Last Wednesday, ESPN hosted the 2015 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles to recognize and celebrate athletic and sports-related achievements. One of the most honorable awards of the night is the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, presented annually to individuals whose contributions “transcend sports,” according to ESPN. Previous winners include Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela.
This year, the award went to Caitlyn Jenner, but not without a resounding backlash of criticism. Many in the sports world, including several of the attendees (and even Bob Costas himself) feel that there were other candidates who were more involved in sports and were more deserving of the award.
Amidst the “controversy” of a major news organization choosing a candidate for an award (in a show they themselves created), there is a lot being lost about what it means that Jenner’s name was called last week.
What It Doesn’t Mean
- Caitlyn Jenner is not deserving of the award/there is someone who is more deserving.
ESPN created the ESPYs in 1994 in order to elevate sports into the entertainment sphere. The show is styled like all high-profile awards, but is more lighthearted in nature and often includes self-referential comedic pieces. The sports network made it that way simply because this is ESPN’s show; as such, they call the shots while they’re in charge.
As with any award, there is no “deserving” here – no one has a claim to it. It’s ESPN’s award and they can do what they want with it without being policed by our moral standards. They are driven by their viewers, yes, but their choices are driven by their interests and not our outside approval.
- Caitlyn Jenner is the exclusive representation of courage
Social media loves black and white scarecrows:
Jenner defines a form of courage. Her embodiment of that quality does not restrict what it means for everyone else. She can be just as heroic as any soldier or this middle-aged man posing as a hunter that online individuals will confuse as one. (Soldiers, I believe, would not be wearing baseball caps while holding a firearm.)
- Courage (or any other quality) is defined by an award
ESPN, I assume, did not set out to tell the world what is good, pious, and courageous through the ESPYs and the Arthur Ashe. The Nobel Prize recognizes significant advances in academia, culture, and society. It does not define intelligence or academic achievement. That is up to, in a sense, our philosophies.
Lauren Hill did not win the award. (She won the ESPY for Best Moment.) That does not mean she was not an exceptional characters who demonstrated unfathomable courage in her own pursuit of happiness and purpose, in the same way that not winning your middle school spelling be does not make you a lousy speller and why we don’t call Leonardo DiCaprio a poor actor because he hasn’t won an Oscar.
I do not fully understand what it’s like to be a trans individual in the United States. But I do know this:
41 percent of transgender people in one survey said they had attempted suicide, compared to 1.6 percent of the general population.
In the same survey, transgender respondents were nearly four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000, compared to the general population.
25 percent of respondents also reported losing a job because they did not conform to workplace gender norms. 90 percent said they faced some form of gender-based discrimination.
I do not fully understand that it’s like to be a trans individual in the United States. But I do know it is not a fair life.
This is part of our identity. I was born a male and identify as one. If I was born without a key part of my identity, like a hair color that I did not feel was mine, I would want the ability to dye it without exposing myself to being assaulted, raped, or fired for fulfilling a part of myself that has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else's personal opinion on what it means to be a human being.
Caitlyn Jenner is dedicating herself to promoting awareness for trans* rights. I did not know what the asterisk represented before, but I do now thanks to her speech. Her award shows that our collective needle is moving as LGBT rights continue to demand the national spotlight. Support is growing, but as she says, there are many more obstacles we have to overcome to achieve equality.
One of those is accepting that a trans* individual won an ESPN award.
