First off: Caitlyn Jenner is a brave human being. Anyone who has the courage to come out as something different--as something that others make fun of or ridicule or malign is brave. It takes courage to be yourself whenever "yourself" isn't what most other people are.
I've been increasingly bothered by the rhetoric surrounding Jenner's coming out, and about the precise nature of the ostensibly supportive comments I've been reading and hearing. The ones that bother me most have come from well-meaning straight women in the public eye who talk about how beautiful Caitlyn is (true) and how courageous she is (also true), and who show a sudden empathy for the plight of all trans people (by which, frankly, they tend to mean trans women). (Sidenote: I'm going to use the term "straight women" in this post to refer to a particular kind of straight woman that tends to: (1) embrace the gender binary (2) but support gay rights (3) but glare at me in the women's restroom. You know the type. If you're a straight woman who reads this blog all the time and doesn't look askance at butches in the restroom, please know that I'm not talking about you.) It's not that Caitlyn Jenner doesn't deserve kudos and support--she certainly does! But a significant chunk of the mainstream support I've seen seems to totally embrace gender norms. If Caitlyn looked like, say, Rachel Maddow, I daresay that she would have fewer straight female supporters talking on podcasts and posting on Facebook pages about much they love and support her. Nor, I suspect, would she have graced the cover of Vanity Fair. I do not think Bruce Jenner coming out as a woman is the big draw. I think the big draw is Bruce Jenner coming out as a woman of a certain kind--as a woman who embraces the type of femininity that fits neatly into the existing gender binary with which people are comfortable. I don't think they're thinking, "Wow, this really complicates how I think about gender!" I think they're thinking, "Wow, this gorgeous woman was trapped in a man's body!" As a New York Times article astutely pointed out the other day, the brain-body distinction is not so clear. Here's an excerpt: While young [Bruce Jenner] was being cheered on toward a university athletic scholarship, few female athletes could dare hope for such largess since universities offered little funding for women’s sports. When Mr. Jenner looked for a job to support himself during his training for the 1976 Olympics, he didn’t have to turn to the meager “Help Wanted – Female” ads in the newspapers, and he could get by on the $9,000 he earned annually, unlike young women whose median pay was little more than half that of men. Tall and strong, he never had to figure out how to walk streets safely at night. Those are realities that shape women’s brains. Which is true, at least to some extent. To say that Jenner always had a "woman's brain" doesn't take into account that she had a man's social experiences--and that our experiences powerfully shape our brain chemistry, our pocketbooks, and our self-understandings. Acknowledging this doesn't make Jenner any less of a woman (something the article really seems to miss). But not acknowledging this minimizes the social experiences of cis women and girls, and reduces trans identity to a simple case of "wrong brain, wrong body." Jenner had a certain set of experiences particular to her identity, and they should be respected in and of themselves. Frankly, I'm also jealous. I wish that straight women would embrace women who look like me with as much openness as I see them embracing Caitlyn Jenner. In short, I wish that straight women's newfound "acceptance" of different versions of what it means to be a woman extended more broadly in my own direction, not just in Caitlyn's--that they would show so much love and support for women whose gender presentation and ideas of womanhood don't look like their own.
17 Comments
Naomi
6/8/2015 01:08:47 pm
Well, I love you! And you are no less courageous that Caitlyn for being who YOU are in the world. Please know that you are loved, honored, respected, and admired for being you!
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I thought the New York Times Op-Ed piece was both homophobic (or at least completely heteronormative) and transphobic. The author stopped thinking about gender in 1980.
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6/9/2015 12:29:50 am
Although I quite liked the part of the article that I excerpted, I disagreed with a big chunk of it.
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Where do I begin, to tell a story…
a) Stop using her old name. STOP IT. Start using Caitlyn. It's literally the easiest thing in the world, and your refusal to do so is totally disgusting.
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Staci
6/9/2015 06:34:04 am
If butch trans women are not seen as women perhaps it's because for those people *all* butch women are not seen as women to them. It's not a competition. Butch cis women are allowed to lament their own plight. Nothing about a butch woman saying, "gee, these aspects of what I deal with suck and I wish it was different" says parts of other people's reality don't also suck. You wanna win some kind of oppression Olympics? Fine, your challenges are bigger, worse, more terrible than any other woman. Feel better? But other women still don't have a cake walk and when all you can do is berate other women for talking about their own challenges it doesn't really contribute to women wanting to embrace you.
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Ray
6/9/2015 06:53:24 am
I think you are being way too harsh on BW. I got the sense from this article that she was trying to relate Caitlyn Jenner's experiences to her own and pointing out an area of trans/non gender conformity that is also not as widely accepted. Doing this doesn't diminish anyone else's experience and if anything, gets others to think in a different way. Its not a contest, and while pointing out that trans women have it worse is true, that's not the point. We all have our own experiences, negative and positive, and masculinity on a female body may be an easier road in some ways, that doesn't make it a crime to relate to someone on a personal level.
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(a) I use her old name when referring to the past; I use "Caitlyn" when referring to her in the present. When I talk about how people reacted to "Bruce Jenner coming out as a woman," I am talking about exactly that past event. I didn't "refuse" to use her name. I'm really bothered that you said so. In every reference to her that's current, I use her correct name and pronoun. Is it possible that you missed this?
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Woodstock
6/10/2015 04:17:25 am
I happen to agree. Your language in this post and use of Jenner's pre and post transition names was spot on and sensitively done.
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Allan
6/9/2015 07:43:16 am
You rock.
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Barbara
6/9/2015 09:14:44 am
You're braver than I am. I have learned to say exactly nothing on this subject or be subjected to a maelstrom of ugly that I am not prepared to deal with.
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Jenna
6/9/2015 09:16:33 am
great post!
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karinfromuranus
6/9/2015 03:26:06 pm
dont worry about the lack of understanding. it is just the currently en vogue "this is trans-bashing" reflex that makes all other discussions impossible....
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"Which is true, at least to some extent."
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Cynthia
6/10/2015 03:52:50 am
I think was disturbs me the most in this whole mess is that you were so upset by one person's completely screwed up response to what was a very well done article. To be totally transparent, I can't ABIDE this whole "the discrimination I suffer is so much worse than yours is" nonsense, so that was a lot of what put me into a rage about the awful response that lady had. It's damaging and divisive when we should understand enough to support anyone who needs it, not being too busy pointing out who has it worse...my girlfriend is butch and i have no doubt that a lot of the very same people who would see me kissing another femme girl and think "good for you!" would see my girlfriend and think "god why doesn't she just become a man already". No, Caitlyn Jenner may not be the best example to hold up because of her connections and fame, but the fact is she's gotten the conversation going faster and farther than any transition has to date. It's up to us to make sure those conversations are worth it and helpful. You know there are a ton of people like the above poster - people who want so badly to be offended so that they can "stand up for their beliefs" that if they can't find anything they'll just make it up. I know how hard it is but please don't let people like that upset you. Your article was well written and insightful. You have nothing to defend yourself for. Nothing at all.
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Woodstock
6/10/2015 04:19:03 am
More likely people would see you kissing your butch girlfriend and think "if she wants a man why doesn't she just date one?" missing the point entirely.
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Jenna
6/29/2015 12:00:16 pm
I hear you, BW. Well said.
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