These themes keep showing up in my Facebook newsfeed, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who is getting more than a little tired of it.
1) Any variation of over-spiritualized “love the sinner” rhetoric.
Apart from the fact that you’ve declared someone who is a professing Christian is a hell-bound sinner, something that is not your place to decide, your patronization is only marginally less offensive than if you were throwing slurs Jenner’s way. You’ve essentially declared someone a lesser being worthy of your pity as if they’re a sick animal, rather than an equal created in God’s image just like you are.
Furthermore, you’ve demonstrated that you don’t understand either hermeneutics or the history and culture of the ancient near east. Born eunuchs. Educate yourself on what Jesus was talking about.
Also, congratulations, you’ve managed to prove yourself significantly less informed on gender identity than the government of Iran, hardly the measuring stick on human rights.
2) Any variation of “Person X is the real hero.“
Heroics is not a zero sum game. More than one person can be a hero and there are any number of areas where someone can be heroic. So Caitlyn Jenner isn’t particularly inspiring to you, who cares? Last I checked there isn’t a single arbiter of who is or isn’t a hero and if there was, I’m pretty sure you aren’t it.
3) Any comparison to Josh Duggar or the Duggar tragedy.
Josh Duggar is a child molester. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar committed felonies by covering up Josh’s crimes. Caitlyn Jenner is an Olympic athlete whose body didn’t match her gender identity. See the difference? If you group them together as "people I feel sympathy for,” or “people I want to extend grace towards,” you’re implying that Caitlyn Jenner is somehow in the same class as criminals who harmed children.
Now, if you want to make the comparison that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are doing a terrible job as homeschool parents of ensuring that their children have an adequate education and that Caitlyn Jenner seems to be doing a similarly terrible job of ensuring that the allegedly-homeschooled Kylie is getting an adequate education, that’s one I can get behind.
However, comparisons involving Josh Duggar’s sex crimes and Caitlyn Jenner’s gender identity are like comparing apples and Ferraris–they’re not even remotely similar and to suggest they are implies that you think trans people aren’t significantly different than sex offenders. And well, if you believe that, I don’t know what to say, you’re beyond hope.
And with that I make my one and only comment about anything in the Kardashian universe not related to what direction on the compass the Kimye baby will be named after.
P.S. When did all these people start caring about the ESPY’s?