she trots out the old trope, “they’ll love their social services so much they’ll never get a job.” Gender whatever, she’s still the ass she was when she was Bruce. The only reason she’s been accepted now is because she’s rich, like really rich.
Seems they decided to leave it up to other more informed people to educate on the topic, and to correct Caitlyn when need be. It’s also clear they are making an effort to bring out the contrast between her life and priorities, and those of the average transperson. In the way the show is cut, they are highlighting the fact that Caitlyn is blissfully unaware when it comes to the world outside of her “bubble” (cutting between serious convo’s, and her complaining about things that are trivial in comparison). I thought the people whining about “Saint Caitlyn” would be pleased by that… They are definitely not glorifying her in the slightest, at least thus far.
Still don’t buy any of it. Too much of a Kardassian.
I am finding this show to be thoughtful & informative. Sure, there are superficial aspects – living publicly as a woman for the first time involves superficial stuff.
I can’t condemn Caitlyn for seeking validation – this is the first time she has been able to be true to herself, there’s 60 years of questioning & doubting who she was, her entire life. It’s only healthy & normal that she would be seeking validation.
But: I don’t consider her concerns about her voice superficial. If you listened to the commentary, it’s clearly one of the emotional and spiritual aspects of transitioning….she mentions needing to feel good about oneself, and the impact on one’s soul. So while “voice” might seem superficial like “lipstick”, it’s also part of feeling comfortable in one’s skin, and it’s bothering her.
Still not here for her on the amount of support she is getting when she straight up killed someone and due to her privilege as a white man totally is getting away with it. That entire clan is evil and needs be smudged out of this society’s life.
#savenori