Caitlyn Jenner: I Was Wrong About Trump [and the GOP]

Most of the gay Republicans I know are white males with above average education and incomes who worry more about tax cuts and loss of white privilege than what happens to the fellow LGBT citizens.  They think that their skin color, education, and social connections will protect them no matter what adverse consequences befall others in the LGBT community.  Ironically, many wealthy European Jews thought the same thing as Nazism was sweeping across Europe.  Many of them ended up losing their lives in death camps or, if they were lucky, managed to flee with the clothes on their backs.  Caitlyn Jenner fits the stereotype that I describe and in 2016 she foolishly supported Trump and other Republican candidates insanely - in my view -  believing that Trump/Republicans would help transgender people and the LGBT community.  Anyone with a few years of experience in the gay activism arena could have told Jenner she was delusional.  Trump sold his soul (assuming he has one) to the Christofascists in June of 2016 and waging war on gays and transgender individuals in particular was a key part of the bargain.  As for Republicans in general, in state after state and in Congress they have blocked meaningful non-discrimination protections.  Now, in a Washington Post op-ed, Jenner admits that she was horribly wrong in believing Trump/Republicans.  Sadly, a number of local gay Republicans that I know are still drinking the Kool-Aid and refuse to see the GOP as the enemy.  Here are op-ed highlights: 

These past two years under President Trump have given me the opportunity to reflect on a lot of topics that have come up in the LGBTQ community and in our nation.

[M]y outlook has changed significantly from what it was during my highly publicized and glamorized early Caitlyn days, when my life as an out trans woman was just beginning.

Since then, I have learned and continue to learn about the obstacles our community faces, the politics that surround us and the places my voice can help. I have reflected on what my unique position of privilege means and how I can best use it to make a positive difference.

Following Trump’s election as president, I saw fertile ground for change within the Republican Party on LGBTQ issues. Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to claim to support this valuable, vulnerable community, and I was encouraged by the applause he received when he said at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 that he would stand up for the LGBTQ community. Poll after poll showed that Americans’ views on LGBTQ issues were changing for the better . . . . I was optimistic that this was how I could leverage my privilege for change.

Despite the criticism I received from segments of the LGBTQ community for engaging with this administration, I remained hopeful for positive change.

Sadly, I was wrong. The reality is that the trans community is being relentlessly attacked by [Trump] this president. The leader of our nation has shown no regard for an already marginalized and struggling community. He has ignored our humanity. He has insulted our dignity. He has made trans people into political pawns as he whips up animus against us in an attempt to energize the most right-wing segment of his party, claiming his anti-transgender policies are meant to “protect the country.” This is politics at its worst.

Believing that I could work with Trump and his administration to support our community was a mistake. The recently leaked Department of Health and Human Services memo that suggests — preposterously and unscientifically — that the government ought to link gender to one’s genitalia at birth is just one more example in a pattern of political attacks.

It’s clear these policies have come directly from Trump, and they have been sanctioned, passively or actively, by the Republicans by whose continued support he governs. My hope in him — in them — was misplaced, and I cannot support anyone who is working against our community. I do not support Trump. I must learn from my mistakes and move forward.

I am more determined than ever to find the best way to bring trans issues to the fore of our social and political conversation, domestically and abroad. I need to listen more to the members of the LGBTQ community and to learn more. I need to better use my voice, my privilege and my foundation to advocate and support our community.

I must continue to educate political and corporate leaders about the issues of homelessness, job discrimination, violence, access to health care, prejudice in housing, depression, suicide and so many other issues that disproportionately affect our long-ignored community. . . . We will not be erased.

Despite her failings as an activist, Jenner has at least admitted that she was wrong - very wrong, in fact. Would that the local gay Republicans I know would come to their senses and (i) admit they were wrong, and (ii) work to defeat Republicans on November 6, 2018. 

The Moral Bankruptcy Of "LGBT For Trump"

Radio host and columnist Michelangelo Signorile and I hold a similar contempt for LGBT individuals who remain Republicans and support the GOP even as it works to legalize discrimination against LGBT citizens and to strip away our civil and constitutional rights.  All too frequently these folks are wealthy and/or live in very LGBT friendly states and face none of the harsh realities that most of us face.  Indeed, in my view, they are akin to Jews who would join the Nazi Party if they thought it would have a financial benefit.  Among those in this category is the utterly clueless Caitlyn Jenner whose wealth and fame largely insulate her from the realities of LGBT life.  Michelangelo has a piece at Huffington Post that looks at the moral bankruptcy of these LGBT for the GOP and/or Trump.  Here are highlights:

There are some notable LGBT Republicans who are not supporting Donald Trump, probably for the same reasons that many other Republicans aren’t supporting a man viewed not only as unfit for the job and unstable, but who breaks from GOP orthodoxy on several key issues. Ken Mehlman, for example, former George W. Bush campaign manager and one-time Republican National Committee chair, is part of the “Never Trump” crowd.

But then there’s billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who is a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention next week. And Caitlyn Jenner, who had a phone call with Trump, and is now all in. And, perhaps most hypocritically, Chris Barron, the former GOProud leader who now has founded an LGBT for Trump campaign. Barron agrees with the Log Cabin Republican leader Gregory T. Angelo that Trump is “one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency,” impressed that he “mentions” the LGBT community often.

I’ve refuted this ridiculous, dangerous notion several times. . . . But let’s give them this for a minute and presuppose that Trump is pro-gay. It means that gay GOPers are behaving exactly the way they’ve accused gay Democrats of behaving for years: as single-issue voters.

But putting that aside too, gay Republicans supporting Trump truly are doing so based on his supposed support of LGBT rights even as he has broken with the GOP on bedrock issues that these same gay GOPers have championed, . . . So LGBT GOPers supporting Trump are the very single-issue voters they’ve decried all these years.

And of course, even on that single issue, no one could say Trump is better than Hillary Clinton — who supports marriage equality while Trump does not. So, people like Barron defend support for Trump by claiming Trump would be better on national security — yes, even with his reckless stubby fingers on the buttons — protecting gays against terrorism . . . . even as he recently met with and made a pact with hundreds of anti-LGBT leaders.

Well, surprise, surprise: the proposed platform hammered out yesterday is the most anti-LGBT platform we’ve seen. It strongly reaffirms opposition to marriage equality and gay adoption. It calls for regulating where transgender people can go to the restroom, supporting draconian laws like HB2 in North Carolina, and it supports the First Amendment Defense Act, which anti-LGBT GOPers in Congress are debating and allows for discriminatory religious exemptions among businesses, organizations and taxpayer funded nonprofits.

The truth is, Trump agrees that Obergefell should be overturned — promised to appoint judges who would do so — supports the First Amendment Defense Act and believes that states should be able to pass transgender bathroom bills even if he disagrees with them personally. So, if indeed Trump distanced himself from the platform on LGBT rights it was because he agreed with the religious conservatives who wrote it and let them do what they wanted.

That’s because, on LGBT issues, Trump needs anti-LGBT groups to win the election and will surely promote their agenda in return for the votes. And beyond LGBT issues, what does it say that gay Republicans would support a candidate who is blatantly racist and misogynistic, having made outrageous comments and getting the lowest poll numbers among women and minorities we’ve seen?

As Robert P. Jones, author of the “The End of White Christian America,” wrote in a Times op-ed, there’s a reason why Trump has garnered enormous support from anti-LGBT evangelicals. . . . Trump “promised to reinstate their central place in the country” and to “turn the clock back.” In that light, any LGBT GOPers who thinks Trump is going to support LGBT people aren’t just hypocrites, now defined as single-issue voters; they’re totally delusional as well.

Ted Cruz Continues to Spread Anti-Transgender Lies

Not only is Ted Cruz physically repulsive, but he is morally repulsive as well as he continues to use anti-transgender fear mongering in a desperate attempt to goad the Christofascists to turn out and vote for him in the upcoming Indiana primary.  Cruz cares nothing for the truth and cares nothing about the harm he does to others in his power mad quest.  Towelroad looks at the latest vicious lies Cruz is utilizing.  Here are highlights: 

Even though the right-wing myths about what happens have been debunked many times (as recently as last week by FOX News anchor Chris Wallace), Ted Cruz continues to hammer home his fear-mongering about the consequences of transgender “bathroom bills” and according to the NYT, the strategy is working for him, at least in Indiana.

Said Cruz on Meet the Press Sunday:

“Donald Trump came out on television agreeing with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that grown men should be allowed to use little girls’ restrooms. Now I view this issue as a matter of basic common sense. I don’t think it’s a right or left or Republican or Democratic issue. It’s common sense. Look, I’m the dad of two little girls. It doesn’t make any sense to allow grown adult men – strangers – to be alone in a bathroom with a little girl – and virtually all Americans understand that. And it is only the height of political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this.”

Chuck Todd then asked about Caitlyn Jenner’s recent stunt in which she used the bathroom in a Trump Hotel in New York City and then emerged with a message directed at Cruz: “By the way Ted, nobody got molested.”

Replied Cruz:

“If you pass a law that says any adult man can go into a girl’s restroom if he feels like a woman at that minute… Look the real danger is not people who are transgendered it’s people who are predators. People who are predators who use that law as an excuse to go target our kids. … The reason Donald Trump’s comment is so revealing…he said a few months ago, ‘I can be the most politically correct person on earth’. This is political correct nonsense. People want someone who tells the truth. Donald is playing a role and pretending to be something he’s not. I’ve been the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

Joy Behar: ‘Transgenders for Cruz is Like Jews for Hitler’

I have often said that gay Republicans are as insane as 1930's Jews who supported the Nazi regime. It's even more insane for transgender individuals to support the Republican Party given the party's and the party base's utter contempt for transgender.  Hence, Joy Behar's comparison of Caitlyn Jenner to a Jew supporting Hitler.  While I applaud Caitlyn Jenner's courage in coming out and transitioning, I continue to be shocked and appalled by her cluelessness on social and political issues that never affected her as a privileged white male up until her transition.   Is she blind and/or deaf to what the GOP continues to say about LGBT individuals?  Towleroad looks at Behar's apt comments.  Here are highlights:

The women on The View had a conversation about Caitlyn Jenner today, reacting to a photo she tweeted last night in response to outrage from the LGBT community over her support for Ted Cruz (she has said she wants to be Cruz’s “trans ambassador”).

Jenner’s tweet was a photo of her and some friends, including Candis Cayne, with Hillary Clinton and read “#learningfrommygirls #willingtolisten.”

Raven Symone commented that she thought Jenner should have taken a hiatus after stepping into the public eye and feels Jenner could have benefited from the perspective:

“I knew that I liked girls at 12 years old, but when I came out at 28 I didn’t go ‘I’m an advocate! I’m an advocate!’ I didn’t know the struggle cause I didn’t live in that world, and now she’s backtracking. I think she just needs to step back a little bit.”

Added Sunny Hostin: “She lived the majority of her life as a white male athlete star…privileged, right? So (now) she’s part of the minority. I think it’s fascinating to watch her struggle with those issues. She’s experiencing things that people of color, that women experience all the time.”

Michelle Collins felt a bit more cynical about it, adding that Jenner’s just trying to “put out a fire” with the Hillary photo.

“Transgenders for Cruz is like Jews for Hitler,” interjected Behar. “She’s not paying attention. She is transgender and she should be reading about it and understanding politics. Or watching and thinking.”

The Presidential Politics of Caitlyn Jenner

Driving home the other night I was listening to POTUS on satellite radio and one discussion was on the land mine field that Caitlyn Jenner has created for the Republican Party and the occupants of the 2016 GOP presidential clown car.  Already Mike Huckabee is dodging his "joke" to "Christian" broadcasters about he wished he'd claim to be transgender in high school so that he could have showered with the girls.  Kathleen Parker picks up on the discussion in a Washington Post column that focuses on the danger Jenner poses for the GOP as it tries to avoid being the party of yesterday and of ignorance and bigotry (talk about major tasks!).  It will be a spectacle to behold.  Here are column highlights:

Barring a terror strike or an Ebola outbreak to distract us, the 2016 presidential election seems headed for a gender identity showdown.

Within days of the release of Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover photo, Republican presidential candidates were being asked to comment, while conservative pundits were warning of a political apocalypse. 

Leading the charge was Rush Limbaugh, who has advised the GOP to reject Caitlyn Jenner, even if she is a Republican. Big Tent Sign: Transgender People Not Welcome Here.

While some GOP candidates have avoided inquiry thus far, others have trod carefully around the murky issues surrounding gender identity.

Rick Santorum initially gave the correct answer to a reporter, saying, “If [Jenner] says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman.” But he was forced by outraged conservatives to backpedal and subsequently clarified that he meant to “express empathy not a change in public policy.”

If you think “legitimate rape” was a problem, stick around for “Can Jenner be a woman if he still has male organs?” Apparently, Jenner hasn’t yet taken the final physical step to becoming a woman, according to Vanity Fair.

As I have been recently tutored, sex organs are irrelevant to gender identity. Simply put, sexual orientation concerns with whom you have sex. Gender identity, which forms early in life based on multiple factors both pre- and post-birth, concerns who you are, male or female, regardless of the equipment you were born with.

Limbaugh isn’t wrong in predicting the coming stigmatization of conservatives as crazy or hateful because they’re not queuing up as popular convention requires. The danger for the GOP is that the loudest and kookiest voices will be harnessed by the media and trotted out as typical of the Republican base.

As always, volunteer crazies will present themselves, as did one fellow who wrote to me recently as “God’s Emissary.”  “You are an agent of the antichrist and a wicked reincarnation of Jezebel! . . . YOU MAKE JESUS CHRIST WANT TO VOMIT!”

Accepting that transgender people are human beings, too, should not be that difficult. Granting equal protections to all regardless of race, creed, sex or gender should be fairly easy to process. Ultimately, the courts will sort it all out.

In the meantime, Limbaugh and others who insist that Republicans take a stand on Jenner’s transition are big fish lured by small bait. The media’s group embrace of Jenner’s transition should be seen for what it is — not a revolutionary step toward minority rights but a money grab for ads, ratings, sales and buzz in a culture of provocation and greed without ethics or conscience. 

I personally expect that the GOP will totally mishandle the issue and that the crazies will drive the debate for the GOP - much to the delight of Democrats.   I and other bloggers, of course, will do all we can to spotlight the GOP and "godly Christian" spittle flecked hate and bigotry.  It needs constant spotlighting.

Limbaugh to GOP: Don't Accept Caitlyn Jenner

The attacks on Caitlyn Jenner from the far right continue as gas bag Rush Limbaugh - the four time married defender of the "sanctity of marriage" - unleashed a rant against Caitlyn Jenner.  Limbaugh is beyond despicable not to mention a complete hypocrite given his own past scrapes with the law over his illegal prescription drug use.  If Limbaugh had any sense of shame, he shut his big mouth.  That, of course, will never happen since Limbaugh and his sheep like followers have no shame and no moral decency.  Politico looks at Limbaugh's foul attacks.  Here are excerpts:

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh thinks Republicans should reject Caitlyn Jenner, even if she agrees with them politically.

Limbaugh said on his radio show Tuesday that liberals are trying to “redefine normalcy” in an effort to stigmatize conservatives and that conservatives shouldn’t agree to their terms by accepting Caitlyn Jenner as a woman.

He likewise dismissed a conservative blog that wrote that Republicans should embrace Jenner as one of their own to seem more humane, saying that doing so would constitute falling into a liberal trap.

Under this system, “conservatives and Republicans are the new weirdos, the new kooks,” the pundit said, “and that is part of the political objective here in normalizing all of this really marginal behavior. I mean, if less than 1 percent of the population is engaging in it, it’s marginalized behavior. It isn’t normal, no matter how you define it.

Limbaugh had previously discussed Jenner’s transition after the former Olympian, then known as Bruce Jenner, told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he identified both as a woman and a Republican, despite the party’s history of tension with the LGBT community.

“Maybe this is why God put me on this earth,” Jenner told ABC. “To deal with this issue.”

After the interview, Limbaugh said that liberals were pleased because they support “anything to upset these damn conservatives and Republicans that believe in their precious social issues.”

During the segment, Limbaugh expressed his belief that being transgender is “a mental illness,” citing the research of a Johns Hopkins professor.

Lionizing Jenner, Limbaugh said at the time and reiterated Tuesday, was a media tactic in a political battle between liberals and conservatives on social issues.

“This fits everything the media wants to do in terms of turning the culture upside down, redefining what ‘normal’ is, getting revenge against the majority for all of these decades of discrimination and mockery and disapproval and all these religious fanatics judging other people simply because of, quote, ‘who they love,’ unquote.”

 I guess Limbaugh justifies his multiple marriage and serial monogamy based on the fact that divorce and multiple remarriages are so prevalent among "godly Christians" in the Bible Belt. 

Attacks on Caitlyn Jenner Underscore the Ugliness of Today's "Christians'

I will be candid and admit that I cannot get my head around what it must be like to be transgender.  For me, coming to terms with being gay was a huge trial and it took me 37 years to finally face the reality about myself.  Thus, I can understand completely why it took Caitlyn Jenner so long to finally gain the courage to transition.  It is not something that one does on a whim or spur of the moment, especially given the amount of therapy and and psychoanalysis one must under go in order to progress to reassignment surgery.  Yet the voices of the far right "godly Christians" are revealing just what foul human beings they are in fact.  Among the ugliest attackers are would be Republican presidential nominee Mike Huckabee and the always foul Bryan Fischer.  Huckabee made light of transgender transition and quipped to his fellow bigots and scam flam artists at at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention that he wished he'd said he felt like a woman in high school so that he could have showered with the girls.  To say that Huckabee is a nasty pig doesn't begin to tell the story.  Here are highlights from Towleroad:

Speaking at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this year, GOP Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said he wishes he could have pretended to be transgender in high school so he could have "showered with the girls" after PE, BuzzFeed reports. The comments came to light over the weekend when a video of Huckabee's speech was posted online by World Net Daily. In the speech Huckabee also sounds the dog whistle of religious liberty (yet again), and conflates providing civil rights to transgender persons with pedophilia and sexual impropriety.

Said Huckabee:

“For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize that the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your seven-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom cannot be offended and you can’t be offended if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man.”

Not to be out done, Bryan Fischer went on one of his typical rants denigration Jenner and said Jenner was controlled by Satan.  The Advocate looks at Fischer's horrific statements and those of the "family values" crowd.  Here are excerpts:

While the introduction of Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce, was met with mostly positive comments, some negativity has come from the right, including ostensibly “fair and balanced” Fox journalists and the clearly unbalanced commentator Bryan Fischer.

Religious right commentator Fischer, on his American Family Association-affiliated Focal Point show, asserted that Jenner is being controlled by Satan. He prayed that God would “clear up Bruce Jenner's sexual confusion” and “expose the lies of Satan and break their power over his mind.”

Fischer also said, “I’m not going to call him Caitlyn Jenner because that’s not his name and I’m not going to refer to him as a she. He’s a he. He’s a he in every single solitary cell of his body; he will be until the day that God calls him home.” Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover, Fischer contended, shows “how corrupt, how morally corrupt, how morally bent, how morally twisted, how morally confused, how morally bankrupt we have become.”

Other right-wingers making negative comments, reports Media Matters, included Ben Shapiro, Dan Gainor, and the staff of The Daily Caller. Shapiro, who works for Breitbart.com, tweeted such remarks as “A man can never understand a woman’s perspective on abortion, but can magically become a woman” and “Your biological sex is completely mutable, but your sexual orientation is completely immutable” with the hashtag #ThingsILearnedFromTheLeft.

Gainor, of the Media Research Center, tweeted, “If Bruce Jenner can have 4,000 surgeries and say he’s a woman, why can’t he do same and say he’s black?” and invoked the idea of a dachshund calling itself a Great Dane and people saying they’re elves or dwarves.

My contempt for "godly Christians" truly grows with every passing day.   What's noteworthy is that nowhere do these individuals show a shred of compassion for Jenner or by extension anyone who doesn't conform to their hate and fear based religious beliefs.  However, despite these horrible comments, I find encouragement most of all by the fact that the younger generations are leaving religion in droves.