Two weeks ago, “The Ellen Show” kicked off its season 13 premiere week with an episode featuring Caitlyn Jenner. During her interview, Caitlyn talks about her transitioning experience, her family and her opinion on same-sex marriage. Ellen starts off by bringing up Caitlyn’s political views. A conservative woman that refers to herself as a “traditionalist,” says that she was not for same-sex marriage when the issue first came about.
She uses her “older age” as a justifying factor. However, even after all of these years, as a trans-woman, is it not strange that Caitlyn Jenner supports a political party that generally does not support her rights? As a republican, Caitlyn Jenner believes that the traditions that the country was founded upon should remain. However, these traditions do not include transgender rights either. Now that Caitlyn Jenner is a well-known face of the transgender community, should her judgement on same-sex marriage be considered problematic? Will she still be seen as that well-known face of the transgender community even though she failed to empathize with the lesbian, gay and bisexual community? Caitlyn says that her thinking has changed as time has gone on and that it isn’t her job to stand in front of anyone’s happiness, but then goes on to say that if marriage is really that important to someone, then she can “go with it.” This was her basic way of saying that “same-sex marriage is legal across all 50 states and now, there is nothing that I can do about it.” She makes it very apparent that if this political decision hadn’t been made, she would not have been as tolerant.
Ellen, a lesbian and supporter of the transgender community, goes on to say that people of the same sex deserve the right to be married just as the “traditional” man and woman do. The opinion Caitlyn Jenner voiced as an advocate for the transgender community was confusing. As a trans-woman asking the world for acceptance, she still does not fully accept same-sex marriage as a whole. Shouldn’t she be able to relate to the lesbian, gay and bisexual community being that she has experienced the same type of oppression and bigotry or has this entire experience not “opened her eyes” like she says it did?
Equality is important and not everyone supports the same traditions you advocate for, Caitlyn. Get to know the world around you before you ask the world to get to know you. Your hypocrisy is showing.