Caitlyn Jenner Research Paper

In class, we spent a fair amount of time discussing Caitlyn Jenner and what her transition and experiences mean for the transgender movement. Many people in class proclaimed that they believe that all news coverage is good news coverage, similar to the sentiment “all publicity is good publicity”. However, I do not believe that that is necessarily true. For the most part, Caitlyn Jenner and her actions have set the transgender movement back tremendously. One major issue is that the general public looks to Jenner as the epitome of what it means to be a transgender woman in the United States, which is a harmful narrative, particularly when that narrative is so dominant. For this response, I thought it would be interesting to focus on the violence that transgender women face, specifically transgender women of color. The United States has an extensive history of disempowering people via a variety of practices and legislation dating back to pre-colonization. People of color, women, and people within the LGBTQA have received the brunt of that discrimination. When addressing this issue with …show more content…
However, big town or little town, the discrimination to incarceration pipeline is thriving, particularly in Georgia. While it is not particularly surprising that transgender people of color are disproportionately incarcerated in the South, it is still disturbing. What is perhaps more disturbing is the reason that Diamond was arrested in the first place. Diamond was arrested for digging through a Taco Bell dumpster and for stealing checks. Her crimes were not violent or malicious; rather, they were crimes of survival. Statistics show that black transgender people face higher levels of poverty, which is extremely relevant in the case of Diamond. Her non-violent attempts to survive landed her among highly violent male prisoners once she arrived at