We're a half-dozen episodes into "I Am Cait" and after watching this latest preview I can't help but ask -- knowing that it will blow up in my face -- this question: Are we sure there isn't something halfway between transvestite and transgender, because Caitlyn sure doesn't think or behave like any transgender person I've ever known or read about. First she tells Diane Sawyer she doesn't feel like she was born in the wrong body. Then she tells her ex-wife that she may not have had to transition "at all" if she (Kris Jenner) had just been willing to acknowledge "this" (pointing to herself in women's clothing). Now she's still going by Bruce at her golf club and doesn't want to use the women's locker room? Granted, she's not like any other trans person in the world -- she's a 65-year-old internationally famous multimillionaire. But dressing up and make-up seems to be the only part of "being" a woman that matters to her, which I find odd. I don't think she's pretending anything -- no one would subject themselves to the kind of scrutiny if they weren't going through some sort of gender crisis. And clearly this is something that has haunted her for decades. But it does have me wondering if maybe there's a Kinsey Scale of being transgender ... with boys who wanted to cut their own penises off at age 4 (and girls who wanted to hide/remove their breasts, etc.) feeling "trapped" in the wrong body for as long as they can remember as "tens" and people like Alexis Arquette (and Cait) as "ones." I'm not saying one way of being trans is right and one is wrong, or that one makes you more of a man or woman than the other. (Even Candis Cayne didn't reach her gender identity in the "traditional" path.) But what I am saying is maybe the lesson to be learned from Caitlyn Jenner is it's time we recognize that being trans comes in as many varieties as being anything else, and it might not be as binary as we thought. I poked a trans friend of mine -- Andrea James -- about the subject after a FB friend sort of hinted at what I'm thinking:
Thoughts?
7 comments:
No backlash from me, you bring up legit points. Last I heard Caitlyn is still attracted to women. Does that make her a lesbian?
In a way, it would make total sense there is a certain scale that could be involved. No one is the same, or does anything for the same reason or the same way. We are all at different stages in our lives - and different paths.
I have tried to watch 'Cait' and I cannot get past her voice. The nun on public access or Sue and sews who both had strokes have better verbal skills.
Unfortunately she really is just part of the big Kunty Kartrashian Karnival it seems...
i call total bs on the bravery of caitlyn. using the name "bruce" again has nothing to do with her existing membership, and has everything to do with her wanting to maintain the same privileges she enjoyed as a male member of this misogynistic golf club (which she should, btw).
shame on caitlyn for switching her gender back and forth at will, when it's convenient. express your gender identity, fight for change, and deal with the inequalities in the meantime, but don't be a selfish hypocrite.
I think it is just 65 years of being exposed to the same shitty system. Caitlyn just isn't comfortable (with good reason) and has learned when people around you aren't comfortable either, they lash out at you, so the easiest thing to do pretend what is making them uncomfortable isn't real when around them. The club thing is probably about toe dipping rather than any (I want to be Bruce again). She wants her life to be stable and as much as it was while being who she is, this is probably how she maintains that.
I won't watch any shows linked to the Kardouches, and I would certainly rather watch "Grease Monkey Garage" or "Kiss Me, Kate!" than "I am now Cait"
-- I still see a money-hungry republican who killed a woman on Pacific Coast Highway by driving a 10,000 lb Escalade and trailer inattentively. The hero of 40 years ago got lost, and the man of 35 years ago who used to pick up his kids at the same time as my friend and chat seems to be gone, too.
But, yes, of course, there is a spectrum of trans, just as there is of straight or Gay. Having been stuck in Portland for two years recently, I saw it all.
The trans women who are a bit more drag-queenlike and the Gay men who are more typically Gay in tastes than I are easier for most people to "get", but we all have our place.
But I wish she would come down off the republican and Beverly Hills clouds, and go to fewer restaurants and designer shops and more shelters. THEN I might gain respect for her.
I am a transwoman. I have been very active in the Seattle Trans community for ten years and living foll time as a woman for two and I am still trying to figure some things about my community out. Caitlyn has been involved in the community foŕ just a few months so it would be surprising if she did not stumble every now and then. Moreover, it is less than helpful that she is transitioning in such a public way. She is working through the same issues I worked through, except she is doing it with several million strangers watching.
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