'Cait' Minus Hate

After watching episode 3, I wanted to mention that I take back quite a bit of what I said about "I Am Cait" last week. Sunday's episode was incredibly touching, as they trimmed the fat and just let the woman (paid or otherwise) talk about their lives to great effect. Candis Cayne was particularly moving talking about a school teacher who helped her get through some tough years, and Caitlyn brought me to tears as you saw her learn and grow and reveal so much. The subplot about Blossom Brown, a young Mississippi trans woman facing constant roadblocks in her attempts to go to nursing school, was also deeply heart-rending. I was pleasantly surprised that the women didn't lay into Cait -- like they did last week -- when she said things that weren't entirely trans PC. (I was FINE with them, however, giving her the stink eye when she made that crack about welfare and wished they'd gone after her more then!). I grimaced when Cait said that they'd feel "more feminine" being with a man, and gasped when she said that she'd want to have "the right parts" if she were going to be with a man -- and that the man would like it better, too. Rather than gang up on her, self-proclaimed "smart-ass" Jen Richards politely, but firmly, reminded Cait that she was speaking for herself about feeling more comfortable -- meaning it was OK for her to feel that way, other trans women don't need to. And the always-great Jennifer Finney Boylan -- whose crack about losing IQ points while having her makeover is still the funniest moment of the show -- also allowed Cait to have her opinions, while then pointing her in the right direction. 

About one of my issues with last week's show, my photographer friend Greg Endries (kinda) convinced me that the whole bathing-suit drama may very well have been real. He says that while, as I pointed out, Cait had no problem being photographed in a corset for all the world to see on the cover of Vanity Fair, it's a whole different thing to be walking around in a bathing suit without Annie Leibowitz framing you and photo editors retouching you. Fair enough. Reality TV is always going to be a bunch of staged situations -- you can't just follow people around and hope something interesting happens -- but I'm happy to see "I Am Cait" is setting the stage for a thoughtful discussion that has so far been both compelling and poignant.