For those who don’t know, Caitlyn Jenner used to be Bruce Jenner, former multi-talented Olympic athlete and media celebrity. Today, Bruce is gone. There is no Bruce. Instead there is Caitlyn, a beautiful, glamorous and poised woman. Thanks to the enlightened writers and editors at Vanity Fair as well as photographer Annie Liebowicz, Caitlyn’s image, and with it her message of hope, is encircling the world.
In the last few weeks, since news first broke of it, I have read a lot from trans activists, especially in the States, saying that Jenner’s transition is irrelevant to them; that she is an inappropriate model, being white, famous and wealthy, while transpeople in the States are disproportionally of colour, unknown and desperately poor.
They ask how Jenner can relate to their life experience, of violence, discrimination, poverty and all too often, early death.
Yes I hear this argument and I sympathise with it, but remember, there is commonality and Jenner’s experience is relevant. She will give countless young, and for that matter older people, the confidence they need to throw off the shackles of patriarchal repression and be who they really are. That has to be worth praising.
Because of Caitlyn, some of the bigots will think twice. And because of her, some parents, lost in a sea of confusion at what is happening to their children, will realise that being trans is just fine, it’s quite all right — and so help them to support their children as they should.
So today let us all — transpeople, their allies and those of us who are in love with a transperson and try so hard to see inside their lives, to fight for them, to hold them up when an ignorant and cruel society does so much to harm them — it’s a day for all of us to shout out loud ‘You Rock, Caitlyn!’ Let the cry rise to the sky, let it lift the rafters and let it shatter forever the horrific patriarchal hegemony that so hates all LGBT expressions.
The war to stop the slaughter of transpeople, their beatings, the routine abuses, goes on. It will be a long uphill struggle that will outlive me, I fear. But today we can celebrate and raise our hearts because of one woman’s courage, determination and dignity. So what if she’s rich and famous and white? In a way that must have made her decision to be true to herself that much tougher. She takes nothing away from the experience of being non-white or poor; she just lights a candle of hope and love in a dark and dangerous world.
What Caitlyn Jenner proves is that transgender transcends race, class, wealth, education and privilege. Her moment of glory should bring all of us together, all over the world.
Nobody knows what will happen next but to me it feels as if a wall has been torn down and at last, at last, fresh air and sunlight can come in to touch us all. So let’s lift up our faces to the warmth and breathe in. Let’s put our differences aside for just today and let’s unite, all of us, transpeople, trans allies and translovers and shout, ‘Thank you, Caitlyn Jenner, you rock’.
Whatever happens, nothing will ever be quite the same again.
#CaitlynJenner
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