Written by Marianne MansfieldI am not the sexiest woman in the world. Probably not even in my neighborhood. But I do appreciate sexy when I see it. Not in an inappropriate way, but in a “damn, she looks good, wish I knew how to do that” kind of way.
So when the pictures of Caitlyn Jenner, aka Bruce Jenner, emerged this week, my eyes were riveted to her eyes. And they were “her” eyes.
The shoot was part of a lengthy story about Jenner’s transformation, which will appear in the July issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
Certainly, the photographer, Annie Leibovitz, had a lot to do with it. If you review the history of her work, you understand that she has an almost mystical power to evoke soulful images from her subjects. But that’s the point.
She drew from Caitlyn, once Bruce, pieces of her inner self, and they belonged to a sexy woman. This woman tucked her chin and looked with sultry eyes in the direction of the camera, a slight smile playing around her lips. In another pose she lounged on a piece of furniture with her long legs outstretched. She didn’t sprawl—she relaxed into the pose. In yet another shot, Jenner was silhouetted against a glass window, looking out at a city skyline. She looked like a 1940s silver screen star.
Some would say that it was all too contrived, and I don’t disagree with that assertion. The photographer had a job to do. Her mission was to introduce the former Olympic athlete as a beautiful woman. That’s what Jenner hired Leibovitz to do, and the pictures she took delivered. So did the make-up artists, hair stylists, manicurists, etc. involved in the photo-shoot. They presented to the world’s eye a gorgeous woman.
There doesn’t seem to be much disagreement that Jenner’s public “coming out” was both a brave move and a liberating act for her. Moreover, it will likely have some kind of impact on the lives of others in the transgender community. The degree to which there is an impact, however, as well as the quality of it (positive, negative, or neutral) is hard to predict. My suspicion is that it will have much more to do with the biases of those who are reacting than it will be governed by those who are being reacted to.
I asked my friend, Robyn Boudreau, about her reaction to the Jenner photo shoot. I asked because Robyn is also in the process of transitioning. I wanted to know what a person who is not positioned as Caitlyn Jenner is had to say. While Robyn praised Jenner’s bravery and the difference she will make for others in the community, she also reminded me of the differences. Many who don’t have the resources Jenner has are struggling financially and emotionally. This isn’t an easy life choice to make. It is tough on family and friends. It is a decision riddled with risks, both those that are knowable and those that come at you out of nowhere. It might be mitigated by the presence of resources to assist in the journey, but no one should make the mistake of considering this as simple as putting on some hair and donning a dress.
Like Jenner, Robyn started transitioning once before in the 1990s but abandoned the process due to career concerns and marital strife. As a renowned professional and sought-after speaker in her chosen field of radiology and nuclear medicine, Robyn felt it was not the time to risk transitioning. Risk might mean torpedoing her successful and lucrative life. Moreover, transitioning, she now says, would have led to instant divorce.
Like many other St. George residents, Robyn left Minnesota to escape the brutal winters nine years ago. She began her transition in earnest on March 22 of this year. While Robyn has yet to discover many other transitioning people in Washington County, she is pleased by the friendships with women she is establishing. Frankly, it made me proud when she referred to me as one of her “sis-genders.”
Caitlyn Jenner has made the most notorious splash in recent days, but there are other transitioned women who have had the national spotlight shone on them recently. Take Kristen Beck, a former Navy Seal who is currently running for Congress in the state of Maryland—or Sheri Stokowski, a retired U.S. Army infantry colonel, who plans to wear a female army service uniform with a gold crossed-rifle infantry insignia at the upcoming pride event at the Pentagon later this month. Both Beck and Swokowski are females who presented as males during their military careers.
Each, for her own reasons, has chosen not only to seek to live an authentic life but a public one in the skin of the female gender, doing so with an eye on helping other women like themselves. The community of transgenders is small by most estimates, ranging anywhere from 0.2 to 0.3 percent of the general population. Since neither the U.S. Census Bureau nor the Center for Disease Control and Prevention asks people to identify as such, the number is a rough estimate, at best. Gary Gates, a demographer at UCLA, extrapolated the number of 700,000 from several smaller studies and issued his report in April of 2011.
Perhaps the size of the group makes its members more acutely aware of the need to extend their support and help where they can. They have experienced the difficulties of being transgendered themselves—the anguish their families and friends experience and the loneliness. They reach out because they are compassionate human beings.
It will be interesting to see what Caitlyn Jenner does next. Certainly, her coming out has so far drawn national and international attention to the transgender population. How she chooses to interact with her new community will be telling. I hope she steps up. She’s a former Olympic athlete. We know she’s strong enough to withstand the risk. She’s already taken the leap.
As for my friend Robyn, she is speaking about her life story on Sunday, June 7, at the World Peace Gardens gathering at Green Valley Spa. Attendance is open to the public.
You should go. If you’re lucky, you might just get to become one of her “sis-genders.” It’s really cool.
