As the old Cyndi Lauper song goes, “Money changes everything.”
No matter how many times US Weekly proclaims “stars — they’re just like us!” it’s just not true. If it were true, we’d see a hell of a lot more rich folks standing up for “us” by fighting for things like livable wages, access to childcare, universal health care and LGBTQ+ rights.
But, by and large, they don’t.
Case in point: Caitlyn Jenner.
On May 14, 2024, Jenner reposted a meme to X that depicted a Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” inspired image (ray of white light goes in, a rainbow comes out, essentially). But this meme shows “normal children” going into the prism of “woke teachers” and emerging as “trans kids.” Jenner writes, “Just gonna leave this here… LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE!”
As of this writing, the post has more than 1,100 reposts and 6,457 likes.
The meme is the kind of thing that you’d expect anti-trans trolls to post — and no doubt there are plenty of anti-trans trolls doing the liking and reposting. In fact, the meme has the X handle of an account that repeatedly calls queerness a “mental illness” and traffics in all kinds of right-wing conspiracy theories. I scrolled through the feed and a lot of posts appeared multiple times. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a fake account.
So why is Jenner, one of the most famous trans women on the planet, posting such a thing?
Because she’s rich. And rich people don’t have to care about anyone. After reaching the top, instead of reaching back to help others also make the climb, she’s pulled up the ladder.
If that sounds harsh, well, too bad. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who jump up to defend the rich, which is a pretty standard response in the U.S. We’ve been taught all of our lives that capitalism is good and great and that, gosh darn it, everyone can be rich and successful if they just try hard enough. All you have to do is pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right? And if you don’t have boots, then go get some boots, you lazy fuck. In other words, to be poor in the U.S. is to be lazy and deserving of contempt.
Well, that’s bullshit. Our society is literally structured to make the rich even richer while fucking over everybody else. Lionizing rich people and demonizing poor people helps keep it that way.
So, yeah, back to Jenner. Why would Jenner post something like this? Something that perpetuates a lie about teachers and trans youth that endangers them both?
Well, for one thing, Jenner is a Republican, and this kind of meme is really just mainstream Republicanism at this point. “Woke” teachers are up high on the enemies list. Any teacher who dares show support for LGBTQ+ kids risks backlash that is perpetuated by this kind of shitposting.
But Jenner is also a transgender person who has nothing but contempt for transgender people. In fact, Jenner has taken up the call to keep trans athletes out of sports.
“Former Olympic gold medal champion Caitlyn Jenner has come out in support of a New York county’s ban on girls’ and women’s sports teams that include transgender athletes from using the county’s public facilities, saying that transgender athletes should not be able to compete in women’s sports,” NBC News reports.
Jenner called the ban “critical.”
“Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long-protected class under Title IX,” Jenner said at a news conference in March.
Over the past few years, Jenner has posted things on X like, “We cannot have biological boys with penises changing next to our daughters in locker rooms” and “I just had the balls to stand up for women and girls in sports.”
In April 2023, Jenner launched the far-right Fairness First PAC, which describes itself as “a movement, non-partisan in nature, with the intention of empowering parental rights, especially in light of radical gender ideology infiltrating our children in school — especially in sports and the classroom. We value protecting young children, and the parental rights associated with having your young child go through the indoctrinating instruction in school and unfair advantages of biological boys competing against girls in sports.”
It’s like a Mad Lib where all the spaces were filled in with right-wing buzzwords.
Shame on Jenner for using her status to harm transgender people, especially trans youth. Saying that trans kids aren’t normal and that they are the result of some kind of harm is disgraceful.
Jenner is 74 years old. Sadly, the hate she’s currently sowing will reverberate long after she’s gone.