Caitlyn Jenner Announces Bid for California Governor

With democratic governor Gavin Newson in a recall election later this year, Caitlyn Jenner launched her campaign to become California governor on Friday morning.

She tweeted “I’m in!” along with the press release as the news broke. Although she would be the first transgender governor in the U.S., LGBTQ leaders haven’t shown much excitement over the announcement, as Jenner is a former Trump support, a vocal republican, and has also selected advisers of former President Donald Trump to help run her campaign.

According to Axios, Jenner assembled a team of GOP operatives, including “top pollster” on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns Tony Fabrizio, RedRock Strategies Founder Ryan Erwin, Allegiance Strategies President Tyler Deaton, and Steven Cheung, a former Trump White House and campaign communications hand. Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale helped her assemble the team and is a personal friend, though he doesn’t plan to take an official title for Jenner’s campaign.

In a statement, Jenner called California taxes “too high” and criticized an “over-restrictive lockdown” response to COVID-19, including in-person schooling.

“Sacramento needs an honest leader with a clear vision,” Jenner said in the statement. “For the past decade, we have seen the glimmer of the Golden State reduced by one-party rule that places politics over progress and special interests over people.” Jenner is “very socially liberal” and is “… running as someone that’s socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” a campaign adviser told Axios. There was no over mention of LGBTQ policy in her announcement or elsewhere.

Jenner supported Donald Trump until 2018 when he rolled back federal guidelines allowing trans students to use bathrooms of their choice, saying, “My hope in him … was misplaced … The reality is that the trans community is being relentlessly attacked by this president.”

Trump had one of the worst LGBTQ track records of any U.S. president. Jenner herself has been controversial in trans circles for her GOP standing, which has continued to pass anti-trans legislation on a state level within the Biden presidency. She also was called out and apologized after an interview with Time, where she said, “I try to take [my presentation] seriously. I think it puts people at ease. If you’re out there and, to be honest with you, if you look like a man in a dress, it makes people uncomfortable.”

Jenner said in her apology that she was “truly sorry,” and that she was trying to indicate the world we live in is still a binary one, where people who are visibly trans can struggle to be accepted, and that that needs to change.

Following the news, many responded blasting Jenner’s decision and placing the former Olympian and reality star at the butt of jokes and ridicule. Even people on the left, like Bill Maher, decided the news was ideal time to throw any trans allyship out the window to berate her, at the expense of her transness.

“I know you think of her as a reality show star, but come on, people change. She is trans, rested, and ready,” Maher said. “She’s got a great slogan: take the ‘sack’ out of Sacramento.”

Joy Behar also misgendered Jenner three times during an airing of The View last week, correcting herself twice and later apologizing, blaming it on lack of sleep. Jenner has since accepted Behar’s apology.

This is only the beginning, and Jenner will likely continue to be in the news as her campaign persists. While many on the left and in the LGBTQ community are vocally criticizing Jenner and her platform, this can and should happen without demeaning her identity as a trans person.

Follow OFM for more news as this story develops.