Name: Transgender Community Reacts Caitlyn Jenner California Governor
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Transgender Community Reacts Caitlyn Jenner California Governor

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Soon after Caitlyn Jenner , many high-profile members of the transgender community took to Twitter to express their concerns with her announcement. Caitlyn Jenner is not a trans activist,” tweeted noted trans activist Chase Strangio in response to a New York Times headline declaring her as such. “Caitlyn Jenner is a deeply unqualified hack who doesn’t care about anyone but herself,” tweeted Charlotte Clymer. “Her views are terrible. She is a horrible candidate.”Jenner’s decision to run has been met with derision in part because of the candidate’s close ties with former President Trump. She was an outspoken supporter of his ahead of the 2016 presidential election (although a recent investigation by revealed she didn’t actually cast a ballot for any candidate in the election) and famously said that Donald Trump “would be very good for women's issues” on an episode of her reality show “I am Cait.” Her 2018 about-face in which she Trump after a leaked Department of Health memo revealed that his administration wanted to redefine gender as birth-assigned sex, did little to convince the LGBTQ+ community that she had experienced meaningful enlightenment. How could it, her critics reasoned, when she is an ardent member of the party that’s made a hobby out of passing . In a thoughtful , journalist Diana Tourjee wrote, “Though Caitlyn is taking steps to help the transgender community, that effort is hard for many people to reconcile with her continued support of the Republican Party.”What I’m afraid will happen instead is that Jenner will be weaponized by the party she belongs to.For what it’s worth, Jenner is hardly the only member of the LGBTQ+ community to prefer the politics of the GOP. A recent survey by the found that 15 percent of registered LGBTQ+ voters are Republicans and 22 percent are Independent. Jenner has also spoken repeatedly about her desire to . But is that not a fool’s errand? Call me cynical, but I’m not convinced that policies like tax cuts and the elimination of Obamacare () can be retrofitted to suddenly benefit the transgender community. Republicans will cite her campaign as evidence of their lack of transphobia, while they draft that bans gender affirming healthcare for transgender minors. “How can we be transphobic,” they will claim, “when Caitlyn Jenner is running for governor as a Republican?” It’s the LGBTQ+ version of the “America can’t be racist because we elected Obama'' argument, which Sen. Lindsey Graham used to defend his opposition to federal law enforcement reform.I am afraid Republicans will use Jenner just like they have always used the LGBTQ+ community. They will claim ownership of her only to fend off accusations of discrimination when they attempt to pass additional anti-trans legislation. We’ve seen this strategy at work before. “Nobody has been a better friend to the gay community” , one month before picking arguably the most homophobic governor in the country as his Vice President. Most of all, I fear that even if Caitlyn Jenner wins her bid to become the next Governor of California, she will not be able to reform her party from the inside. Rather, Republicans will find a way to enlist her historic success in their fight to further strip transgender individuals of their rights—Jenner's included. Abigail Covington is a journalist and cultural critic based in Brooklyn, New York but originally from North Carolina, whose work has appeared in Slate, The Nation, Oxford American, and PitchforkThis content is imported from OpenWeb. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.&nbsp;Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below

Soon after Caitlyn Jenner , many high-profile members of the transgender community took to Twitter to express their concerns with her announcement. Caitlyn Jenner is not a trans activist,” tweeted noted trans activist Chase Strangio in response to a New York Times headline declaring her as such. “Caitlyn Jenner is a deeply unqualified hack who doesn’t care about anyone but herself,” tweeted Charlotte Clymer. “Her views are terrible. She is a horrible candidate.”Jenner’s decision to run has been met with derision in part because of the candidate’s close ties with former President Trump. She...

Transgender Community Reacts Caitlyn Jenner California Governor

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