A mutilated man posing as a woman is on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and Good Morning America is just super excited about it. The ABC morning program referred to “the first black and Asian-American transgender model to appear" in the mag’s swimsuit edition as a “trailblazer.”
In a very pro-trans segment of the morning news show, anchors hyped up their “exclusive reveal” of the first SI transgender swimsuit model. GMA anchor Robin Roberts introduced her, saying “Leyna Bloom is trailblazer, but it wasn’t easy getting here.” Yep, well the political moment is finally here when being a black Asian American trans person with body positivity would be the crown jewel in the left’s identity politics propaganda, so here we go!
Roberts passed off the segment to reporter Juju Chang for an interview, who told viewers, “You know, Leyna Bloom lost a college dance scholarship when she transitioned, and for years she struggled against hate and prejudice,” Chang claimed. Well, when a college gives out a scholarship to a dude, they expect him to remain, you know, a dude.
The reporter added, “But by landing in this iconic swimsuit edition, Sports Illustrated is telling the world that true beauty is not about size, shape, or the color of your skin but how confident you are in who you are.” Though of course, that’s problematic -- not to say absurdly stupid. Nobody ever picked up the swimsuit issue to marvel at models’ self confidence.
And Leyna isn’t just a different shape. Lenya is a man who mutilated his body to resemble something he’s not.
Juju Chang calls that beauty, and she praised Leyna as someone making “history” for her swimsuit gig. “How big a milestone was it when you found out that this was going to be in your future?” Chang asked. Bloom replied, “I never imagined that I would be born in a time when something like this would for someone with my skin tone and someone with my background.” Note it’s the intersection between her African-Americaness/Asianess/transgenderness that makes this story particularly powerful. Or something.
Case in point, GMA mentioned that the first transgender SI swimsuit model was actually Brazilian transgender model Valentina Sampaio. But Bloom is the first minority transgender S.I. model. Just as historic, clearly.
Bloom told the GMA host about her belief that society needs to accept the beauty standards that people like her achieve. “We need to constantly remind ourselves to protect those people in our society … that are different, that are beautiful uniquely as themselves.” She also stated the need to “challenge society to make it better for everyone else.”
So being uniquely yourself means becoming someone else? Check.
