Anything in there for me?
She will laugh and I will laugh and we will hug. It will feel extraordinary to get this off my chest with a family member. I will feel the path has been opened with her for continued conversation, perhaps acknowledgment of my issues and how I am doing. We talk regularly about almost everything after that but never gender. That bothers me for a long time, that maybe she was not the right person to tell after all. If Kim is uncomfortable, then what about the rest of the world? It is just like Pam’s reaction was more than twenty years earlier. The same silence.
From my perspective I am opening up the golden gate of gender and want Kim to walk through it with me. I even have the idea that we might go shopping together.
Several years later I ask her:
How come I never heard from you?
I just didn’t know what to do, if I should talk about it.
After she says that I understand completely. I am not a distant cousin or uncle. I am Kim’s stepfather telling her that I have this relentless urge to look like her stepmother. As for Pam, I was her famous baby brother who she had witnessed winning the decathlon in Montreal. Their silence did hurt me, but I now realize my expectations were unreasonable.
I am now almost forty. I feel good about all the things I have done, allowed the woman inside me to live and breathe when she can’t be suffocated anyway.
I am about to take the final step.
Until…
I still care about what people think of me. Becoming a trans woman is about a million miles away from the image that many more millions still have of Bruce Jenner. As helpful as Trudy Hill has been, I feel there is still so much I don’t understand. I have never knowingly talked to a trans woman. The only trans person I know of is Renée Richards, who made headlines around the world in 1977 when she petitioned and won the right to play in the US Open tennis tournament as a woman after transitioning. I met her once at a banquet. I admired and envied her, but I didn’t have the courage to speak to her of my own gender issues.
And what about my four kids, who range in age from six to eleven? They have the same image of their father as the rest of the world. How would they possibly handle my transition, given the era? How comfortable would my first two wives be with me seeing the kids? They would never openly deny me, but I get the feeling sometimes that they would think it might be better if the contact was limited. I would understand their hesitation: it would be traumatizing for any child to try to understand that their dad is now a woman. Linda says I told her at one point that I was seriously thinking of having surgery overseas and coming back as a close female relative, an aunt or something. I don’t remember ever saying that, and I had absolutely no intention of doing so. But I can see why I might have said it, a desperate way of lessening the shock for my kids.
If I become a woman, I will be my real self. That would be sublime, but I also have to face reality. Bruce still has earning potential. Bruce pays the bills. Bruce is tired of being lonely and isolated and wonders if as a trans woman she would be even more lonely and isolated.
So I stop going through transition in 1989.
I can’t do this to my kids.
I can’t do this to me.
I can’t do this to society. It is not ready.
I have to get back in the game. I have to once again establish Bruce as the dominant presence, no matter how much I loathe him. I need cover again, and the best way to find cover, because of the rumors still engulfing me, is to start dating again.
Which is when Kris Kardashian and Bruce Jenner improbably find each other.
December 20, 2015
“It’s a movie…”
I am at the movies in Westlake.
I realize now I should not have gone. I should have checked with activists in the trans community to make sure the movie had their seal of approval. I should have been more sensitive that when you are in the public eye, you are held up as a symbol and spokesperson for something whether you like it or not. Everything you do will be under scrutiny.
But in my mind it was still harmless.
It was a movie.
The transgender community is a rainbow of many opinions. Many, many opinions. I love that. I respect that. I have strong opinions myself, and I don’t assume everyone will agree. I expect to be condemned by such groups as the religious right. I did not expect some members of the transgender community would find fault with me as well, sometimes viciously.
The film in question is The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne. It is based on the life of Lili Elbe, the first trans woman to undergo gender-affirming surgery in 1930. She died of complications roughly a year later.
I watched the film with obvious interest, both from historical and personal perspectives. As I watched, I continued to wonder if I should have the Final Surgery or not. I thought Redmayne was incredible, just as he was as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, a role for which he won an Academy Award for best actor.
Certain members of the trans community detested the film because they resented a cis man (a person having the identity they were assigned at birth) playing Elbe and thought a transgender person should have been given the role—valid criticism and concern. They felt the film was laden with stereotypes, showed lack of care and respect for trans women, and was what the blogger Sally Jane Black called “facile, narrow-minded, misguided-at-best trash.”
And those were her positive points.
Many, as it turned out, shared the same viewpoint that it was a rotten film that never should have been made.
I, on the other hand, assumed the film took creative license. After all, it is not a documentary and the purpose was to create something eye-opening and entertaining for a global audience.
In other words, an enjoyable two hours, and that was pretty much that.
Or so I thought.
Prior to the release of the film Redmayne made a major mistake: in an interview with Out magazine, he said he saluted my courage. I took it as a compliment at the time. It sounded like a compliment. It actually was a compliment.
Right?
Wrong…
Based on Redmayne’s remark there were a spate of stories in the British press that Redmayne and I had arranged to meet at the Academy Awards. Which naturally created another rumor that I had already met with Redmayne to praise his performance in the film. This infuriated members of the trans community because it led them to believe I was publicly endorsing the film even though I had never met with Redmayne or had any specific plan to do so.
Nick Adams, director of programs, transgender media for GLAAD, who has been an incredible resource in guiding me through the thicket, alerted me. I also received a flurry of text messages from fellow I Am Cait sister Jenny Boylan, a highly respected member of the trans community and the Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence at Barnard College who wrote a marvelous book on her transition called She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders. She is my consigliere on gauging the mood of the community, and it just might be a full-time job at this point.
(Note: the following exchange did actually happen word-for-word.)
JENNY: I just wanted to whisper in your ear that if you did meet with [Redmayne] a lotta trans people would be all mad because Danish Girl is problematic. You can and should of course do as you like. But I do try to protect you from unnecessary turmoil when I can.
CAITLYN: Why is the community up in arms about Eddie? I saw the film and it was great.
JENNY: It’s very complicated.
CAITLYN: Briefly try to explain.
JENNY: But the film is not accurate. It’s a Hollywood/adapted version of a fictionalized version of a story of a trans woman from eighty years ago. It’s not an accurate story. It suggests that forced feminization and clothing are what triggers the transgender impulse. When we all know it goes much deeper. Also…
CAITLYN: You’re right, it’s a movie. And it has to be entertaining. I thought it was very well done.
JENNY: The community is very
tired of cisgender actors playing us and getting credit for being so brave when it’s our actual lives that are being portrayed. I thought the movie was beautiful in places, and that Eddie was really interesting to watch.
CAITLYN: Please, community, get a life. He was great and deserves an Oscar.
JENNY: Well, maybe so. But if you publicly endorse the film or him I assure you that you will have a firestorm on your hands again… are you meeting with Eddie?
CAITLYN: Okay, I got it!
JENNY: All I really care about is keeping you from getting hurt.
CAITLYN: Nobody’s going to hurt me. They don’t like me or anybody who’s in the public eye. It’s sad.
JENNY: Eddie is a great actor. But the part that he is playing is a cisgender actor’s portrayal of a cisgender screenwriter’s adaptation of a cisgender novelist’s fictionalized version of a transgender person’s life. It’s kind of like if you watched Star Wars in hopes of learning a whole lot about science. Does this make any sense?
CAITLYN: No, and these people don’t make any sense.
I was sincerely thankful to Jenny for the heads-up. I know she was just trying to protect me, and I did hear their criticisms loud and clear. The trans community has been through so much that there is no such thing as overreaction. Which doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with it all the time.
Upon further reflection and review, I now have this to say about The Danish Girl and Eddie Redmayne’s performance:
Privately, I thought the film was marvelously entertaining, and Redmayne’s performance deserved an Oscar. While trans women and trans men must be better represented in Hollywood (like African Americans and members of the gay and lesbian community and women and everyone else who is not a white male), I can’t imagine anyone who could have played the role better than he did. But publicly, when I went to the Vanity Fair Oscar party in February 2016, these were my thoughts: Please, Eddie, do not make any eye contact or God forbid smile or, worst of all, come up to me to talk. Turn your back, or head in the opposite direction, or just leave. I am also putting you on notice that if asked about the film, I will say it was shameful.
Sound ridiculous?
Of course it does, because it is ridiculous. The Danish Girl is not perfect in terms of approaching the subject matter. But we as a community should be excited about the film because it brings attention and exposure to the struggle that all trans people face regardless of who we are and where we come from and how much money we have or don’t have. I wanted to talk about the film. What resonated for me was the pain Elbe went through because of an intolerant and hateful society. That has tremendous application today for a public that so often refuses to understand. Compassion leads to not only acceptance but the joy of acceptance, so it isn’t mere obligation. And yes, I wanted to meet Eddie Redmayne. But not after being told by someone who only has my best interests at heart that it would cause members of the trans community to become upset with me. So I had no choice then but to be silent.
It becomes frustrating and debilitating and depressing to have to censor yourself like this. For a community pushing for acceptance, we can sadly be brutally judgmental of each other. We insist upon tolerance, but only to an extent. We want inclusion, but aren’t as inclusive at times. We want to stamp out hate, and yet there are members of the trans community who take great pleasure and satisfaction in expressing their hate for me when all I have tried to do is ceaselessly advocate for my sisters and brothers. We publicly argue against stereotypes, and yet I am repeatedly condemned for not being a stereotypical trans woman.
Don’t get me wrong, I have received many positive comments from the trans community. Institutions such as GLAAD have been fantastically supportive. So has the mainstream public, with the exception of anonymous cowardly commenters on the Internet.
I realize I can’t please everybody. All I can do is be myself, and it’s taken me sixty-five years to do that. I have had a steep learning curve in a short amount of time. But those who criticize me only know what they read. And this is not a fair representation of who I am. I also think many people make the assumption that because I was on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, I am as frivolous as the show is often meant to be. But I am not that way in real life.
From the very beginning of when I decided to transition, I made a conscious effort to limit my exposure in the mainstream media (the tabloids make up whatever they want), because I didn’t want to be seen everywhere. I am very selective when it comes to interviews with the mainstream media. I have said yes to maybe a dozen out of hundreds of requests. One of the criteria is that the needs of the trans community be addressed in any interview with more than obligatory lip service.
But how can we expect people on the outside to support and push for us when we fight among ourselves? We have to support each other’s differences, agree more, listen to each other (including me), and sacrifice smaller fights and disagreements for bigger advances and gains. United we will succeed. Divided we never will.
Because of the attention I received since I transitioned, the word transgender has been introduced into the national conversation. I am not solely responsible for this by any stretch. Shows such as Transparent and Orange Is the New Black have paved the way. So has Janet Mock with her amazing book Redefining Realness. So have activists such as Jenny Boylan and Kate Bornstein and many others who are supporters of my cause even though they sometimes blanch at what comes out of my mouth. I do have a big mouth. But I also have a bigger heart.
I have written the following words before, and I am going to write them again and put them in bold for emphasis:
I am white.
I am entitled.
I have wealth.
I know that before I became Caitlyn I lived in a world of white male privilege—exponentially heightened in my case because I was a famous white male athlete. I am aware that I still have that within me. I am also evolving. I am not an arrogant person, and I am certainly not arrogant enough to think that in becoming a woman I suddenly appropriated the institutionalized inferiority with which women have been treated in our society. When women say I have not walked a mile in their shoes, much less a step, they are right. I am not trying to define womanhood.
It is the media that has ordained me the spokesman for the transgender community. Because of the celebrity culture in which we live, I do sometimes draw undue attention. My words are not gospel, even though the media likes to think so. I am very new to the community, and I understand some still perceive me as an outsider. My own story, I believe, is worth telling because the pain and fear I experienced was real, and it is important for the public to understand the ramifications of denying your authentic self.
I have said in the past that “it was easy to come out as trans. It was harder to come out as a Republican.” And I understand why some women and men in the trans community cannot understand my choice of party. I readily admit that the GOP platform over the past several decades has been inadequate and disappointing when it comes to LGBTQ issues. I am aware of the spate of anti-LGBTQ bills that have been filed on the state level (more than 175 in 2016, of which forty-four specifically targeted transgender men and women).
Thankfully on the North Carolina bathroom politics issue the US Justice Department filed suit stating that the proposed bathroom law amounts to, as Attorney General Loretta Lynch put it, “state-sponsored discrimination” and “provides no benefit to society.” On the same issue, the administration issued a sweeping directive to public schools: transgender students must be allowed access to bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity (now under review by the US Supreme Court). Also in the last year, transgender men and women can now serve openly in the military, and they are on a pathway to receive complete healthcare, inclusive of transition-related medical needs.
I obviously welcome these steps. There must be many more. But I am not a one-issue voter confined solely to LGBTQ issues. I am a conservative, and always have been, particularly on fiscal issues, and I am
not going to change to make myself more popular or more politically palatable. I did not transition to become a liberal Democrat.
I believe that we desperately need conservatives like myself who have a platform and can use it to enlighten fellow conservatives, reminding them of the Golden Rule—that trans people should not be judged on moral or religious grounds but rather treated as fellow human beings. Whatever advances we have made, our community is still in dire straits: the shockingly high rates of suicide that show no sign of abatement, the rates of violence and unemployment that are far higher than the general population, and the states making it extremely difficult to change gender markers on official documents such as driver’s licenses and birth certificates. The conservative community must be reached to address these critical roadblocks to our equality. I can only reach them by getting them to the table, not by bashing them. Republicans are also in power: the House, the Senate, and the presidency.
I will try as hard as I can to make the government see that lives are at stake. It will be an uphill struggle. I am not starry-eyed. But I do have experience in attaining goals that no one thought possible. I won the decathlon at the Olympics by going after the impossible. I became Caitlyn after saying to myself for sixty-five years that it was impossible. Change comes in the unlikeliest of circumstances unless you give up trying to effect change.
I make a point to answer questions without regard to spin or personal reputation. I swear that my heart is always in the right place, which isn’t to say that I am always right. Articulating what I believe is much more important to me than articulating what I want people to think I believe or what people think I should believe. I have been through that already in my life.
The Secrets of My Life Page 14
