Caitlyn Jenner: Call Me Caitlyn

[Shangrilala]

I hate all this "true authentic self" crap. It is tired and a crutch for her having wasted her life. She's claiming that she never enjoyed the culture of Paris because she was Bruce? That's on her. She could have done that fully without raising any eyebrows. She could have gone out. Hell, given her family she could have gone to fashion week as a male celeb and in turn had her family go to the Olympics or some such thing. This "I can do anything or say anything because now I'm true and before I was repressed" is just code for being selfish.

[Cosmic Muffin]

I don't know what Cait's imagining, but they could send Kendall out in lingerie and Cait out in a silky bathrobe or swimsuit cover up. For Kendall's sake I hope this doesn't happen.

[iwasish]

I don't know what Cait's imagining, but they could send Kendall out in lingerie and Cait out in a silky bathrobe or swimsuit cover up. For Kendall's sake I hope this doesn't happen.

No way Caitlyn is going to be second banana to Kendall if this is really a goal of hers. Sorry but from what I've seen of Caitlyn, she'd elbow Kendall or any other of her kids aside to get the spotlight on her.

[millennium]

Hopefully Caitlyn won't put her in that position. Kendall obviously isn't a super model, but she has at least worked hard to get where she is. It would be a shame for Caitlyn's narcissism to ruin that.

 

 

60-year-old Joan Crawford playing her 24-year-old daughter Christina's character on the soap opera "Secret Storm"

[methodwriter85]

 

60-year-old Joan Crawford playing her 24-year-old daughter Christina's character on the soap opera "Secret Storm"

Some needs to get a drag queen to play Caitlyn Jenner as Joan Crawford.

[maraleia]

I have so many issues with Caitlyn most especially her Republican leanings and focus on her looks not to mention her constant use of the word girls to describe the women in her orbit but I do wish everyone would stop mis-naming and mis-gendering her because it's a slap in the face to all transgender people.

Also the correct term is transgender or trans people not transgenders or transgendered.

I wish the Wachowski sisters (Lana and the newly out Lilly) weren't so private but I understand their reasoning but they would be much better spokespeople for the white transgender female community. Caitlyn is a joke and embarrassment to the entire LGBT community.

[millennium]

I have so many issues with Caitlyn most especially her Republican leanings and focus on her looks not to mention her constant use of the word girls to describe the women in her orbit but I do wish everyone would stop mis-naming and mis-gendering her because it's a slap in the face to all transgender people.

Also the correct term is transgender or trans people not transgenders or transgendered.

I wish the Wachowski sisters (Lana and the newly out Lilly) weren't so private but I understand their reasoning but they would be much better spokespeople for the white transgender female community. Caitlyn is a joke and embarrassment to the entire LGBT community.

 

I read an article the other day in which the writer observed that Jenner's recent flare-ups of foot-in-mouth were creating new opportunities/excuses for pundits and others to freely engage in disparaging rhetoric towards Jenner and transgender individuals in general.

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/16/go_ahead_and_call_caitlyn_jenner_a_delusional_gop_shill_but_dont_say_shes_not_a_woman/

 

So we have Jenner to thank for that, too.

 

It was always a concern of mine, from day one of Jenner 2.0.   I worried that the public's negative opinions about Jenner would jaundice its view of transgender people in general.   Certainly negative and hateful opinions existed in the mainstream before Jenner, but her shallow, self-centered bullshit, her elitist arrogance and trademark ignorance -- not to mention her insistence on forcing herself upon a public that is simply sick to death of hearing about her -- seems to be exacerbating rather than alleviating the problem. 

 

Yesterday I happened upon a puff piece masquerading as a blog that Jenner allegedly pens for People Magazine, in which she dispenses facile advice to transgender people worried about getting a job because maybe they don't pass so well.   Bad enough this "advice" springs from the lips of the woman who said transgender women should try to avoid looking like "a man in a dress" because it "makes people uncomfortable," but it also originates with someone who will never need to interview for a job at a makeup counter, an office or elsewhere, or ever have to negotiate the shark-infested waters of workplace relationships.   It's like Gwyneth Paltrow writing about affordable cuisine.

 

I cringed as I read it.

 

But worse was the comments section below.   I always read the comments on such articles because the trolls who express themselves so hatefully there are potentially the same people who at some point may impulsively try to harm me or another transgender person they encounter in real life, either in word or by their actions.   Reading the comments section helps me to gauge the degree of hatred simmering beneath the thin veneer of civility in everyday life. 

 

Needless to say, I have seen some harsh words written in the past year, more so than I ever encountered before in articles associated with transgender people.   And it's been steadily on the rise for several months now.   But the remarks following this particular blog are some of the worst yet.   (In fact, shame on People for giving these people an unmoderated forum to spread this kind of venom.) 

 

Here's a link:

 

http://www.people.com/article/caitlyn-jenner-whosay-blog-mantra-that-has-seen-me-through-it-all

 

Scroll all the way down for the comments.

 

I can't help but blame Jenner for at least some of this.   She may be raising awareness, but not in a positive way.   I think her selfish antics are backfiring horribly.   It would be one thing if the harm she did was restricted to herself and her popularity alone.   But I worry that the negative reaction she is engendering may be putting the rest of us at a disadvantage, and even some of us at risk.

Edited March 23, 2016 by millennium

[dorcastrilling]

Superhero? Screen Goddess Beautiful?  Mission to do good? Spare me.  The only good Caitlyn Jenner is doing is for Caityn Jenner.

 

I wonder if she realizes that if it were not for her Kardashian Konnection, she would have been at best a one week story.   The story would have been that Bruce Jenner, former Olympic hero, transgendered...and in a few days it would have been over.  There would have been no hour long Diane Sawyer interview, no Vanity Fair cover, no reality show, and very few gifts from designers, no record breaking twitter followings.  And there certainly would not have been a make up line.

 

I'm glad MAC is donating the money. 

She is looking like Peg Bundy. Should have laid off the tune ups.

[AndySmith]

shame on People for giving these people an unmoderated forum to spread this kind of venom

 

More comments, regardless of what is being said, means they get more ad money. So they probably won't be filtering comments...ever.

 

The problem with Caitlyn is that she was already tainted by the Kardashian connection. She'd be scrutinized no matter what. However...that doesn't mean she has to end up being such a lame role model/ambassador for transgender people. I do wonder much of these "miss-steps" are done on purpose to keep media, social and otherwise, chatting about her?

Edited March 23, 2016 by AndySmith

[Watermelon]

MEEEEEEEH.  I'm not really ready to blame Caitlyn for the vitriol of assholes who want to target all transgenders.  Those are just horrible people looking for an excuse.  If they wanted to, they could look at the Wachowskis, Laverne Cox, or Chaz Bono.  But, no.  They choose Caitlyn because she's problematic and it fits their rhetoric.  

[Kromm]

I do wish everyone would stop mis-naming and mis-gendering her because it's a slap in the face to all transgender people.

Intention is a big thing here. Those doing it because they have no regard for Caitlyn Jenner is probably different from those doing it because they have no regard for any transgender person. New language can be thorny to apply to people because it takes time to overcome habits of a lifetime. So I'd say rather than jump down people's throats about it, it's best to suss out the real motivation.

 

And honestly, I'd say you're making the point in a forum where virtually everyone is consistently calling her Caitlyn, and gendering her as "she". There are cases where people are talking about "Bruce" in context about things that happened in the 70s and 80s, and I know that raises some ire in some people, but the actual wording of the GLAAD guidelines seem to suggest that following the wishes/example of the person is question is the way to go (and Caitlyn herself talks about her actions from those days in those terms), and again I think this is a "habits of a lifetime" kind of situation rather than disregard or disrespect. 

 

 

Also the correct term is transgender or trans people not transgenders or transgendered.

I think this one is going to take time to sink in, mainly because "transgendered" sounds like the right part of speech in a grammatical sense (just in terms of how it matches changes in similar words between parts of speech). I'm just saying here that I don't think this especially is a matter of disrespect, just verbal instincts that are wrong.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Kromm

[Fostersmom]

I think a lot of the problem is Caitlyn talks the walk, but isn't actually walking the walk, so to speak. She wants to be lauded as a transgender champion, but is doing absolutely nothing to ensure any other transgender person gets the equal treatment she demands for herself. Plus, she's a pretty horrible role model for anyone, transgender or woman, or man for that matter. She's all surface and no substance. Hell, I don't want any woman who is literally all about "glam squads", hair and make up, designer clothes, and selfies representing women at all. Using the other examples, look at Chaz Bono. He's been very active for years and when was the last time you saw him referred to as Chastity? A decade ago? Or that pregnant guy, Thomas? That's his name, right? I don't even know what his female name was. Granted he wasn't famous before he hit the news, but true haters would easily be able to find out and refer to him by it if they wanted to just be ignorant about it. 

[maraleia]

Intention is a big thing here. Those doing it because they have no regard for Caitlyn Jenner is probably different from those doing it because they have no regard for any transgender person. New language can be thorny to apply to people because it takes time to overcome habits of a lifetime. So I'd say rather than jump down people's throats about it, it's best to suss out the real motivation.

 

And honestly, I'd say you're making the point in a forum where virtually everyone is consistently calling her Caitlyn, and gendering her as "she". There are cases where people are talking about "Bruce" in context about things that happened in the 70s and 80s, and I know that raises some ire in some people, but the actual wording of the GLAAD guidelines seem to suggest that following the wishes/example of the person is question is the way to go (and Caitlyn herself talks about her actions from those days in those terms), and again I think this is a "habits of a lifetime" kind of situation rather than disregard or disrespect. 

 

I think this one is going to take time to sink in, mainly because "transgendered" sounds like the right part of speech in a grammatical sense (just in terms of how it matches changes in similar words between parts of speech). I'm just saying here that I don't think this especially is a matter of disrespect, just verbal instincts that are wrong.

All I'm asking is for people who post here to practice the correct terminology when posting so they don't say the wrong thing out loud or elsewhere on the web where they will get vilified. Look a few posts upward and see that someone still is using transgenders so the more we remind people the better. I waited a year before posting in here again to see if people would do the right thing and still some haven't. It's like people using the f-word or the n-word without any regard for the audience or what is the correct thing to do.

[maraleia]

 

I read an article the other day in which the writer observed that Jenner's recent flare-ups of foot-in-mouth were creating new opportunities/excuses for pundits and others to freely engage in disparaging rhetoric towards Jenner and transgender individuals in general.

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/16/go_ahead_and_call_caitlyn_jenner_a_delusional_gop_shill_but_dont_say_shes_not_a_woman/

 

So we have Jenner to thank for that, too.

 

It was always a concern of mine, from day one of Jenner 2.0.   I worried that the public's negative opinions about Jenner would jaundice its view of transgender people in general.   Certainly negative and hateful opinions existed in the mainstream before Jenner, but her shallow, self-centered bullshit, her elitist arrogance and trademark ignorance -- not to mention her insistence on forcing herself upon a public that is simply sick to death of hearing about her -- seems to be exacerbating rather than alleviating the problem. 

 

Yesterday I happened upon a puff piece masquerading as a blog that Jenner allegedly pens for People Magazine, in which she dispenses facile advice to transgender people worried about getting a job because maybe they don't pass so well.   Bad enough this "advice" springs from the lips of the woman who said transgender women should try to avoid looking like "a man in a dress" because it "makes people uncomfortable," but it also originates with someone who will never need to interview for a job at a makeup counter, an office or elsewhere, or ever have to negotiate the shark-infested waters of workplace relationships.   It's like Gwyneth Paltrow writing about affordable cuisine.

 

I cringed as I read it.

 

But worse was the comments section below.   I always read the comments on such articles because the trolls who express themselves so hatefully there are potentially the same people who at some point may impulsively try to harm me or another transgender person they encounter in real life, either in word or by their actions.   Reading the comments section helps me to gauge the degree of hatred simmering beneath the thin veneer of civility in everyday life. 

 

Needless to say, I have seen some harsh words written in the past year, more so than I ever encountered before in articles associated with transgender people.   And it's been steadily on the rise for several months now.   But the remarks following this particular blog are some of the worst yet.   (In fact, shame on People for giving these people an unmoderated forum to spread this kind of venom.) 

 

Here's a link:

 

http://www.people.com/article/caitlyn-jenner-whosay-blog-mantra-that-has-seen-me-through-it-all

 

Scroll all the way down for the comments.

 

I can't help but blame Jenner for at least some of this.   She may be raising awareness, but not in a positive way.   I think her selfish antics are backfiring horribly.   It would be one thing if the harm she did was restricted to herself and her popularity alone.   But I worry that the negative reaction she is engendering may be putting the rest of us at a disadvantage, and even some of us at risk.

That's why allies like myself need to step up and defend trans people from attacks on all fronts especially in state legislatures and governors and federal candidates. That's why I was so insistent on making sure that a small part of the population (posters here) were doing the right thing regarding Caitlyn's name and gender pronoun. It's not about her it's about the wider trans community who get crapped on daily, much more than lesbians like myself who are white and look sporty and neutral in appearance.

[Kromm]

All I'm asking is for people who post here to practice the correct terminology when posting so they don't say the wrong thing out loud or elsewhere on the web where they will get vilified. Look a few posts upward and see that someone still is using transgenders so the more we remind people the better. I waited a year before posting in here again to see if people would do the right thing and still some haven't. It's like people using the f-word or the n-word without any regard for the audience or what is the correct thing to do.

Are you truly equating "transgendered" to the N-word?  That's a real reach, IMO.  The N-word has a deep specific history of violence and oppression behind it. "Transgendered", in contrast, is simply a term that SOUNDS correct that people are having trouble remembering isn't considered correct by a specific community. IMO a WORLD of difference, and equating these things creates an atmosphere where I bet a lot of people feel belittled and lectured at. Which is a fitting thing if they're using established deeply offensive terms, but I believe risks coming off as petty and oversensitive when it's about wrongly adding "ed" to a word where it doesn't belong.

 

And before you state it, I'm not saying transgender people don't also have massive hate against them. I'm specifically talking about people adding that "ed" to that one word--which I won't argue about it being wrong (people outside that community have no right to dictate what the community says is wrong), just giving an opinion about reacting to such.

 

This is also different, in my opinion, from "fag" or "homo" or "tranny" or people using any of those terms. Hate and willful (vs. accidental) ignorance is deeply embedded in those words too.

 

I fully believe in the notion that often people don't get respect unless they demand it. I wouldn't ever argue that. But that doesn't change my opinion that if everything possible is aggressively interpreted as disrespect, then you're already putting people on the defense, and they'll be far more likely to start from a position of anger. To me that seems counterproductive. But that's just me, perhaps.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Kromm

[millennium]

MEEEEEEEH.  I'm not really ready to blame Caitlyn for the vitriol of assholes who want to target all transgenders.  Those are just horrible people looking for an excuse.  If they wanted to, they could look at the Wachowskis, Laverne Cox, or Chaz Bono.  But, no.  They choose Caitlyn because she's problematic and it fits their rhetoric. 

 

They choose her because she's constantly thrust in their faces with the insistence that everyone is obligated to find her "brave" and "beautiful" regardless of how they may personally feel about her or the transgender phenomenon.

 

You can force integration and acceptance with legislation, but all the laws in the world won't change hearts and minds.  Jenner is failing miserably at the latter part of the equation.  My concern is that rather than fostering acceptance, her bullshit may be having the opposite effect.  

 

There is a human tendency to prejudge whole populations by the actions of its most visible members, particularly when those members engage in behavior that brings negative attention or causes bad feelings.  Right now, the only transgender person many people are familiar with is Jenner.   And IMO that's not good for the rest of us.

[Kromm]

There is a human tendency to prejudge whole populations by the actions of its most visible members, particularly when those members engage in behavior that brings negative attention or causes bad feelings.  Right now, the only transgender person many people are familiar with is Jenner.   And IMO that's not good for the rest of us.

I was going to use a "what if the only German person someone knew about was Hitler", but that's overstating things to equate a monster (Hitler) with an idiot (Jenner). 

 

A better example (and a good parallel) might be "what if the only Black person someone knew about was Kanye West". Then again, Kanye arguably has talent, when he chooses to use it. Caitlyn doesn't even have that, unless a time machine or magic wand was involved and we could take her back to the skillset she had in the 1970s.

 

Hmm. How about "what if the only Jew someone knew about was Bernie Madoff"?  You'd think all Jews were greedy fraudsters and thieves.

[GaT]

Are you truly equating "transgendered" to the N-word?  That's a real reach, IMO.  The N-word has a deep specific history of violence and oppression behind it. "Transgendered", in contrast, is simply a term that SOUNDS correct that people are having trouble remembering isn't considered correct by a specific community. IMO a WORLD of difference, and equating these things creates an atmosphere where I bet a lot of people feel belittled and lectured at. Which is a fitting thing if they're using established deeply offensive terms, but I believe risks coming off as petty and oversensitive when it's about wrongly adding "ed" to a word where it doesn't belong.

 

Wish I could give you about 100 more likes. 

[millennium]

I don't get all the nuances myself.   When I was coming up, the terminology was transsexual, crossdresser or transvestite, and drag queen. 

 

I would have thought that of those, "drag queen" is the most offensive yet it remains on the approved list even as the others have fallen by the wayside. 

 

"Transgender" came along in the 1990s as I recall and was originally used to describe individuals who didn't neatly fit into any of the above categories -- for example, a male who chooses to live as a woman but does not have sexual reassignment surgery (orchiectomy, penectomy, vaginoplasty).   Back then, such a person was not considered a woman in the eyes of the law.  That status was reserved for individuals who had the surgery.

 

I have never seen a good explanation for why "transgendered" is wrong.   As Kromm notes, it does sound like it should be correct.   When a person has a natural proclivity to use their right hand, we say that person is right-handed.   If they have blue eyes, we say they are blue-eyed.   If nature has seen fit to make someone transgender, what is so terrible about calling them transgendered? 

 

Maybe this is just my sense of fair play, but demanding the public get on board with all the right forms and tenses of the words seems like asking for one favor too many.   I see progress in the fact that they acknowledge us as transgender, even if they add a benign -ed to the word.

 

And just because I'm on the topic, I hate the word "trans."  To me it's no better than calling a gay person "homo."  Yet Jenner uses it every single day.   I'll take "transgendered" over "trans" any day of the week

Edited March 24, 2016 by millennium

[Kromm]

And just because I'm on the topic, I hate the word "trans."  To me it's no better than calling a gay person "homo."  Yet Jenner uses it every single day.   I'll take "transgendered" over "trans" any day of the week

It's the shorthand nature of it that's offensive, IMO. It is literally, as you say, akin to why "homo" is offensive when "homosexual" is not {In fact, it's also why I've always believed "cis" is offensive too, vs. "cisgender", the shorthanding, and "hetero" would be too, if it was a term anyone actually used with any kind of regularity). 

 

To relate this back to the show, and Ms. Jenner, I think she's literally likely to be the last person to get in line with prescribed speech. I know there's been some borderline offensive discussion about the "legitimacy" of Caitlyn Jenner's desire to change her gender, and my opinion has been that her choices, as shallow as they seem, aren't inherently illegitimate. That said, it's not wrong to say that while legitimate to do so, she DOES seem to see being a transgender woman as some kind of exercise in camp. In fact, based on the examples she's lived with for so many years, I suspect she sees being ANY kind of woman as an exercise in camp. Thus the use of "girls" and "trans" and such. If she suddenly decided she liked the same gender sexually, Caitlyn Jenner is the kind to smile at a whole room full of other gay people and warmly call them what she thinks is an all-inclusive "homos").

[Watermelon]

They choose her because she's constantly thrust in their faces with the insistence that everyone is obligated to find her "brave" and "beautiful" regardless of how they may personally feel about her or the transgender phenomenon.

 

You can force integration and acceptance with legislation, but all the laws in the world won't change hearts and minds.  Jenner is failing miserably at the latter part of the equation.  My concern is that rather than fostering acceptance, her bullshit may be having the opposite effect.  

 

There is a human tendency to prejudge whole populations by the actions of its most visible members, particularly when those members engage in behavior that brings negative attention or causes bad feelings.  Right now, the only transgender person many people are familiar with is Jenner.   And IMO that's not good for the rest of us.

On purpose.  Caitlyn is a reailty star. The only way you'd be familiar with her and NOT Laverne, the Wachowskis, or Chaz is if you ONLY heard of her at the ESPYs.

 

And while people absolutely do that, that's not Caitlyn's fault. That'd be like any black person, be it Beyonce, Kanye, Oprah, the President, or RayRay the robber on the 4pm news having to be THE black person that people use as a reference.   

 

People (read: assholes) do that specifically to to keep their prejudices going.  It's not an accident and it's not happenstance how that works out.  

[millennium]

 

And while people absolutely do that, that's not Caitlyn's fault.

 

Sure it is.  She's the one being a famewhore, exploiting the transgender community in the process, and making an all-around ass of herself.   No one is twisting her arm.

[Kromm]

On purpose.  Caitlyn is a reailty star. The only way you'd be familiar with her and NOT Laverne, the Wachowskis, or Chaz is if you ONLY heard of her at the ESPYs.

 

And while people absolutely do that, that's not Caitlyn's fault. That'd be like any black person, be it Beyonce, Kanye, Oprah, the President, or RayRay the robber on the 4pm news having to be THE black person that people use as a reference.   

 

People (read: assholes) do that specifically to to keep their prejudices going.  It's not an accident and it's not happenstance how that works out.  

It's not that being the only transgender person some people know is her fault. It's that she doesn't consider that fact at ALL in her behavior, and while she now bangs on about not being a role model, she actually bought and paid for awards and press last year implying exactly that.

[millennium]

 she DOES seem to see being a transgender woman as some kind of exercise in camp. In fact, based on the examples she's lived with for so many years, I suspect she sees being ANY kind of woman as an exercise in camp.

 

I think that's probably one of the most perceptive things I've ever read where Jenner's concerned.

Edited March 24, 2016 by millennium

[Watermelon]

Sure it is.  She's the one being a famewhore, exploiting the transgender community in the process, and making an all-around ass of herself.   No one is twisting her arm.

We'll agree to disagree.  She's all you say she is, but she's not to blame for people hating transgenders. They hated them to begin with. Nothing Caitlyn is or isn't would change their minds, IMO.  

Once people get beyond being annoyed by Caitlyn and extrapolate her being a mess to transgender people as a whole, that's when they've lost the plot, or when it's clear to me they didn't care to begin with.

[AndySmith]

People are going to keep using words, not necessarily in a bad way, but because that's what most people are used to using, and they become a part of every day chatter.

 

I still cringe when "oriental" is used to describe people from Asia and the Middle East.

[GaT]

It's the shorthand nature of it that's offensive, IMO. It is literally, as you say, akin to why "homo" is offensive when "homosexual" is not {In fact, it's also why I've always believed "cis" is offensive too, vs. "cisgender", the shorthanding, and "hetero" would be too, if it was a term anyone actually used with any kind of regularity). 

 

I personally find being referred to as "cisgender", "cis", or any version of that as being offensive. 

[Kromm]

People are going to keep using words, not necessarily in a bad way, but because that's what most people are used to using, and they become a part of every day chatter.

 

I still cringe when "oriental" is used to describe people from Asia and the Middle East.

Ah. But I doubt anyone ever expected "Oriental" to stop being used overnight. It took a generation.  Now, about two generations AFTER that its certainly a clear sign of someone stuck and inappropriate, because now people don't even have the excuse usually that they heard their parents use it. Being born to a generation that's always known it's an outdated, insulting term is a breakpoint here.

 

Actually the same thing happened with "Negro" too, and arguably "Colored" (vs. "Nigger", which was always an insult and never simply descriptive). 

 

And that last is important. A word that was always meant as an insult in one thing. A term losing preference, or perhaps just being an alternate that's misapplied without malice, is something else entirely. Expecting them to change on the same schedule is not smart, or productive. Having better expectations of the first generation raised knowing the correct usage however, is a different matter entirely.

 

Consider Caitlyn herself. Under that ultimate physical makeover of hers is in most ways the same fuddy-duddy she's always been. I don't even totally blame her for the "girls" thing. I mean I'm of a generation that grew up with women's lib in place, and so I'd never personally do that, but Caitlyn grew up before that, and was a full formed adult before the idea that infantilizing women in that way wasn't fair, or a good idea. It's something she ought to have grown out of, but it's probably more understandable in her than it would be in someone born a decade or two after her.

We'll agree to disagree.  She's all you say she is, but she's not to blame for people hating transgenders. They hated them to begin with. Nothing Caitlyn is or isn't would change their minds, IMO.

Once people get beyond being annoyed by Caitlyn and extrapolate her being a mess to transgender people as a whole, that's when they've lost the plot, or when it's clear to me they didn't care to begin with.

I also doubt anyone would specifically hate transgender people because of Caitlyn Jenner. 

 

But they might disrespect them because of her. 

 

I mean take a more general example. I have recently heard, no joking, people say that they "don't like" New Yorkers because Donald Trump is one. Now that's not hatred per se, but is I think just a transfered lack of respect to an entire class of people because of one individual. That's often human nature to do that, sadly.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Kromm

[AndySmith]

Ah. But I doubt anyone ever expected "Oriental" to stop being used overnight. It took a generation.  Now, about two generations AFTER that its certainly a clear sign of someone stuck and inappropriate, because now people don't even have the excuse usually that they heard their parents use it. Being born to a generation that's always known it's an outdated, insulting term is a breakpoint here.

 

That's my whole point lol People are going to keep using words like transgendered for decades to come...and yes, people still use words like Oriental. It might be used less, but people still use it.

 

Granted, it isn't as offensive as the N-word or the F-word, and like transgendered, people don't usually use it maliciously. But it is still being used, just like I am sure a decade from now people will still be using transgendered.

[millennium]

We'll agree to disagree.  She's all you say she is, but she's not to blame for people hating transgenders. They hated them to begin with. Nothing Caitlyn is or isn't would change their minds, IMO.  

 

 

I never said she was to blame for the hatred.   In fact, I clearly stated:

 

 

 

It was always a concern of mine, from day one of Jenner 2.0.   I worried that the public's negative opinions about Jenner would jaundice its view of transgender people in general.   Certainly negative and hateful opinions existed in the mainstream before Jenner, but her shallow, self-centered bullshit, her elitist arrogance and trademark ignorance -- not to mention her insistence on forcing herself upon a public that is simply sick to death of hearing about her -- seems to be exacerbating rather than alleviating the problem.

[Watermelon]

I never said she was to blame for the hatred.   In fact, I clearly stated:

I get you. And I disagree. I don't know how many other ways to say, "I think that's an excuse shitty people use".  It's fine if you don't agree with me.

[Artsda]

Caitlyn Jenner heads to Amazon's 'Transparent'
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/04/03/caitlyn-jenner-amazon-transparent/82582280/
 
Caitlyn Jenner is making her dramatic debut.

The trans advocate will appear in the third season of Amazon's Transparent, according to the show's creator and executive producer Jill Soloway.

Talking to the AP at Saturday's GLAAD Media Awards, Soloway called Jenner's involvement a "dream come true," adding that it was relatively easy to cast the reality star, whose I Am Cait is in its second season on E!

"We are all part of the same community," Soloway said. "A lot of the transwomen who work on our show are also in her show, I Am Cait. Lots of crossover. Lots of friends."

Soloway did not reveal details of Jenner's character, but added that she starts shooting her scenes next week. The Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning series stars Jeffrey Tambor as the transgender Maura Pfefferman, who navigates a sometimes tricky transition after she comes out as a woman to her family.

Transparent is Jenner's first acting role since announcing her own transition last year. As Bruce Jenner, she appeared in shows such as CHiPs, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote, as well as her family's reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

[AndySmith]

adding that it was relatively easy to cast the reality star,

 

I'll bet. She'd show up for the opening of an envelope.

[Kromm]

Caitlyn Jenner heads to Amazon's 'Transparent'

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/04/03/caitlyn-jenner-amazon-transparent/82582280/

 

Caitlyn Jenner is making her dramatic debut.

The trans advocate will appear in the third season of Amazon's Transparent, according to the show's creator and executive producer Jill Soloway.

Talking to the AP at Saturday's GLAAD Media Awards, Soloway called Jenner's involvement a "dream come true," adding that it was relatively easy to cast the reality star, whose I Am Cait is in its second season on E!

"We are all part of the same community," Soloway said. "A lot of the transwomen who work on our show are also in her show, I Am Cait. Lots of crossover. Lots of friends."

Soloway did not reveal details of Jenner's character, but added that she starts shooting her scenes next week. The Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning series stars Jeffrey Tambor as the transgender Maura Pfefferman, who navigates a sometimes tricky transition after she comes out as a woman to her family.

Transparent is Jenner's first acting role since announcing her own transition last year. As Bruce Jenner, she appeared in shows such as CHiPs, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote, as well as her family's reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

I get that on some level the possible publicity of Caitlyn Jenner on their show might be too much to pass up.

 

But this is a huge mistake on the part of the Transparent showrunners, or Amazon, or whoever arranged and agreed to this.  Jill Soloway should certainly know better. Her statement about this and how "they're all the same community" seems to ignore reality and sounds more like a press release. I bet this is going to cause a HUGE firestorm--at least in the transgender community itself. People who were loyal to that show, at the very least, are going to find themselves questioning that support now. For giving this jerk another platform to promote herself and try and claim legitimacy for her endless cycle of selling herself as some kind of transgender standardbearer (all the while banging on now, about how she doesn't represent anyone else but herself). 

 

And I know a WHOLE bunch of folks are going to be upset even just by the REPORTAGE, even if that part is on USA Today. They've called Jenner a "Trans advocate"?  REALLY?  Aside from the questionable nature of using "trans" (something we've pounded to death here), calling Caitlyn Jenner an "advocate" for them sounds like it's straight out of the mouth/hands of her handler at The Creative Arts Agency. This is just another example of how much power these agents have and how we've seen them time and again bang the same notes out for Caitlyn Jenner, and in the mainsteam media at least, it gets gone along with.

[Maysie]

I don't want to get too much into the show Transparent here because it will veer too far off topic, but I have a hard time imagining what Jenner will bring to the table. I enjoyed the first season, despite the fact that I strongly disliked many of the main characters. I ended up having to force myself to finish the second season because the story, imo, had wandered too far away from the main premise. There was a lot of time spent on a lot of unlikable, unsympathetic characters that didn't relate to what I saw as the original premise of the story. So I have to wonder how they're going to shoehorn Jenner into this.

 

In any event, I won't be watching. The show lost my interest and putting Caitlyn on it is about the last thing it can do to get me back. In fact, it's even more incentive not to watch. The one thing it had going for it at the end (for me) was good acting and somehow I can't see Jenner rising to the level of Jeffrey Tambor. I mean, even if she plays herself, as the trans advocate (!) she's going to come across as stilted.

[AndySmith]

Who cares what Caitlyn will bring to the show! It's all about what potentially cute outfits she might be wearing on the show, and how many dresses and shoes the costume department will let her walk off with. Obviously, she's entitled to just take whatever she wants, what with her being an advocate and all.

[Kromm]

Who cares what Caitlyn will bring to the show! It's all about what potentially cute outfits she might be wearing on the show, and how many dresses and shoes the costume department will let her walk off with. Obviously, she's entitled to just take whatever she wants, what with her being an advocate and all.

That's what advocates do, you know. You wouldn't believe the outfits Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony walked off with. 

[Never Again]

I was going to use a "what if the only German person someone knew about was Hitler", but that's overstating things to equate a monster (Hitler) with an idiot (Jenner). 

 

A better example (and a good parallel) might be "what if the only Black person someone knew about was Kanye West". Then again, Kanye arguably has talent, when he chooses to use it. Caitlyn doesn't even have that, unless a time machine or magic wand was involved and we could take her back to the skillset she had in the 1970s.

 

Hmm. How about "what if the only Jew someone knew about was Bernie Madoff"?  You'd think all Jews were greedy fraudsters and thieves.

Wow so I'm a few weeks late reading these comments but I have to admit I'm kinda floored. Despite all your sensitive posts about how wrong and derogatory it is to use shorthand such as "trans", " homo", "cis", etc you decide to say "Jew" and then again "Jews" instead of Jewish??? It's no accident even once, but twice? And I also notice that when you used the "don't decide Germans by hitler or black people by Kanye" you didn't use any negative descriptors but you just had to say greedy fraudsters and thieves, even though you managed to get it in there through the back door by saying "don't think all Jews are..."

I can't tell you how offensive I find this, especially in a forum such as this one, written by a person so hyperaware of labels and words and their derogatory usages. To be honest, even though you threw in the "hitler was a monster" band aid (how can anyone not?) it feels like you went out of your way to get that thought out there. I know this thread is basically over but I hope you see it because this has really upset me and I would love to hear a response from you

[Kromm]

Wow so I'm a few weeks late reading these comments but I have to admit I'm kinda floored. Despite all your sensitive posts about how wrong and derogatory it is to use shorthand such as "trans", " homo", "cis", etc you decide to say "Jew" and then again "Jews" instead of Jewish??? It's no accident even once, but twice? And I also notice that when you used the "don't decide Germans by hitler or black people by Kanye" you didn't use any negative descriptors but you just had to say greedy fraudsters and thieves, even though you managed to get it in there through the back door by saying "don't think all Jews are..."

I can't tell you how offensive I find this, especially in a forum such as this one, written by a person so hyperaware of labels and words and their derogatory usages. To be honest, even though you threw in the "hitler was a monster" band aid (how can anyone not?) it feels like you went out of your way to get that thought out there. I know this thread is basically over but I hope you see it because this has really upset me and I would love to hear a response from you

"Jew" is not, not has it ever been, a pejorative in my opinion. Anyone who's ever tried to make it such has failed miserably, because the background for the term goes back thousands of years as a self-appraised label and those haters come and go in a flash of history in comparison (albeit not as far back as "Hebrew"). "Jewish" is literally a description of a religion--the belief system you might also call it. "Jew" is an identifier of a person, or a group of people, albeit these days often an optional one as a background that only shows visibly with some of it's members. The term is derived from "Yehudi", which itself is literally the name of Jacob's son. 

 

To me thinking a term that (admittedly with different spellings and translations) has been used for thousands of years is a pejorative term is politically over-correct nonsense. It's not inherently "that fucking Jew" or "kill the Jew".  It's about CONTEXT, what makes it potentially offensive, and always has been. The worst of course is using "Jew" as the wrong part of speech.  If someone tried to say "I Jewed her down", that's offensive. Or "That guy got Jewed on that deal". See? Offensive. But simply calling a person who self-identifies with either the Jewish religion, or ethnic background (either really) a "Jew" is ONLY offensive, I believe, if the rest of the context is negative. "What if the only Jew someone knew about was Bernie Madoff" is I believe clearly intended as a positive context, not a negative, because it dismisses the idea that a whole people can be judged by one. Trying to make that into a negative context is nonsense, IMO. It's not saying, for example, "that Madoff Jew". THAT's negative, because it's imprinting the aspect of a whole race onto one individual. My statement was the opposite of that, since it's explicitly saying you can't do that. 

 

Lets use this comparison. Is the term "Black" offensive? Get around the "African-American" stuff for a bit, which has been in my opinion largely discredited because of how jingoistic/ethnocentric it is (I STILL hear ignorant people call black people from around the world "African-Americans", and they act like they think they're being extra-sensitive by doing so rather than offensive). Anyway, getting back to "Black". Again, it's all context--at least at this point in history (we have to note the same was no doubt true of "Negro" at one point and that changed, because a very similar sounding pejorative term derived from it ruined the original as well). But as things seem to lay now, "Black" is typically just a description of a person's race, which CAN be offensive with the wrong context. But isn't inherently. For example, an easy way is to talk about "the Blacks".  This is an interesting one, because pluralizing "the Jews" in the same way generally isn't fingered as being offensive as much. But the difference is that the Jews were for a large part of their history a discrete, cultural group that operated as a unit. You can say "the Jews migrated out of Egypt", because that's literally how it happened and how it's been described for millennia. They were a series of tribes who banded together and the sum of them were referred to as "Yehudim", aka "Jews".

 

You can't say "the Blacks were taken as slaves", however, because the people who that happened to weren't a complete unit--there were literally millions upon millions of them elsewhere--so using the term that way minimizes them. It was never a willingly used tribal term, even though it became a culturally accepted racial description.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Kromm

[represent]

 

Wow so I'm a few weeks late reading these comments but I have to admit I'm kinda floored. Despite all your sensitive posts about how wrong and derogatory it is to use shorthand such as "trans", " homo", "cis", etc you decide to say "Jew" and then again "Jews" instead of Jewish???

For the record, I feel the same way.   I personally don't use "Jew(s)," I just feel more comfortable using Jewish, I'll say, "Jewish people." Like I'm not offended when people say, "black people", but "the blacks" as Drumpf likes to call us, I find a bit offensive.

 

"Jew(s)"  "the Jews," all  sounds offensive to me.  Now if Jerry Seinfeld wants to say it, then fine. But I, not being Jewish, do not feel comfortable saying it.

[AndySmith]

I always though Jew was a noun and Jewish the adjective?

[Kromm]

For the record, I feel the same way.   I personally don't use "Jew(s)," I just feel more comfortable using Jewish, I'll say, "Jewish people." Like I'm not offended when people say, "black people", but "the blacks" as Drumpf likes to call us, I find a bit offensive.

 

"Jew(s)"  "the Jews," all  sounds offensive to me.  Now if Jerry Seinfeld wants to say it, then fine. But I, not being Jewish, do not feel comfortable saying it.

Well that's the thing. Jewish people have been calling their culture "the Jews" for eons, albeit sometimes in different languages. Black people do NOT self-label their community as "The Blacks". It's a comparison I brought up intentionally because like "Jew", "Black" isn't inherently offensive, but the context can make it so, and self-labeling is a big part in the difference between the two.

 

One issue is that the Jewish people are not the solid discrete unit they used to be. Jews in Israel operate and think very differently from Jews in America, for example. That's a modern and very recent change however. The precedent of Jews wanting to be spoken of as a single unified people is literally millennia deep--there's a reason Jews also self-identified for so long with the specific phrase "The Chosen People"... it's a core part of the belief system.

 

Even if you can't as easily speak of EVERY Jew as part of a single cultural entity anymore, you CAN say something like the phrase I just used "Jews in America". How does that turn negative? When you speak as if there's one opinion under unified control, like "the Jews operate the Illuminati" or "the Jews control all of the money".  It's as simple as this--are you grouping them to deliver an insult or are you grouping them to speak about something they themselves will use the grouping to discuss? And part of this is the trickiness of the English language too. You can't say the phrase "Jew culture" without it sounding like an insult. So you say "Jewish culture". But that's different from the phrase I already used, "Jews in America", or even "American Jews", which as far as I know nobody considers offensive.

 

Lets go back to my original phrase that caused the fury: "what if the only Jew someone knew about was Bernie Madoff". See, to me the reason this is a perfectly safe and appropriate phrase is because it's describing an individual, not typifying an entire group. Now I'm aware you can't use an equivalent phrase like "what if the only Black someone knew about was OJ Simpson", but that's down the the issue of cultural standards and self-identification again. "Black person", "person of color" or (more reluctantly these days because of how nationalistic it is) "African-American" is the self-identification. But that doesn't mean the same standard, the same expectation that it has to be "Jewish person". That's applying the standards one group uses to another even though it doesn't follow their own practice.

 

Oh...regarding the phrase "The Blacks"... is it just me or does anything else think Donald Trump could literally be the last person on the planet who isn't aware of it being offensive? It makes me think that The Donald watched a lot of All in the Family and never got the point that Archie was being vilified for saying it that way.  Whereas everyone else in the world saw that show and learned the lesson.  But again, what applies to one group can't just willy-nilly be transfered over to another if their standards and use differ.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Kromm

[Kromm]

I always though Jew was a noun and Jewish the adjective?

My understanding is that "Jewish" is literally the belief system. "Jew" is the person. "Hebrew", debateably, might have been a racial/tribal./national description at one time (like "Israelite")--but I think that came in large part from the Romans, but there was also long-standing "Yehudim"... in other words from the tribe of Judah... or in modern parlance, "Jews", which is why it's also a tribal description.

[GaT]

A better example (and a good parallel) might be "what if the only Black person someone knew about was Kanye West". Then again, Kanye arguably has talent, when he chooses to use it. Caitlyn doesn't even have that, unless a time machine or magic wand was involved and we could take her back to the skillset she had in the 1970s.

 

Hmm. How about "what if the only Jew someone knew about was Bernie Madoff"?  You'd think all Jews were greedy fraudsters and thieves.

I don't think the problem here is the word "Jews" the problem is you used a stereotype as an example. Not only is Kanye easily identified as black, he has publicly referred to himself as a black man, Caitlyn has publicly self identified as a trans woman, they are identified by who they are. Nothing Bernie Madoff did had anything to do with Judaism. he committed a criminal act & I don't believe he wore a yamaka while doing it. When he confessed to doing this criminal act, he didn't say anything about doing it because he was Jewish. There was nothing about Bernie Madoff that linked what he did to being Jewish. 

[Kromm]

I don't think the problem here is the word "Jews" the problem is you used a stereotype as an example. Not only is Kanye easily identified as black, he has publicly referred to himself as a black man, Caitlyn has publicly self identified as a trans woman, they are identified by who they are. Nothing Bernie Madoff did had anything to do with Judaism. he committed a criminal act & I don't believe he wore a yamaka while doing it. When he confessed to doing this criminal act, he didn't say anything about doing it because he was Jewish. There was nothing about Bernie Madoff that linked what he did to being Jewish. 

Then my point is entirely being missed. Read my original phrase.

 

"What if the only Jew someone knew about was Bernie Madoff".

 

That's exactly the point I was making. That it would be unfair to judge a whole people by one person, and yet inevitable that the worst people wrongly do so. I mean if you don't think assholes everywhere went crazy with the Illumnati theories and ranting about Zionists and relating it to Bernie Madoff, then with apologies, you avoided the Internet entirely after that story broke.

 

And really I think you're spinning it for that person who complained--who didn't even mention Madoff in his complaint other than it being in what he quoted from me. His specific complaint, and this is exactly quoted "Despite all your sensitive posts about how wrong and derogatory it is to use shorthand". His beef was about me using "Jew" instead of "Jewish", not that I was using it to describe Bernie Madoff. Ergo, that's what I responded to: his exact charge that the phrase "Jew" is a shorthand akin to "trans" or "homo" or even "cis" and thus was derogatory. Except... it usually isn't. Jew is not a shorthand of Jewish... they're just different forms of a third term, "Judaism" and to an extent have discrete separate (albeit related) meanings.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Kromm

[Never Again]

 

And really I think you're spinning it for that person who complained--....His beef was about me using "Jew" instead of "Jewish", not that I was using it to describe Bernie Madoff. Ergo, that's what I responded to: his exact charge that the phrase "Jew" is a shorthand akin to "trans" or "homo" or even "cis" and thus was derogatory. Except... it usually isn't. Jew is not a shorthand of Jewish... they're just different forms of a third term, "Judaism" and to an extent have discrete separate (albeit related) meanings.

Well actually I mentioned both. If you read my post I said I was floored that you used the shorthand code Jew instead of Jewish and then I said I also was offended at your use of derogatory stereotypes, particularly since you didn't use any to illustrate any of the other groups you mentioned (German, black,"oriental", New Yorkers). I said you managed to get it in there by coming though the back door but you still managed to put that out there. Please reread my post.

The reason I was shocked is in a prior post you went on and on about how the shorthand is derogatory in instances such as trans, cis, homo... Trust me when I tell you that "Jew" is equivalent to "homo" and said with the same derisiveness. Jewish equals homosexual as a description of a group of people. Jew does not. And when you said today that it's ok to say "Jew" because Jewish people do it, and then go on to say black people don't self-identify as "blacks"? I mean come on I think we all are aware that the biggest users of the N-word (these days) are black people who use it almost in jest to each other. Does that make it ok?

[Kromm]

Well actually I mentioned both. If you read my post I said I was floored that you used the shorthand code Jew instead of Jewish and then I said I also was offended at your use of derogatory stereotypes, particularly since you didn't use any to illustrate any of the other groups you mentioned (German, black,"oriental", New Yorkers). I said you managed to get it in there by coming though the back door but you still managed to put that out there. Please reread my post.

The reason I was shocked is in a prior post you went on and on about how the shorthand is derogatory in instances such as trans, cis, homo... Trust me when I tell you that "Jew" is equivalent to "homo" and said with the same derisiveness. Jewish equals homosexual as a description of a group of people. Jew does not. And when you said today that it's ok to say "Jew" because Jewish people do it, and then go on to say black people don't self-identify as "blacks"? I mean come on I think we all are aware that the biggest users of the N-word (these days) are black people who use it almost in jest to each other. Does that make it ok?

What I said about "black" was a heck of a lot more complex that how you've boiled it down. I did not say they don't self-identify that way. That part was talking about the differences between the specific (wrong) thing Donald Trump does ("The Blacks") and saying "The Jews", and how that phrase was a self-assigned tribal label (well, "Yehudim" was, and "Jews" grew out of that), and how that affected how the terms are used now. "Black" needs a qualifier, like "Black man", "Black woman", "Black person" or a change up to something like "person of color", because they haven't used it traditionally to identify themselves as a single coherent cultural, socio-political, religious, or geographical group. Black people are aware there are other black people out there who aren't the same "tribe" or nation. Treating them as if you can toss them all in one basket and talk about them that way is offensive, because it's not their identity to act like they're all one people. Whereas the Jews identified as ONE PEOPLE for most of their history. You not accepting that doesn't make it untrue.

 

"Jew" is not even remotely the same as "homo". Not even remotely. As I said, it's not a shortening of "Jewish". This is fact, not guessing. Every dictionary agrees with this. The scholarly books I saw over an entire lifetime on the shelves of my Jewish grandfather's bookshelf say this (see, "Jewish" is proper in this syntax--in this case it's an elongation of the word "Jew" vs. "Jew" being a shortening of it). Again, one final time, I'm not even claiming "Jew" can't be improperly used. It is all of the time. But simply saying "The Jews" or "Jews in Israel" or "Not all Jews eschew seafood", or similar uses are not wrong. Ignoring context and trying to re-appropriate/ban a term that the entire culture it applies to uses is what's wrong.

 

The "N word" argument is a total non-starter here, because the entire black culture does not accept it. Only a fringe.

 

As for the derogatory stereotype discussed in the original post?  It's just stunning to me that it's being interpreted as me using that stereotype rather than what I was actually doing--saying it was nonsense. And meaning is being imparted on me elaborating on Bernie Madoff vs. the other examples. Do you know why I elaborated on Madoff?  You could have just asked. I elaborated on Madoff not because of his Jewish background, as is being claimed, but because I didn't want to assume posters remembered why Madoff was notorious (vs. Hitler or Kanye, who I think are surer bets). Saying that if people assumed things of all Jews because of Madoff that they're idiots, basically, but that we have to deal with the reality in this world of ignorant people who do that kind of thing. Remember, this was supposed to be about why Caitlyn Jenner (remember her?) being the self-appointed standard bearer of the transgender movement is scary: because idiots apply the specific to the general without care and if a horrible person is that one figure they know, then they're going to have a pretty false picture.

 

That's it. Beginning and end. Being accused of racism because of that is certainly a shock.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Kromm

[OnceSane]

Stop.

[Scarlett45]

I wonder if Caitlyn will be featured more heavily on this upcoming season since I think "I am Cait" is done for?

[iwasish]

I wonder if Caitlyn will be featured more heavily on this upcoming season since I think "I am Cait" is done for?

I don't think so, IMO, she always seems uncomfortable around them now and vice versa. Only Kim and Kylie appear to be adjusted to the situation. I get a sense of resentment from Khloe, coolness from Kourt and Kendall and simmering anger from Kris.