Caitlyn Jenner media circus good and bad, local transgender man says
A local transgender man living in St. John's says the recent debut of Caitlyn Jenner — formerly Bruce Jenner — gives the transgender community its highest profile member to date, which can have both good and bad consequences.
The transgender Olympian and former Kardashian family patriarch made her debut online ahead of Vanity Fair magazine's June 9 publication date.
Dane Woodland, who is undergoing hormone treatment for his own transformation to male, said the news about Jenner is positive for the community by informing many people who knew very little about transgender people beforehand.
"It's really bringing the story right to our doorsteps now," Woodland told CBC's St. John's Morning Show Tuesday.
"It's not something that's avoided or kind of overlooked. Now it's something that's being met by everybody's eyes, everybody's ears."
Woodland thinks there's a big divide between those who know a transgender individual and those who have little exposure to them.
"Right now, with Caitlyn's coming out, we have an opportunity to educate people who may not know a transgender individual personally," he said.
Possible downsides to all the attention
While there are those positives to such a high profile celebrity coming out as a woman, Woodland says there may be repercussions as well.
"She has a certain kind of economic privilege that not all trans people have access to," he said.
"Also, right now she's fitting into conventional societal standards of what we consider to be attractive. I want to ensure that Caitlyn is being celebrated for her bravery and the kind of things she has gone through, and not so much just for the fact that she turned out to be so beautiful."
Woodland, who is currently waiting for chest surgery as part of his own transformation, said the photos of Caitlyn Jenner in Vanity Fair are not representative of what all transgender people look like after the change —and that mainstream society needs to be aware of that.
"I'd be curious to know how Caitlyn would have been accepted if she had turned out to be a way that we consider not to be feminine or womanly," he said.
"I feel that Caitlyn was just as much a woman when she sat down with Dianne Sawyer a month ago in a blue buttoned-down shirt as she is on the cover of Vanity Fair, wearing a white corset."
