On Sunday night, the US was treated to the first entry in the eight part docuseries I Am Cait, following Caitlyn Jenner’s first steps into the limelight post-transition. It’s perhaps not surprising to see the high-profile athlete and well-known member of the Kardashian clan taking advantage of her platform to sell a series revolving around herself, as your own personal reality series is a distillation of the American Dream. It’s also not surprising that the broadcast was a painful exercise in cringing under the cis gaze, complete with performative, heavy-handed drama — and cis people absolutely loved it, flocking to Twitter and other social media platforms to talk about how ‘inspiring’ it was and pile it with adulations and praise.
Meanwhile, on 24 July, a trans woman was attacked in a Seattle park. Just one day earlier, another woman was stabbed through her car window in Fresno. Unlike her Seattle compatriot, she didn’t survive the vicious attack. Trans women are nearly entirely absent in US media, ‘trans tipping point’ aside. Those who do appear tend to fit a very narrow standard of presentation, underscoring the notion that there’s a ‘right’ way to be a woman and that other trans women don’t meet the mark. Most are conventionally attractive women — who are often singled out as beautiful or ‘stunning,’ like Jenner — and they’re talented athletes, actresses, or other celebrities, rather than being ordinary women.
Regular trans women are relegated to the back pages, popping up only when they’re murdered or beaten, when they commit suicide or are involved in crimes. Their transgender status is placed front and centre in these kinds of stories — thus, if a trans woman robs a bank, she’s considered particularly deviant and shocking because she’s not just a woman, but a trans woman.
In this sense, I Am Cait does little to disrupt the dominant trans narrative, a narrative that Laverne Cox herself challenged when Jenner came out on the cover of Vanity Fair. Cox noted that Jenner’s beauty on the cover was carefully orchestrated, the result of access to costly medications and surgery, designer clothing, hair and makeup experts, and other coaches. Jenner’s presentation is artfully prepared when she appears in public, whether it’s showing off her figure, giving ‘inspiring’ speeches at the ESPY’s, or performing for the camera on I Am Cait.
Reality television is, of course, anything but, instead being a carefully staged and orchestrated drama. The performative nature of the programme is obvious at many points — viewers are supposed to believe, for example, that Caitlyn came out to some of her family members for the first time on camera, which seems highly unlikely. We also see a primarily supportive and loving family, though her mother stumbles at times, which is a dramatic difference from the way many trans people interact with their families. Even those who are conspicuously absent, like Jenner’s older children, aren’t there because they disapprove of who Jenner is, but rather because of her decision to sell herself on national media.
This episode is also filled with clunky, heavy-handed moralising. From the very start, where we see Caitlyn artfully posed in bed in the wee hours of the morning, makeup off and vulnerable expression on whilst she rings her hands over whether she’s doing things right, through to the end, where she attends the funeral of a trans teen for a ‘moving’ episode ender, viewers are clonked over the head with the earnestness of the production. Caitlyn is quick to remind viewers at every turn that not every transgender woman shares her social status and position — something perhaps admirable, as she doesn’t varnish her privilege — but it starts to feel overdone after a certain point, an apologia rather than a recognition.
This is also a programme that very much revolves not around Caitlyn as a human being, but Caitlyn’s transness, and her role as a spokesperson. With few high profile trans women, Caitlyn herself recognises that she’s in a delicate position, as she must communicate about important issues without positioning herself as the authority on the full spectrum of the trans experience. For cis viewers, the show provides a delicious opportunity to delve into the aspects of the trans experience that they find most fascinating: Coming out, transitioning, developing a personal style, navigating the world as yourself, and so forth. The episode follows rigid and familiar lines of ‘what it’s like to be trans’ as spelled out in media and pop culture.
The series doesn’t explore the everyday nature of trans life, and it can’t, because that’s not what sells on television, and it’s not the phase that Jenner is in with her own life. For her, everything is still new, and she’s still grappling with her relationship to her own gender and society’s perception of her. We don’t see her as a woman with a trans history who’s moved through and past transition to focus on other things in her life — instead we see her as a giggling, giddy woman adjusting to her new status, and it’s grating at times.
‘Now I see why women wear sports bras,’ she laughs while playing tennis in a scene that’s designed to give cis viewers a sense of connection with a concept some find alien and uncomfortable. The moment, carefully crafted and staged as spontaneous, may well be an offhand comment made while playing tennis with her sister, but it feels too artful. And while Jenner plays tennis, homeless trans youth scrabble for resources in the sprawling city that lies just outside of frame, their faces referenced by Jenner in her earnest speeches as she breaks the fourth wall, but obscured through the veil of yet another transition narrative.
For cis viewers, I Am Cait is likely to be a hit. It’s one of hundreds of ‘trans narratives’ that tell them all about transition and the lascivious details — taking hormones, surgery, learning to wear makeup — without actually conveying the depth of the trans experience. Trans viewers, on the other hand, should definitely take a pass, unless they enjoy gritting their teeth in frustration over Yet Another Trans After School Special.