To Caitlyn

Written by: Meena Rakasi

I remember first meeting your family. It was on a flat-screen TV in a hotel room, when my mom was too busy taking a shower to tell me to turn that garbage off. Your ex-wife was there, resplendent in all her filthy rich suburban mom glory, as well as your daughters-- not all of them, but enough to let me taste my first slice of delicious unattainable America, where followers go to worship and dreams go to manifest themselves into someone else’s empire. Kim had lost her earring. People were dying. I was hooked.

And there was a bitter taste on my tongue as I digested your family from the other side of a tablet for my entire teenage life, Kaitlyn, mainly for two reasons. One: it’s creepy, and I know it. Two: you guys are creepy, and I know that too. Kendall took up modeling and ending racism with a single can of Pepsi-- #blacklivesmatter-- before sporting cornrows and afros because #whitegirlsdoitbetter. Kim, my business mogul mom, built a universe from a single sextape, yet glowed at being called anorexic. And yes, Kylie has her youngest self-made billionaire status, but don’t forget the multiple small, black-owned businesses that have called her out for stealing and have been effectively silenced by the militia she calls “fans.”

And for years, I let all that slide, Caitlyn, because there you were. Strong, loving, committed to your cause. And what a cause it was, and what a person you were. I remember you at 2015 Pride, an angel in a t-shirt and rope belt and lace skirt. 8th grade me cried seeing how far you’ve come from the days you were Bruce and hounded by your loved ones for slipping on your sister’s stilettos in the silence of a supposedly empty house. You threw yourself into athletics, families you were never entirely comfortable with, before throwing yourself into you. Investing in an identity you were never meant to have is agonizing, and you went through torture in front of millions. 2015 was the year of love wins and going beyond gender and the deep internal joy of self-dissection-- the process of making broken parts something wonderfully whole. It was the year of you.

2016 was the year you grounded me. Looked me in the eye through a talk show Youtube video and said that the boy you voted for believes, just like you, in the Constitution, in freedom, in the power of the people to fashion something beautiful from a scarred, pitted land. And it sounded to me like a plastic surgeon carefully splicing a chest down the middle and then leaving, dark blood still running down the sides of the operating table. 4 minutes and 25 seconds was all it took for my heart to rupture and for my mind to understand you had always been too good to be true.

I’m feeling really petty right now, remembering the nights after, when silken promises spun from distrusted lips turned out all too dreadfully real-- when the White House called for architects to submit their designs for the wall along the Mexican border, when funding for sanctuary states was stalled for 18 months and people who had lived in my city all their lives were plucked from the streets and sent to corners of the world they barely knew. When Planned Parenthood was painted as the House of the Devil and not a place of refuge for lost women to understand the various ways their paths could diverge. When funding for mental health in schools was cut and action against climate change, reversed because at the end who needs clean air or water when you can buy it from the Trump Organization for 300 dollars a liter? People below the poverty line-- if they really even count as people-- don’t deserve food or housing or medical treatment or the peace of mind of knowing that their children are safe at school and you, Kaitlyn, let this happen. Because this boy believed, just like you, in freedom, and the constitution, and the power of the people.

You hurt us irreparably.

It’s been a year or so since I’ve thought about you until a couple months ago, when you popped up, as uninvited as a nose pimple before prom, in my recommended articles on my phone. Sandwiched between a follow-up article yelling into the void that the majority of migrant children still remained separated from their family and an opinion piece on Kavanaugh was your picture. The same person from 2016-- give or take a few wrinkles, a few highlights. The headline read “CAITLYLN JENNER RETHINKS TRUMP.”

Apparently, for you, the final straw-- the only straw, if we’re being honest-- was defining gender with biological immutability. The genitalia you possessed at birth designates where you belong in a dormitory, a bathroom, a side of a department store. And as important as it is to stand up for your community, it was far too little, far too late.

A weaker me would’ve taken you back with open arms, ready for that familiar embrace, and a small part of me still longs for it. But I’m stronger now. Wizened and hardened, and I see you for who you are and what you’ve always been. There is no dignity or grace in admitting to a mistake only when you see its consequences directly affect you. You were not there for my cousin when she lost her education visa and was sent back to India with her Master’s half-completed, or for the kid I met in the summer whose mom was detained by ICE. You were not there when Christine Blasey Ford’s trauma was scrutinized in front of an entire country, or when a ban tried to stop Muslims from entering America.

You are a metric by which I measure myself, and I am happy to say that I finally believe I deserve better. That we all do. And as grateful as I am for what you did three years ago, I know you did it for no one but yourself, and for that, I refuse to give you the attention you so crave.

I loved you, Caitlyn, but I have since found a better sum to cherish, and it may include you, but it doesn’t stop there. I have the right to learn and heal from the wounds you gouged into us until they’re nothing but faded pink.