The Jenner Restaurant Controversy

A restaurant in Allen, Texas has raised some eyebrows by decorating their restroom doors with pictures of America's best-known trans-gendered person.  The men's room door has a picture of Bruce Jenner during the 1976 Olympics, in which he won the decathlon.  The women's room door has a copy of the Vanity Fair cover picture of Caitlyn Jenner, including the line "Call Me Caitlyn" and the credits to Buzz Bissinger, who wrote the corresponding article, and Annie Liebovitz, who illustrated it with her photographs, including the one used on the cover.  Thus, the genders are illustrated, in a strangely humorous way, by depictions of two phases in the life on a single person.  Naturally, some people are not amused.  As reported by The Daily Dot, who disapprove of the "joke":

A Cajun restaurant in Texas is demarcating its men’s and women’s bathrooms in a way management must think is clever: with two pictures of Caitlyn Jenner, before and after her transition. But for transgender patrons, that joke stings particularly hard.

TDD further explain, apparently dismissing the possibility that Jenner at some point might have been a man:

Obviously, demarcating gender with before and after photos of a transgender person is incredibly insensitive. By designating Jenner as a man before her gender transitioning, the images imply that gender is only skin-deep. In reality, science suggests that transgender people experience gender dysphoria because they experience their gender identity psychologically, not just physically. In other words, Caitlyn Jenner was a woman before she began changing her body and name.

In a sense, I agree with TDD in that gender is not skin-deep.  The point they miss, however, is that gender is determined, not by feelings, but by genetics, as in whether one's DNA includes two X chromosomes (female) or one each of X and Y chromosomes (male).  (Yes, I know about intersex people, but they are a very small exception to this rule.)  While it is possible for someone to modify his or her appearance to look like the opposite of the gender that he or she was born with, or to undergo an operation that removes one's original equipment and installs the opposite (at least in form) type, it is not possible to change X chromosomes into Y chromosomes, or vice versa.

This brings us to the real problem with demarcating (to use TDD's term) gender using the two pictures of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.  During his athletic career, Bruce was genetically and anatomically male.  In other words, he really was a man.  On the other hand, when Caitlyn was being photographed for Vanity Fair, "she" had a body full of Bruce's Y chromosomes, and at the time, also had his original parts.  (The operation to remove Lil' Bruce, from what I understand, came later.)  In other words, at that time, Caitlyn was still genetically and anatomically male.  The disparity should be obvious.  Men are represented by someone who clearly is a man, while women are represented by someone who at best can be called a facsimile of a woman.  Thus, the real problem is sexism.  Perhaps the restaurant's managers should consider removing the picture of Caitlyn and replacing it with that of an accomplished female athlete, such as a winner of the heptathlon.

Read the articles from Vanity Fair and The Daily Dot at the respective links above.  I realize that anyone who agrees with TDD is going to be offended by this post.  That's OK.  If I haven't offended anyone, it means that I haven't really said anything.