It's fine for a biological man to self-identify as a woman, but as a conservative? That's taking things a bit too far for liberal outlets. Add the New York Times to the long list of those offended by the right-leaning politics of the former Bruce Jenner, who now identifies as a female Caitlyn. The Times has long been actively pushing for Caitlyn-acceptance in its news pages, activism which has trickled down in even more heavy-handed fashion to the paper's online Artsbeat section.
Artsbeat is running weekly recaps of the episodes of Jenner's E! network reality show, "I Am Cait," a newsy feature handled solely by a left-wing trans-activist who spends much of the space ridiculing Jenner's privilege and politics. Canadian trans-woman writer Casey Plett's recaps are dominated by her sour social justice views. And there's so much to disapprove of, starting with Jenner's "infuriatingly heartless" views, daring to suggest that welfare payments shouldn't be the first option for transsexual youth looking for work.
The Times headline over the episode 2 recap made it clear: "'I Am Cait' Episode 2 Recap: You Know Nothing, Caitlyn Jenner."
Is Caitlyn Jenner willingly and purposefully getting schooled on her own show?
That’s what this episode of “I Am Cait” would suggest. Last week featured Ms. Jenner’s family coming to terms with her transition. If you pay attention to transgender-themed news media and art, it was the same old song that’s been sung for years.
But in this episode, she invites six other trans women for dinner, all of whom have some public visibility as artists, activists or community workers, and most of whom transitioned a while ago. They are: Zackary Drucker, Jen Richards, Drian Juarez, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Chandi Moore and Candis Cayne.
These seven hang out for most of the episode, and they spend most of their time telling Ms. Jenner, in effect: Honey, you don’t know how it is.
Ms. Jenner admits in the beginning, as she did in her now-famous Vanity Fair interview, that she didn’t know other trans people before coming out and had first met some only a few months ago. “I’ve got a lot to learn!” she says at the outset.
That’s a fact the assembled women waste no time in addressing. “Everybody is a little bit cautious,” said Ms. Richards, verbalizing many trans people’s reactions to Ms. Jenner’s attempt to position herself as a community leader. Others echo this sentiment, systematically pointing out during the episode how Ms. Jenner’s immense wealth and social status make her unrepresentative of the average transgender person. They introduce her to the discrimination and injustice many trans people face, particularly as they intersect with race and class.
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A key moment: Ms. Jenner and friends are all sitting around the trailer talking about problems facing trans kids. She blurts: “[Can’t they] make more not working with social programs than they actually can with an entry-level job? … You don’t want people to get totally dependent on it. That’s when they get in trouble.”
Plett treated Jenner's incredibly mainstream view of welfare as horrific:
Given, a) Ms. Jenner’s admittance that she knows little about transgender people other than herself, b) the heartbreaking number of trans youth who are homeless and/or living in extreme poverty, and c) that Ms. Moore talked about homelessness and unemployment earlier in the scene, for Ms. Jenner to make such remarks is tone deaf at best and infuriatingly heartless at worst.
Ms. Boylan concurs. Cut to her speaking to the camera: “Many transgender men and women need social programs to survive. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she says. “Living in the bubble is an impediment to understanding other people. If Cait’s going to be a spokesperson for our community, this is something she’s going to have to understand.”
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And this week’s episode was clearly marketed to highlight these critiques of her. The sneak-peek clip released days ahead of the episode was the scene in the trailer about “social programs,” with Ms. Boylan getting the last word: “This is something she’s going to have to understand.” The marketing worked; entertainment media was accordingly abuzz leading up to Sunday night. “Caitlyn Jenner’s Conservative Views Worry Her New Transgender Friends,” People magazine said.
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All portrayals of Ms. Jenner in the last two months have come to us in careful and sympathetic professional packaging -- she’s been a master of manipulating her image so far, and one has to wonder about the endgame. The teaser clip for the next episode has her crying over wine: “How can I make a difference?” Is she about to have a come-to-Jesus moment in which she gives up her former politics and trains her resources elsewhere? Well, predesigned or not, I hope so, I really do.
The political and linguistic policing continued in Plett's recap of Episode 3, with Plett worried that the vital left-wing political lessons would be forgotten amid possibly entertaining scenes of the crew riding motorcycles and otherwise enjoying themselves.
In the previous episode of “I Am Cait,” we hung out with Caitlyn Jenner and a group of trans women on a bucolic road trip through California. Several members of that group unambiguously schooled Caitlyn on the heartbreaking realities many transgender people face, realities that she will likely not have to worry about.
This episode picks up right where we left off, in San Francisco at the offices of an L.G.B.T. rights organization, with one trans woman, Blossom Brown, saying to Caitlyn: “You’re up there. Come down and see about everybody else.”
Angelica Ross of Trans Tech Social, who nodded to Brown, then says: “A lot of people want to be seen as heroes and want to save our community, they want this kind of direct wrap-a-bow-around-it ‘Now this person’s all better and they have a job’.” Talk of structural inequalities follow -- Alison Gill notes that trans people live in extreme poverty at rates four times higher than the general population.
Plett wanted more moralizing, less entertainment:
The remainder of the hour is both an enjoyable watch and also exactly what I was afraid of with this series -- we abruptly leave San Francisco and it’s almost like the previous scenes didn’t happen....I’m guessing the lessons learned from these last two episodes will increasingly become mere background. But I would love to be wrong.
