While the “broke the Internet” cliché grinds our gears — especially when evoked in response to a Kim Kardashian photo shoot — we couldn’t help but welcome the phrase when it started spreading again this week in response to a photo spread of a different member of the Kardashian clan.
Vanity Fair this week revealed its next cover, graced by Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic athlete-turned-reality-TV star who came out as transgender earlier this year. Almost immediately, hashtags like #CallMeCaitlyn began trending across social media, and Jenner’s new Twitter page amassed more than a million followers in mere hours — setting a Twitter record and even beating out our nation’s president.
While detractors surely exist, the response to Jenner’s social media has largely been supportive, although some media pundits have noted that the encouragement has been largely centered on Jenner’s glamorous appearance — an interesting dynamic to the public discourse on transgender equality.
Above all else, this has been and should be Jenner’s moment, and hers alone; while, as a public figure, she chose to share her transition with the world, seeing her true self in glossy form was surely the end of a long and difficult personal journey, and the beginning of a new path. While American fascination with celebrity beauty standards may be fueling fascination with Jenner’s transition, the photos only scratch the surface of her full journey; instead, the 22-page, 12,000-word story — penned by former Philly writer Buzz Bissinger — takes readers through all aspects of Jenner’s transition, based on the writer’s three months of nearly unfettered access to her.
From the pain of being in the closet for so long to the freedom of coming out to her family and friends, the account provides a much more insightful look into Jenner’s transgender identity than the glamorous shots are able to capture. And, her emotional story may be more aligned with that of countless average transgender Americans than her physical process, certainly buoyed by her affluence.
As trans actor and activist Laverne Cox wrote this week, the vast majority of the trans community does not enjoy the privileges she and Jenner do; instead, she noted, many trans people are struggling with access to health care, jobs, safe schools and homes. And, she said, what’s needed to combat those societal ills is a deeper understanding of what it means to be trans.
While the focus this week has been on Jenner’s physical transformation, ideally it will evolve to delve deeper, to transcend public obsession with physical beauty — an epidemic plaguing American society in general — and explore the fuller trans experience.