The news has recently been buzzing with the news of a new Halloween costume for men, where they can dress as Caitlyn Jenner complete with a sash that says “Call me Caitlyn” to quote her magazine cover shoot she did with Vanity Fair when she finished her transition.
When she first came out as trans, many people had mixed reactions. I will admit that I was among the few who dismissed it as a publicity stunt, a ploy to get more money. Even when she would tell interviewers the whole story about coming out to help other trans people, I still didn’t buy it. She’s trans. So what? Let her do her thing. The media coverage got excessive (as it always does), but I never realized how necessary it kind of was until later.
But with my mother being an E! reality TV junkie, I found myself in my living room one night watching an episode of her Reality Show, “I am Cait.”
I watched the interview with her mom that brought most of America to tears. I watched her as she made the trip to visit the mother of a trans teenager who committed suicide, as she changed cars three times in order to avoid paparazzi. Disclosing in the episode that a picture of her is worth approximately $250,000. I watched her as she was brought to tears reading the news of another suicide of a transgender teen, while she read the article on her laptop. I watched her and saw someone that wanted to help people. I saw someone that was taking their fame and using it to help ease the pain of being something that society tells you is not normal.
Whether you believe Jenner's story or not, the work she is doing is pretty legit.
Her public charity work began on July 7 when she appeared at an event at the Los Angeles LGBTQ center and gave an inspirational speech to transgendered women.
On July 15, she appeared at the ESPYs to accept her award for the Arthur Ashe Courage award. Her winning this award sparked a lot of controversy among the sports community because there were rumors that she was up against people like Noah Galloway, a crossfitter who lost his arm and leg in a bombing while he was on tour in Iraq. It was later clarified that runners up were not released, so there is no evidence that Galloway was even in the running in the first place.
Despite this, Jenner winning the award sparked outrage.
Frank Deford of NPR was among the many who did not agree.
“Courage is usually involved with overcoming something,” he told the Los Angeles times. “Caitlyn Jenner is being forthright and honest, but this is something that she wanted, and she has a good fallback position—a reality show, fame and lots of money. There’s not a great deal of risk involved in the same way that someone who worked down at the body shop would experience. Bruce Jenner had a good idea that he wasn’t going to lose by doing this; his family is in support of him.”
Jenner summed up her efforts to help trans people and encourage trans acceptance in her speech at the ESPYs.
“All across this country, right now, all across the world, at this very moment, there are young people coming to terms with being transgender. They’re learning they’re different and they are trying to figure out how to handle that, on top of every other problem that a teenager has.
“They’re getting bullied, they’re getting beaten up, they’re getting murdered and they’re committing suicide.”
“If there’s one thing I do know about my life, it is the power of the spotlight. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, but with attention comes responsibility. As a group, as athletes, how you conduct your lives, what you say, what you do is absorbed and observed by millions of people, especially young people. I know I’m clear with my responsibility going forward, to tell my story the right way, for me, to keep learning, to reshape the landscape of how trans issues are viewed, how trans people are treated. And then more broadly to promote a very simple idea: accepting people for who they are. Accepting people’s differences.”
“My plea to you tonight is to join me in making this one of your issues as well. How do we start? We start with education. I was fortunate to meet Arthur Ashe a few times, and I know how important education was to him. Learn as much as you can about another person to understand them better.”
