The Jenner Story, and Being More Tolerant than Thou

For two days now the primary story out there in social and traditional media has been the transformation of Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner.  Story after story and comment after comment have reiterated a couple of common themes:

• How brave she is
• How beautiful she is
• If you call her by her former name or gender pronoun, you're a bigot
• People that don't line up and celebrate this are bigots

At the risk of sounding like one of those hated bigots, I'm sorry, but I just can't celebrate this.  Just like I felt upon seeing the guy at the gym yesterday with the tattoos all over his face, when I look at Jenner I just feel a deep sense of sadness that something so terrible must have been eating at him (sorry, he was a "him" at the time) that he felt it necessary to do something so dramatic to his body.

Likewise, the fact that it was done in such a public fashion - and will continue to do so via a massive Diane Sawyer interview and via Caitlyn Jenner's own new reality show - sure smacks of emotional neediness.  Something seems terribly psychologically askew, yet should one harbor that thought, let alone utter it, you're bullied and labeled as a bigot.

There is only one way to think on this, and that is to support it.  Period.  And of the most interesting parts to the story, I was amazed at the lengths that some went via traditional and social media with their support.

Bruce/Caitlyn's pain which caused the change doesn't matter.  Her current psychological makeup doesn't matter.  What only matters is that we all need to  celebrate and support, and the louder the better. 

Nothing is more important than to appear to be more tolerant than thou.

Nothing.