Frankly, I can understand the outrage. For those unaware of the nature of the ESPY awards, or the struggles faced by the trans community, Caitlyn Jenner's reception of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award on Wednesday seems undeserved at best.
Jenner's award, which honors sports figures who portray tremendous courage inside or out of the sports world, was met with widespread indignation across social media and conservative news broadcasters. According to a false rumor originally started by Gerry Callahan, a writer for the Boston Herald, Jenner beat Noah Galloway, a double amputee veteran of the Iraq War, and Lauren Hill, the late basketball player at Mount Saint Joseph's who suffered from inoperable brain cancer during her time on the team, in a race for the award.
In a June interview on "The Dan Patrick Show," sportscaster Bob Costas maintained that Jenner's award was not won "because of the validity, but because of whatever the kind of gawker factor is." The main backlash, however, came not from the more moderate comments by pundits such as Costas, but from social media, where spiteful images such as these caught acclaim from self-imposed warriors for morality:
Simply put: Courage is not a contest. Neither Galloway, Hill, the soldiers in the United States military, nor Jenner acted boldly for the sake of receiving accolades from their peers. To pit heroes such as these against each other not only minimizes their bravery, but it also mutates the honor of their achievements into nothing more than a weapon to be used to break others down.
To discredit Jenner's courage by comparing her to war veterans or those who stand up for their faith pigeonholes the definition of heroism into a limited scope and, in doing so, marginalizes the strength of all others who face adversity.
While there's no denying that Galloway and Hill are heroes, to put it most simply, they are not the heroes that the unheard communities of the world need right now. The heavy stigmas and lack of recognition for trans people, especially trans youth, lead to many disturbing acts of violence and extremely high suicide rates. While suicide attempts for the entirety of the United States lie around 4.6 percent, suicide attempt rates for transgender people reaches to 41 percent.
All people need their heroes. Jenner became that hero for a group of people who really don't have many people to look up to. Knowing that she would endure the ridicule, the mockery, and the hatred, she took it upon herself to be a representative for the trans people in the United States and many more around the globe.
