One Feminist's Thoughts on Bruce Jenner

Feminism isn’t some monolithic structure headed by a prophetess who speaks the Feminist Truth. Any human being who believes that men and women are of equal worth and should have equal rights, privileges, and opportunities is a feminist. So you can’t really say, “Feminists all think x,y,z…” with any degree of accuracy unless x,y,z is the above definition. There’s a broad variety of opinions among Feminists on any number of subjects. So you'll get a broad variety of responses on this topic if  you ask various Feminists, but here's my take on it, and sorry, (not sorry) if my RadFem petticoats are showing a tad. Call me what you will.

On a personal level, I’m a feminist of the variety that believes that transgenderism is undeniably biologically-based, and an incredibly sad and difficult trial. I have unending empathy for the difficulty of their life and I would never presume to tell them what their experience is or who or what they really are. I don’t believe I have that right. My only desire is to try to provide them with a modicum of safety, love and dignity which I believe is my Christian duty to offer to every soul and child of God. I guess I’d rather just be kind and supportive. Whatever way they can find to truly feel loved, happy and true to themselves, I say more power to them. I wish them peace and happiness.

However, it is also my personal opinion that issues of sexuality and transgenderism are exacerbated by our poisonous, patriarchal culture which defines gender in very rigid, and often harmful terms. I feel that there would be less suicide, pain and confusion about sexuality and gender if we were all able to be true to ourselves without adhering to such strict labels. I think a society that says if you are a man, but you are interested in makeup, or art, or fashion, or shopping, then you must be gay or transgender, pushes people towards those options.  I think that our toxic culture places undue importance on physical appearance and romantic love to the exclusion of allowing people to navigate finding valid, authentic, loving, safe self-expression outside of sexuality and beauty. Gender traits exist on a spectrum, not a binary. I believe we're all healthier, more whole individuals when we love all of our traits and accept ourselves just the way we are. "Allah loves wondrous variety."

I also am a feminist of the opinion that when men become women and their first “feminine” act is to pose in a teddy as a sex kitten for the cover of a magazine, they are doing their new gender no favors. To me that brand of one dimensional, caricatured femininity sounds a lot like what a man might think it means to be a woman. Or what a misogynistic man wants to reduce a woman to be. To me, that is pandering to patriarchal ideas about femininity. To me, the language that transgender (MTF) women often use when describing how they knew they were really women perpetuates some of the most harmful, false stereotypes about women that feminists fight against. If liking glitter and stiletto shoes makes you a woman, then I guess I’m not a woman. If the utmost expression of my femininity were to display myself as a sexual object to be admired by men, then I wouldn’t want to be a woman. If getting surgeries – literally spilling my blood – and spending hours on hair, makeup, and body sculpting in order to appear unendingly sexually appealing to men were required to be my #1 priority as a woman, then I wouldn’t want to be a woman. Those are the precise characterizations of femininity that the patriarchy tries to force upon me that I fight to buck off. That is NOT how I define being a woman.

Maybe Caitlyn’s idea of femininity is different than mine. Maybe she wanted to display her “authentic” self in a way that emphasized her sexuality because she was feeling especially proud of her new change. To me, that says a lot more about the hypersexuality and cult of physical appearance that is American media culture than anything else. But as a "newly revealed member of the female sex", I would appreciate if she’d help out her sisters by not perpetuating ubiquitous, unhelpful stereotypes when she so publicly defines for herself what it means to be a woman. I say the same thing to any other woman who portrays femininity in that way. I think we’d all find it a lot easier and more enjoyable to be a woman if we didn’t define our feminine experience in such terms.