Caitlyn Jenner won Olympic gold competing against men in 1976. Four decades later, shortly after coming out publicly as a transgender woman, she posed on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2015 to reveal her new image.
She said she voted for Trump in 2016. She ran as a Republican for governor of California in the 2021 recall election (she did not win). She remains a Republican. And she's absorbed the Republican line on transphobia.
'Different'
‘I think I’m different from trans people’ was her headline quote in a Sunday Times (UK) interview (Polly Vernon, October 4, 2023).
John Cleese
She was recently interviewed by John Cleese, who signed a letter in transphobic solidarity with J.K. Rowling in September 2020. Two months after he signed the letter, a Twitter user asked him to "be upfront" about his "thoughts on JKR's position on trans folks," and he replied: "I’m afraid I’m not that interested in trans folks." (Despite having signed a letter against the inclusion of trans folks?) Another Twitter user asked more directly: “Why the fuck can’t you just let people be who they want to be?” and Cleese replied: “Deep down, I want to be a Cambodian police woman. Is that allowed, or am I being unrealistic?” A third commenter observed Cleese’s “superficial understanding,” to which Cleese replied that a trans woman in sports "has an advantage, because she inherited a man’s body, which is usually bigger and stronger than a woman’s. Does that prove phobia?” (A problem here is that he's more concerned with his own image, i.e., whether people view him as a transphobe, and not so much about trans people, since by his own admission he's "not that interested in trans folks," and one solution here would simply be to stop talking about the trans people in whom he's uninterested and about whom he's non-phobic, yet he doesn't take the easy way out? He has to keep running his mouth?)
The Cleese–Jenner interview aired on the U.K. TV show The Dinosaur Hour. It was uploaded to YouTube on December 10, 2023 by GBNews.
I watched a 9-minute clip on YouTube.
Cleese says: "Tell me, are there other aspects of 'woke' that you have sympathy for?"
[A taxidermied weasel on the coffee table, silently bares its teeth.]
"Sympathy?" Jenner responds, puzzled. She raises her eyes toward heaven.
"The fairness end," Cleese clarifies.
There's a long pause, so the camera cuts to a cat napping on an armchair.
"Welp, I'm for fairness," she says, hemming and hawing. "Number one."
"But I don't think — I just think the woke movement has just gone too far!"
"Yeah."
"OK. I can be fair and not be woke."
"Yes, I agree," Cleese says.
"I can be a caring person and not be woke, you know?"
She says she had a personal conversation with God before she transitioned: "I just got the feeling that he — It was like, it’s OK. You know, you can do this. You know, you can live your life authentically. I felt like He said yes."
She acknowledged that her traits, as a Republican and a conservative, are “not on the normal side of what trans people are. You know, they [trans people], they’re all kind of ‘woker’ than I am.”
She says she hasn't gone in a men's bathroom in eight years, and she reports that the women's rooms are much nicer. Cleese laughs congenially: "You're part of the few people who would know that."
She says: “I support President Trump. He did phenomenal things for our country in the four years he was there.”
She then says “I know so many trans people that are just wonderful human beings — hardworking, great. … It is this small percentage that are out there speaking into a microphone—“
She is of course speaking into a literal microphone on a TV show, saying that trans people who have a platform to speak are the opposite of “hardworking” and “wonderful human beings.”
Cleese interrupts to ask: “Why do they have so much effect on the people who don’t really like their policies, the other trans people?” He assumes that the majority of trans people to which Jenner referred (the wonderful, hardworking ones who don’t speak into microphones) must disagree with whatever “policies” are proposed by a small percentage of trans people who do have their voices heard publicly.
Jenner says she believes that trans people who use social media are just trying to become famous. “I didn’t start off wanting to be a celebrity in this thing,” she says. “I had no choice, OK? I was already a very big celebrity.” Ah, so that’s her explanation. She gives herself permission to use her fame to speak because she didn’t originally become famous for being a trans person — even though her current burst of fame over the past eight years, and the reason she has this particular interview right now with John Cleese, is indeed because she transitioned. She also doesn't consider the obvious truth that famous people can and do seek more fame throughout their lives, just as rich people can and do seek more money throughout their lives. Pointing out that she was already famous to begin with just doesn't prove that she wasn't seeking fame when she posed on the cover of Vanity Fair or when she sat for this interview with John Cleese, nor does the fact that most trans people aren't famous prove that all of us are seeking fame every time we go on social media.
Jenner begins to say “In my family—“ and Cleese cuts her off, saying: “I’m interested in the fact that they don’t really want to debate the subject.” Jenner tries to answer: “Because my views are different than theirs.” Cleese clarifies that he doesn’t mean that other trans people don’t want to debate Jenner specifically. “I’m saying in general, they want— in general they don’t want to debate or discuss it, because for some reason they regard that [debate] as unnecessary.” Jenner agrees: “They think it’s their way or they highway.”
Jenner mentions Riley Gaines: “I’m a big supporter, she’s a good friend and has done wonderful work.” She says that trans women make themselves look “selfish” when they say that trans women should play in women’s sports. She uses herself as an example, saying she’s refrained from joining the women’s golf club because “I can out-drive them by 100 yards. I haven’t been on testosterone in eight years, and I can still hit the ball 280 yards, OK?” But please look at this situation: Jenner, over 6 feet tall, was an Olympic athlete. She did the Decathlon. Of course she can beat the ladies at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousands Oaks. She can probably beat the gentlemen too. Probably none of them have a background as athletes in elite competition as Jenner does. Perhaps she’s making the point that Olympic athletes shouldn’t play at Hollywood golf clubs just to make a big show of beating the celebrities, but she hasn’t made the point that this is gender-specific.
Then, she explains that she’s changed her name and gender marker on all her IDs, and that she only uses the women’s room and has “never had a problem” and is “respectful of the other women.” (The cat begins drinking from her water glass, next to the taxidermied weasel.)
She says: “So I live my life as a woman, but I’m not — I don’t consider myself this, like, ‘I am a woman now,’ and on and on. No. I consider myself a trans person.”
I would like to point out that Caitlyn Jenner got everything she wanted in her transition — her name change, her gender-marker change, the opportunity to have long hair and wear makeup and women's clothes, widespread recognition of herself as a woman such that she is generally called "she," welcomed in women's bathrooms, and invited to join the women's golf team at her fancy club. She's even invited to be on TV in conversation about her gender with John Cleese, a man who is disrespectful to trans people, with extant tweets (i.e., he hasn't deleted them yet) saying that he's "not that interested in trans folks," that trans people have "unrealistic" expectations about their transitions, and that because a man's body is "usually" (emphasis mine) stronger than a woman's, therefore all trans women have "an advantage" in sports against all cis women, and that no one can demonstrate that he's transphobic as long as he gives something that has the appearance of being a reason for his attitude. Again, Jenner transitioned successfully and has the life she wants. She is trying to take those opportunities away from other trans people. When she says trans women aren't women, she's one more voice chipping away at trans women's opportunities to change their gender markers on their IDs and live in their genders. J.K. Rowling would not endorse her having the life she has. She is enabling John Cleese to feel good about himself, while he simultaneously supports hardline Rowling policies that try to suppress trans people from having their genders in the most fundamental way.
More context
The Advocate gives the context that Jenner "founded the Fairness First PAC" to oppose trans women's participation in women's sports, and she is "friends with Riley Gaines," a young person who is now a Fox personality complaining about diversity.
The Advocate explains:
"The Biden administration has proposed a rule that would term categorical bans on trans inclusion in school sports a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. Jenner claimed that if the rule becomes final, it would 'kill women's sports,' and she alleged that the effort is backed by George Soros, a liberal philanthropist who is a favorite target of right-wingers."
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