‘Caitlyn Jenner “likes” Ted Cruz but the feeling may not be mutual’: Trans pedagogy and I Am Cait

Abstract

When the Olympian and reality television star formerly known as Bruce Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2015 under the headline ‘Call me Caitlyn’, there was widespread celebration of this unprecedented moment of transgender visibility. However, the positive reception of Jenner as an out trans celebrity has become increasingly complicated by the conservative Republican politics she identifies with. This article examines how those tensions inform the reality series I Am Cait, which repeatedly features Jenner in political conflict with a group of trans activists who are helping to facilitate her public transition. It asks whether the ‘education’ of Jenner that becomes the primary narrative of the text reaffirms or troubles the neoliberal ideology at the core of her conservatism. In order to explore this, I examine the series’ framing of productive gender normative citizenship, the intersection of its corrective pedagogies with the reality television context in which they take place, and the series’ representation of transgender heterogeneity. This article forms part of ‘On the Move’, a special issue marking the twentieth anniversary of the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Repressive Moralism: World Making and Petty Fascism in Transgender Politics

“…Accordingly right-wing republicans and peers of the outspoken conservative would-be politician and trans-female Caitlin Jenner in California are anything but comfortable with her (Brady, 2017;Korte, 2021). This mechanism works largely because of the idea of human rights and the equality of all mankind and of men and women, which has penetrated the mentality of European countries at least since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.…”

Wagner & Hayes Repressive Moralism 10

“…The representatives of the ruling classes and their politicians tend to lean to the conservative side of the political spectrum, and are therefore, almost by definition, not enthusiastic about embracing the political goals of the so-called progressive sector of society -helping the "gay teen seeking acceptance, the single mom with no family or friends to support her, the tomboy who wants to try out for the football team, the transgendered man who wants to use the ladies' room at his workplace, […] the feminist determined to eschew the constraints of marriage and family in exchange for a life of unbridled self-seeking" (Wanis, 2014). Accordingly right-wing republicans and peers of the outspoken conservative would-be politician and trans-female Caitlin Jenner in California are anything but comfortable with her (Brady, 2017;Korte, 2021). This mechanism works largely because of the idea of human rights and the equality of all mankind and of men and women, which has penetrated the mentality of European countries at least since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.…”

“I Am…”: Caitlyn Jenner, Jazz Jennings and the cultural politics of transgender celebrity

“…At the same time, across her celebrity image, representations of Jenner's privilege also perform the commercial function of appealing to para-social identification between Jenner and her consumers. Anita Brady (2016) has noted that I Am Cait foregrounds Jenner's "education" in how to be an appropriate, politically-aware spokesperson for the transgender community. As such, both Jenner and the viewer are similarly positioned to be "learning" about transgender issues through I Am Cait; the viewer because they are assumed to be cisgender (and mostly white), and Jenner because her celebrity status has shielded her from the realities of life for poor and ethnic minority trans people.…”