I Am Cait Reviews
Episode 2 — Road Trip, Part 1
Last week, the show set up, maybe less than smoothly, the struggling dichotomy of Cait’s existence. While she’s definitely had her own struggles and was surprisingly candid about her own struggles with depression and suicide, she’s still a Kardashian-Jenner. There’s still a sense about her reality that makes you remember in each episode how truly privileged and sheltered Caitlyn really is. In this episode, she worries about her voice and about being able to feminize it. She thinks about surgery or voice coaching or a combination of both; things due to her years on Keeping Up with the Kardashians and her own career as a public speaker she could easily afford.
That seems to be the message of the show this week, and I was surprised and am still interested to see where they’re going with this. Yes, we have Caitlyn Jenner as the rich white lady with every opportunity afforded her. Again, we see her agonizing over designer clothes and having her make-up done for her. As far as transitioning, I’m not saying it’s not hard for her. The tabloids, actually, have also confirmed that she’s had depression issues and that not all of her extended clan has been as accepting as they seem on social media or sound bytes. Still, I think we can all agree that her transition period is the best of all possible worlds because she has the reputation and fame to help her be more accepted and cheered on and, frankly, the resources to spend to make herself as conforming to cisgender and heteronormative beauty standards as possible.
After all, after her Vanity Fair spread came out, how many news outlets focused on her appearance. It’s not a sin to look “pretty” according to societal standards but, at the time and now, focusing only on someone’s attractiveness by typical Hollywood standards belittles the transition process. First, no one has to conform to the very narrow Hollywood ideasl of feminity and most people can’t afford the team Cait has to be also become Glamazons. In a way, the mono-focus of the media on Cait’s attractiveness on the Vanity Fair cover was a slap to trans individuals who don’t literally have an army to make them gorgeous (whatever that means) or who, frankly, feel they don’t have to conform to rigid beauty beliefs.
Anyway, this episode as even The New York Times pointed out, really looks at that privilege and confronts it head on and how it blinds Cait to the needs of the trans community and, at the same time, sets her deeply apart from a lot of it.
I think that a lot of people were shocked to hear her on the Diane Sawyer interview admit she was a Republican and still voted that way. However, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Yes, she struggled as an amateur athlete before she won the Olypmpics and had endorsement deals and, yes, she also had a period of debt after her second divorce. However, Ms. Jenner has lived with absurd luxury (especially as the Kardashian empire became a juggernaut). It’s really not a shock that living in a Calabasas mansion with staff, including a private chef, that she is adamantly against social programs and has misconceptions about them. One of the jaw dropping moments of the night was her comment to activists Chandi Moore and Jennifer Boylan, “[Can’t they] make more money not working with social programs than they can with entry-level jobs…You don’t want people to get totally dependent on it. That’s where you get in trouble.” Again, spoken like a true conservative with fear of government intercession.
However, as Boylan points out to camera in a side interview. There’s nothing wrong and no shame in those programs. Trans individuals are very vulnerable to being fired or suffering from job discrimination. Less than half of U.S. states and territories protect someone from being fired based on gender identity. Sometimes these programs are the only thing keep them from homelessness. Again, something that Cait with her Malibu mansion wouldn’t know the first thing about.
I think that there is a problematic element to Caitlyn Jenner being thrust into the spotlight as the poster woman for the trans movement. Later in the episode, after the titular road trip, she goes to see the HRC headquarters in San Francisco in order to learn first hand by talking with transwomen who did sex work, often to help pay for treatments because they either had no insurance or insurance wouldn’t cover it. While Cait is vaguely aware that was something Janet Mock did because she read the autobiography, it’s clear that Ms. Jenner was unaware how wide scale that is for the community. Again, there’s so much naivete and walling off in her life that it makes her unaware of so many issues that affect many within the greater trans community.
One of the advocates and survivors she meets with at the HRC in San Francisco points out it was frustrating to her that Caitlyn has basically become the spokesperson for the movement by being the most famous out trans person. It’s both a joy for more visibility but it’s also hard, the survivor noted, because then Cait receives more attention than trans women of color advocates like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, who have been saying the same things and lived them for year. Frankly, it’s a very honest acknowledgement that Ms. Jenner’s position in life as a famous, rich white celebrity has afforded her a voice that overshadows other trans people, especially those of color, who have been living and struggling daily in this fight for decades.
The question and the cliffhanger of this episode really asks, “But can Ms. Jenner learn differently?”
She can’t live the experiences, but can she check her preconceptions about sex work and government programs, can she wrap her head around a world where doctors won’t take on trans clients or where the procedures won’t be covered/can’t be afforded? I want to give Caitlyn the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think she can ever understand truly where trans women of color or trans women from less affluent, to put it mildly, experiences are coming from, but I think she seems willing to learn and to speak with others. She seems willing to seek out experts like Professor Jennifer Boylan and Chandi Moore. Now if that actually helps her understand and be a more rounded representative for the movement will be an evolution and a challenge, hopefully one that Ms. Jenner can meet.
Again, this also seems to be the same problem associated with the white savior trope. Because our society clearly favors white individuals and their voices over people of color, then Ms. Jenner as such a prominent white trans person is going to be listened to more. That is a harsh and sad and messed up reality after how long so many other activists have worked. It’s not less true, and Cait does seem to realize this and what a burden it is. However, if she can disabuse herself of the “savior” notion and just learn to be a co-ally and someone who works with the community but keeps shining the light on more established experts, especially those who understand the intersectionality of color and ethnicity with the treatment of trans individuals, then it might work out. But, if anything, this episode felt like a very honest smack down of “You don’t know anything, yet” mixed with “Step off the pedestal and we don’t need a white savior.” One just has to see how in the next episode and in future ones Ms. Jenner listens and adapts and if she can.
On a personal note, however, I think the show does do a good job of showing that Caitlyn’s journey is a balance of personal acceptance and milestones as well as a very real education in the broader community. This episode ran the emotional gamut. She was overjoyed to have her first large meeting with other women like her because, she admitted, she just hasn’t hung out with a lot of other transwomen. Her exuberance playing golf at their cabin just early in the morning, able to be dressed and out as herself made her positively giddy.
As Ms. Boylan pointed out in a side confessional to camera. “Many trans people go through a second adolescence.”
This seems true and that Cait, even with her lack of understanding on big issues, does also seem to just be like a young woman or teen out in the world and ready to take it on.
There even seems a real moment that anyone cis or trans, woman or man, can relate to as far as body image issues. At the cabin they rent, the women all get into the hot tub, except Caitlyn. Even with Boylan’s encouragement, she can’t get into a swim suit yet. She comments, “I don’t think I’m ready for that…I just don’t know if I’m ready to expose myself like that…maybe down the line, I’ll feel more comfortable. But for right now? Bed time.” So it’s sad to see her self-isolate even among new friends, alone in a basement, because she’s still nervous about her new body, and, even if she is this rich chick from Malibu as Professor Boylan slyly points out, it’s imminently relatable. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been nervous because of swim suit pressure and having a new body to deal with must be imminently more tricky than just worrying about extra pounds. Again, it’s these moments and her willingness (I hope) to learn that balance the show with its segments of fawning over designer dud fretting and hair extension parties that feels so vapid.
I’m still curious to see which side of the fence this show lands on.
Verdict — A because even if Ms. Jenner seems sometimes painfully clueless about things, I’ve never seen a show so willing to look at privilege (so far) and try and check it and explain these issues out loud. In a summer where people have seemed desperate to pretend privilege (both financial and, espeically white) doesn’t exist, this is refreshing and crucial. Let’s just see where it takes us, however.
