Enough money and fame to be insulated from everything
A trans woman wrote a post about Caitlyn Jenner back at the beginning of June, when the Vanity Fair cover was all over the place.
The post says many things I thought at the time (and continue to think when I catch a few minutes of “Meet Cait” on cable tv) but didn’t dare say – things about how odd it is to treat a rich privileged self-absorbed conservative as an icon of both trans rights and feminism.
Friends sent me notes of congratulations as if I’d done something, as if I cared. An aging reality star spent more money than I will see in my lifetime to make himself into a pin-up queen and this is cause for celebration? I didn’t respond to any of them. I watched my progressive male friends police the words of others. “It’s She not He!” “It’s Caitlyn not Bruce!” I suppose they think they’re helping, but I’ve never asked for it. All of them are more concerned about their progressive bona fides over my actual feelings.
I see that a lot – progressive male types policing words to demonstrate their progressive bona fides at the expense of…so many, many things.
I couldn’t get away. Every twitter refresh, every website, every television commercial, there she was. I sought refuge with my friends. Their words supported me even as the ground shook beneath me. I felt as if piece of me was torn out, stomped on, and left bleeding on the ground. I could not comprehend why, and then a friend, a friend who has taught me so much about what it means to be a transwoman, wrote this:
I want to be able to have my own story, to be who I am. To be a person, but what becomes more and more clear each day is that I will not have this small, small privilege. I cannot be a bird. I must be the kite on a string, defined by the wind…am I an object? Am I a human? I will forever after today be described to people as “Like Bruce Jenner.” I am no more.
I broke.
Tears streamed down my face as I read and re-read her words. I couldn’t read any longer. I turned off the computer, picked up my headphones and crawled into bed.
This is part of what I was thinking about that cover all along. Why on earth set the bar there? Why make it look as if that’s what transition is supposed to be? Why make it a beauty contest?
Everything we are. Everything we were. Everything we struggled for, fought for, and hurt for is gone. We are eclipsed by our own shadow. Whatever we were, we are no more. We are all reflections of an aged wealthy conservative living out his own personal gender passion play. Like a perfumed Pontius Pilate, he has condemned us all.
Did I misgender Caitlyn? Honestly, I don’t care anymore. None of it matters. I have spent the last twenty years in transition. Jenner has enough money and fame as to be insulated from everything. Jenner will never experience what it is like to live as a woman in society, or even what it’s like for most to transition. Yet Caitlyn is now our queen; the standard all transwomen will be measured against henceforth. I feel as if my life and struggle has been ripped from beneath me, tarted up, and paraded about for the world to gawk at. It is the Real Housewives version of the transgender experience.
Brilliantly put. I loathe the whole “Real Housewives” whatever-that-is for the way it defines the female experience, so why should I think the trans version is any better? Both are insulting.
The whole spread is an exercise in wealth, privilege, styling, and photo shop. This is what every young transwoman now has to strive for. Only after you have visited the facial feminization doctor will you be complete. Assimilation? Who cares! it’s all about the photo shoot. It is the transformation salon fantasy played out across our media, with a societal stamp of authenticity; Narcissistic indulgence as political act.
And yet there are many who feel the Vanity Fair cover is empowering, that it “increases awareness” of trans people. To that I say, Fuck you. Come to the city and we’ll visit young transwomen, mostly transwomen of color, homeless on the streets because their families cast them out for living their “true authentic selves.” They did not wait to amass personal and financial security, nor have millions of dollars of plastic surgery. Such a thing is impossible and yet I’m supposed to view Caitlyn’s actions as brave? Here’s bravery for you: For the past fifteen years, Bruce Jenner has been the member of a male only golf club. So brave. So feminist.
Bam.
This is what I’ve been saying – trans activism is not the same thing as feminism, and not all trans women are feminists. I support trans rights, no question, but that does not mean I can’t disagree with particular trans women on particular subjects, including feminism.
Wow. Great that somebody said it.
I’m reminded of what a transman said to me about 20 years ago, about how hard it was to get press coverage (and this was in San Francisco) because the press doesn’t believe they’ve seen trans people unless there are “men in dresses”. Obviously transpeople are much more than that, but that speaks to the same emphasis on how pretty a transwoman is or isn’t. Does she look like a man in a dress? That’s what the world wants to know. That’s where the bar is.
Sad, sad, sad.
This article makes some great points. In a way, it may help clarify the point I was trying to make w.r.t. the “Dames on the Run”-esque performances. Many transgender women prefer to express themselves with names, pronouns, and attire that accords with their being women, and their choice to do so should be met no differently than any female-bodied person doing the same. However, as noted in the article here, many trans woman cannot afford laser facial-hair removal or cosmetic surgery. To that end, the notion that there’s something intrinsically absurd (and mock-worthy) about, say, the sight of a woman wearing an evening gown yet having a noticeable 5-o’clock-shadow on a square-jawed face, is every bit as harmful as the notion that Ms. Jenner is somehow “doing trans the ‘right’ way”.
I just don’t thinks it’s a stretch to see “let’s revel in how funny it is to see male-bodied individuals in female attire” as anything but the flip-side of the coin: “let’s revel in how wonderful it is to see Ms. Jenner donning female attire w/out any masculine physique showing through”. To accept the former but not the latter would seem to set the impossible standard: trans women should be mocked if they don’t appear feminine enough; but shamed for appearing too feminine.
As a side-note, on the topic of drag acts in general, in consideration of responses from Kevin H in the original “Dames” comment thread, I think there’s a lot of nuance here. I don’t know the “right” approach, but I’m firmly convinced that nobody is benefited by overly broad strokes: neither “all drag acts are transphobic” nor “there’s nothing transphobic about any cross-dressing routines ever” will lead to a place of general understanding and acceptance.
I hasten to add: many transgender women may even *prefer* to identify as women while not taking any measures to obscure any masculine features of their physique; I did not mean to imply that the all trans people would prefer cosmetic or gender-reassignment surgeries, were they only financially viable options. My point was that any woman should feel free to engage in whatever type of gender expression she wishes, without their being any sense that they’ll be mocked or shamed for what those choices are. (And naturally, the converse statement should hold for trans men).
I agree with and understand what Kevin Kirkpatrick is saying. In an ideal world, there would be no laughing at crossdressing because it wouldn’t be seen as a drag act, it would probably just be seen as another costumed act, and it wouldn’t be an issue. But until that ideal becomes more actual, it will still be important to mock gender expectations, with drag acts, and with other types of humor and so forth.
Kevin @2:
Has Caitlyn Jenner been shamed for, e.g., that Vanity Fair cover? I’ve seen a lot of discussion about it, but I’m not certain that I’ve seen shaming. I don’t know. Perhaps the article that is the subject of this post could be considered a sort of shaming, but that’s not the sense that I get from it.
I can certainly agree with this. The primary problem that I’ve seen in these discussions–particularly in the “discussions” that led to Ophelia leaving FtB and returning here–is the refusal to recognize nuance or any possibility that it exists.
Transwomen can be members of male-only clubs: Yes or No?
Kevin K, I think for myself, the nuance I see is in accepting presentation at face value. If someone appears to be doing a comedy routine, then they are probably doing entertainment/expressing a side of themselves for play and fun, and it’s okay to smile. If they appear to be trying to just go about their lives as who they are presenting as, it’s best to treat them respectfully.
Given that we tend to pick up social cues like that in non-drag situations (is this teen girl wearing a halter top and running around with a water pistol? While this other teen girl is wearing a professional dress and standing in from of a PowerPoint presentation? Treat them accordingly!) I don’t think it is too much to ask of the general public that they learn to do the same when a person appears to have gender cues that are non-standard.
And again, feminists have been trying to get across the message that a woman standing in front of a PowerPoint slide should be listened to whether she has a menswear pantsuit or a pink skirted suit with ruffles; the same is true if she has 5 o’clock shadow.
As this post and the linked post by Neopythia illustrate, the progressive police at FTB — along with their self-righteous and smug commenters — are dong it all wrong. And while they pat themselves on the back for bringing you down, they are completely unaware of how little they are actually helping.
And if they think they brought me down, they’re delusional. I’m so happy to be back here and away from them, and I certainly haven’t gone silent.
That post articulates so much of the non-specific queasiness in my mind. Especially the bit about male progressives shutting people down to prove their own super-progressivenss. Especially the not having her own story, the Real Trans Housewives BS. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Also this: “Here’s bravery for you: For the past fifteen years, Bruce Jenner has been the member of a male only golf club.” I did not know that. Kind of makes me wonder what feeling like a real woman deep down inside really means to Jenner.
Kevin K., nobody here is arguing against people being who they are. If I understand you right, that’s your main point? The only point being made is that trans people defining themselves does not mean they get to define everyone else so as to support their world view. As Ophelia pointed out in the other thread, making fun of gender stereotypes is a Good Thing. Making fun of people for not conforming to them is a Bad Thing. (Obviously, she put it better than that.)
So, I agree with you that a male-looking person who wants to think of themselves as a woman should be able to live her reality without harassment. What she can’t do is disappear the ability of female-looking-people-who-are-pigeonholed-as-women to define themselves and their own reality. And redefining Group 2’s self-determination as harassment is just plain wrong. I think you’re so focused on the first point in this paragraph that you’re overlooking the second. At least I hope that’s the problem. If you really think point one takes precedence over point two, you don’t have my sympathy.
Hyperbolic. Bilious. Less critique than hate.
Not insulated:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/8/18/as_chelsea_manning_speaks_out_on
Great, so we can all start referring to the women on those programs with misogynistic slurs. Not OK? Then it’s also not OK to deliberately misgender Caitlyn Jenner. Not even if you’re really upset. Not even if you really dislike her. Not even if she’s rich and famous.
I didn’t say it was. I didn’t mean to imply that via the passage I quoted. I don’t think the blogger is saying that either.
Of course the ‘real housewives’ ification of every single damn’ thing in the US is a major annoyance. The lazy, incompetent, media’s endless search for prefabricated, shorthand, press-handout tropes on EVERY topic is a symptom of impending doom. Certainly.
But the other tone…the quivering lipped accusation that Jenner is ‘harming trans people.’ You’d think she was a monster in human form, like Ophelia? Jenner has Destroyed Everything…really?
Jenner appears to be an annoying rich twit, famous for being married into a particularly loathsome family of rich twits. Gender transition in the public eye is a Big Deal. But investing Caitlyn with some enormous extra significance is just tabloid culture at work.
Well, that and winning the 1976 Olympic decathlon.