re: what maxmordon said, yes, that was what I have heard from some in the transgender community as well. I used the term "transwoman" with no disrespect intended.
It's a new world I guess. I found the standards of care helpful and in general well thought out. I do understand that many people deviate from them for their own reasons. It's not, however, just about him anymore, not since he made himself a powerful media presence in America today. Will we get immediate news updates when he decides he want to use new pronouns, and still more when the new name comes? Will we get to watch Bruce transition in his new reality show? If so, then I know what to call Bruce Jenner: whore.
Just as the transgender experience is beginning to be normalized in American culture, it will be swept up with the ultimate symbol of abnormality and dysfunction: the Kardashian family. If what the transgender movement seeks is acceptance; association with the Kardashian circus is the last thing it needs. While television can help normalize the lives of marginalized people, it also can exploit their hardships and reinforce stereotypes, reducing their lives to mere entertainment.
Jenner has already shown that her public transition is more about promoting herself than promoting the transgender community. Signs of Jenner’s physical transformation have trickled out in paparazzi photos and scenes from “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”: her lengthening hair, manicured nails, and most recently, her appearance in a dress. Though she had a major platform in her reality television show and celebrity, Jenner stayed quiet, leaving her transition in the hands of the media. By letting the tabloids make up their own story and sensationalize the transgender experience, Jenner has allowed it to become a cartoon. Now, she’s finally speaking up – just in time for May sweeps TV ratings season.
The daily experiences of transgender people are not reflected in the spectacle Jenner has drummed up. In recent months, as Jenner was filming a new reality show, there have been a series of distressing stories coming out of the community: transgender children committing suicide, transgender women being killed, and transgender inmates suffering human rights injustices in prison. In Georgia, Ashley Diamond, a 36-year-old transgender woman who has been forced to serve her sentence in a men’s prison, has been denied a request to transfer after being raped multiple times by other inmates. Across the country, so-called “bathroom bills” are being proposed to criminalize transgender people’s use of public bathrooms. And in 78 countries, it’s still illegal to even be transgender.
It's a new world I guess. I found the standards of care helpful and in general well thought out. I do understand that many people deviate from them for their own reasons. It's not, however, just about him anymore, not since he made himself a powerful media presence in America today. Will we get immediate news updates when he decides he want to use new pronouns, and still more when the new name comes? Will we get to watch Bruce transition in his new reality show? If so, then I know what to call Bruce Jenner: whore.
This seems pretty harsh. Especially the use of a gendered insult.
I feel like a big part of the recent GLBT movement has been about not judging people and accepting them for who they are or who they are becoming. Being hostile to this guy because he's not transitioning in the way you expect him to?
I read that he said his prefers "he," for now. I see no reason not to respect at. I imagine he will inform the masses when the time is right.
Article in the Washington Post -- Trans people need an icon. But Bruce Jenner is the worst possible choice.
Aside from the transgender issue, of which I am totally sympathetic and supportive, there's the separate issue called BRUCE JENNER. He has always been, and continues to be, an attention-vampire. He loves living on the front pages of the tabloids, and his time for doing that is diminishing. He's long past being the pretty midwestern boy with the page-boy coiffure who could run and jump and throw, in combination, better than anybody else. Waving around his Olympic Gold Metal doesn't do it for him any more. So he's hooked up with the most odious, untalentedceleb family on the planet, and that, and that alone, keeps him on the tabloid covers. His transgender transformation wouldn't merit a sneeze from any "journalist" without the Kardashianism behind it. Without that, he wouldn't even have merited a TV interview.
I really hope he's happier with his transition, and maybe, just maybe, he can become a spokesperson for others. But I have my doubts, given his long, lingering, edge of the sidelines need to be on those tabloid covers.
caw
Article in the Washington Post -- Trans people need an icon. But Bruce Jenner is the worst possible choice.
But Standards of Care are for the protection of the patient, right? So if you think Bruce Jenner's transition is contrary to the standards of care, shouldn't you be angry at his physicians, rather than at him? Or be concerned about him, rather than angry at him?
Anyway, I'm supposed to be bowing out. I don't want to queer the thread, so to speak.
If we want to start talking about income inequalities related to access to medical care, I'm right there with you!
I just don't think I'm going to blame it on Bruce Jenner.
Having money doesn't guarantee the best care. There are plenty of doctors waiting to take advantage of the rich.
Michael Jackson.
No, fair enough. Money can buy lots of stupid.
But a rich person with common sense can get care that a poor person with common sense can't get. A rich or poor person WITHOUT common sense? I guess the rules are there to protect them from themselves.
So, I guess we have a couple options:
The S of C are important and should always be followed to the letter. In that case Jenner is potentially harming himself by violating them, and we should be questioning the doctors who are going along with him, because they should know better, just like Michael Jackson's doctors should have known better.
or
The S of C are important but it's also important to customize the transition to the needs of the individual patient. In which case we have no reason to believe Jenner is not getting good care, but we should possibly look at the lack of flexibility shown to other transitioning patients who don't have his financial resources.
Are there other options? Based on these two, I'm really not seeing anything to hold against Bruce Jenner.
IMO, Diana, you should not bow out of this thread unless you truly don't want to be part of it. I for one am interested in your perspective.