Justice

The 6 Most Outrageous Anti-Caitlyn Jenner Memes

September 2nd 2015

It has been three months since Caitlyn Jenner made her world debut on the cover of Vanity Fair and much has happened since: she beat President Barack Obama's Twitter record, acquiring a million followers in five hours, landed her own show on E! called "I Am Cait," and helped increase visibility of the problem of trans suicides and mental health.

During those several months, ATTN: has followed Jenner's story, because shedding light on issues facing the transgender community is important to us. Along the way we've stumbled upon some mean-spirited anti-Jenner, anti-trans memes.

Jenner, of course, has come a long way since sharing her true self with the public, and she's endured a lot along her journey. Many have mocked her, refused to let go of her former identity as Bruce, and suggested she transitioned just for attention and ratings. Jenner highlighted some of this naysaying at the 2015 ESPYs upon accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

“If you want to call me names, make jokes and doubt my intentions, go ahead because the reality is I can take it," she said at the ceremony. "But for thousands of kids out there coming to terms with the reality of who they are they shouldn’t have to take it."

 

After going through some of our Jenner posts on Facebook, we found the following memes in the comments section. Below, we debunked some of the cruelest memes:

1. Gender identity has nothing to do with genitalia.

Anti-Caitlyn Jenner memeFacebook - facebook.com

Just because someone is born with certain genitalia does not mean that person will identify as the gender that fits with those specific parts. Cass Liebman, a health and wellness intern at the Brooklyn Community Pride Center, identifies as genderqueer and previously told ATTN: that genitalia does not define one's gender.

"What my genitalia is has nothing to do with my gender identity," Liebman told writer Rebecca Hiscott. "It has to do with the way that I understand and represent my own personal cocktail of masculinity and femininity." The notion of the gender spectrum, holds that there are many places between "male" and "female" that a person can occupy. And these places are fluid and may change over time, or even day-to-day. Liebman's preferred gender pronoun is "they."

2. Nobody transitions for attention.

Anti-Caitlyn Jenner memeFacebook - facebook.com

During Jenner's spring interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, Jenner responded negatively to the suggestion that the transition was driven by a desire to get media attention.

"Do you have any idea what I've been going through all my life?" Jenner said. "And they're going to say I'm doing this for publicity for a show."

Jenner went on to explain that coming out publicly was part of a greater effort to elevate the trans community.

"What I'm doing is going to do some good," Jenner said. "We are going to change the world. We are going to make a difference in the world."

3. Transgender jokes.

Anti-Caitlyn Jenner memeFacebook - facebook.com

"Tranpa" is a derogatory grandparent reference to Jenner, who is the step-parent of reality star Kim Kardashian. Kim has a daughter and another baby on the way with husband Kanye West, so Jenner is a step-grandparent to their kids, as well as Kourtney Kardashian's three children.

West, for his part, has actually been very supportive of Jenner. In the first episode of "I Am Cait," West commended Jenner's courage in the midst of much negativity, "You couldn't have been up against more: Like, your daughter is a supermodel, you're a celebrity, you have every type of thing, and it was still like, 'f--- everybody, this is who I am.'"

During the well-publicized interview with Sawyer earlier this year, Jenner revealed that West had a lot of sympathy for the situation and actually convinced wife Kim to be more accepting of the circumstances.

"Kim told me a story," Jenner said at the time. "She goes, 'You know what really turned me around? I'm thinking about this.' And I said, 'What?' She goes, 'Kanye.' [Kanye told Kim], 'Look, I can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am. I can have the most beautiful little daughter in the room, I have that. But I'm nothing if I can't be me. If I can't be true to myself, they don't mean anything.'"

4. Trans dating.

Anti-Caitlyn Jenner memeFacebook - facebook.com

Jenner's love life is her own business, and it's wrong to make assumptions about who she is going to date when she's ready.

The most recent episode of "I Am Cait" touches on the difficulties of trans dating. ATTN:'s Aron Macarow explained:

"What did we learn this week? That dating is hard, really hard. That Candis Cayne may be beautiful and successful, but that she has been in a string of bad relationships. The show's producers are shipping a Jenner/Cayne pairing, which they really want us to believe, and that trans women share many of the same fears and concerns that cis women do about finding love.

"But we also heard about something fundamental to the transgender community's experience that is singular to trans life: being seen as deceptive for living our gender authentically."

5. Jenner's courage.

Anti-Caitlyn Jenner memeFacebook - facebook.com

Courage comes in many forms, and it's unfair to measure the bravery of two different things. It's also unfair to question Jenner's bravery, as she had a lot to fear by coming out as transgender to the world. Jenner noted in the ABC News interview that she'd contemplated suicide in the past because "living a lie" was so hard on her soul. Being able to overcome that and live the way she deserves absolutely counts as bravery.

As ATTN: has noted before:

"Trans people in the U.S. face serious challenges. They are victims of violence more than the general population. They face discrimination at school, at work, or when they are looking for an apartment. They also live in a society where many people don't understand the basic facts of what it means to be transgender."

6. Refusing to call Jenner a woman.

Anti-Caitlyn Jenner memeFacebook - facebook.com

This meme dismisses the fact that Jenner was uncomfortable as a male for more than 65 years. If she says she has identified as female this whole time, then she deserves to finally be recognized as female after more than six decades of hiding her real self.

As Aron Macarow has pointed out for ATTN:, misgendering a person can be painful and frustrating. "The misgendering wasn’t malicious, and I doubt it was entirely conscious," Macarow wrote of his own experience. "My medical transition reached a point where I had to come out as transgender to Human Resources a long time ago. But it was more than a year into working at this particular job that I switched pronouns, and the affronting co-worker had been present for the entire process. The other individual in the discussion did not notice."

"Sometimes old habits die hard," Macarow continued. "Regardless, it stung. Even years after transitioning, I was immediately plunged into brief self-doubt and questioning. I wondered, 'Was it something about my voice that made him use the wrong pronouns? What about my mannerisms that day or my slightly longer hair? What suddenly caused me not to pass?'"

For more on issues facing transgender Americans, learn more from the videos below:

 
 

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