Caitlyn Jenner is Running for Governor of California, Which May Be the Worst Idea Ever

During my second go-round at The A.V Club as a freelance columnist I watched sixteen episodes of the Caitlyn Jenner reality show I Am Cait for My World of Flops. 

From a cost-benefit perspective, the choice didn’t make sense. I could have gotten the same modest sum of money from writing about a 90 minute movie as a column that would require watching in the area of fourteen to sixteen hours of sub-par reality television. 

But I foolishly imagined that doing exponentially more work than was necessary would endear me to my bosses at The A.V Club and keep them from cancelling my signature column. I was wrong! They went ahead and cancelled My World of Flops anyway but I’m glad that I watched every last episode of I Am Cait all the same because I learned a fair amount in the process. 

That makes sense, since the whole purpose of I Am Cait was education and edification. Over the course of the doomed reality show’s two seasons, a series of brilliant, incisive trans writers, activists and artists tried to teach Jenner about what it means to be trans and what it means to be part of the trans community. 

I Am Cait was designed to illustrate its iconic subject’s evolution from sheltered, entitled Conservative Republican who cannot conceive of a world without fame, riches and incredible power to empathetic, compassionate, politically engaged member of the trans community. 

That was the idea, at least: to give Jenner the best possible teachers and tutors, fascinating, accomplished mentors like Jennifer Finney Boylan, on her fascinating journey of self-discovery as the most famous trans woman alive and someone who came out as trans late in life, after having conquered the worlds of Olympic sports and reality television. 

That’s not how it played out, unfortunately. Jenner remained ensconced in an oblivious bubble of privilege throughout. Instead of learning and growing and evolving as a human being and embracing her trans identity, she stubbornly remained the same. 

You could see the frustration in the eyes of the mentors who learned that you cannot teach someone who refuses to be taught and you cannot change someone who does not want to change. So a television show that was supposed to be about growth and change and self-discovery instead became the maddening story of a powerful, famous reactionary who refused to learn and grow, the tale of a caterpillar that would not turn into a butterfly. 

How can you possibly reach a trans superstar who genuinely believed that Donald Trump cared deeply about the trans community, as Jenner did before reality violently disabused her of that delusion?

Over and over on I Am Cait a trans woman of color or a poor trans woman would tell her story to Jenner, who would profess to be inspired and moved and eager to use her power and position to help the trans community, albeit with an expression that betrayed that she couldn’t wait to be drinking white wine and kibitzing with her girlfriends.

As a conservative Republican, Jenner has consistently aligned herself with enemies of the trans and LGTBQ community. So when Jenner announced that she would be running for Governor of California on her website, explaining “I'm in. For the past decade, we have seen the glimmer of the Golden State reduced by one-party rule that places politics over progress and special interests over people. Sacramento needs an honest leader with a clear vision” the LGTBQ community was less than enthused. 

It certainly did not help that Jenner sought out the services of Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale to help her in her bid for Governor. 

Nor did it improve Jenner’s standing in the trans community when she responded to a reporter’s question by asserting that, in her opinion, trans girls should not be allowed to compete against other girls in high school sports. 

I have a hard time imagining anyone being excited by Jenner’s candidacy. She’ll be running for the Republican nomination, which puts her in the surreal position of actively seeking the votes of Republicans who posted transphobic memes about her when she first came out. 

I can’t imagine Democrats voting for her either. Jenner might not have learned much from making I Am Cait but I learned a great deal watching it. One of the things I learned, alas, is that Caitlyn Jenner has absolutely no business running for political office, let alone serving as Governor of California during a particularly fraught and important time. 

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