Republicans lament Jenner’s transformation

In the four days since Bruce Jenner came out as a woman named Caitlyn, many Americans have celebrated her transformation as a courageous and even heroic act.

But among the social conservatives who are a major force within the Republican Party, there is a far darker view. To them, the widespread acceptance of Jenner’s evolution from an Olympic gold medallist whose masculinity was enshrined on a Wheaties box to a shapely woman posing suggestively on the cover of Vanity Fair was a reminder that they are losing the culture wars.

Across social media, blogs and talk radio this week, conservatives painted an apocalyptic view of America. They said they felt frustrated and increasingly isolated by the country’s sudden acceptance and even embrace of transgender people. They see it as immoral and foreign. They drew comparisons to two darkly futuristic novels, George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

“People feel like they’re under siege and that the terms of the debate are now you either applaud it or you’re a bigot,” said William Bennett, education secretary in the Reagan administration.

“It’s like American culture is be- ing dragged, kicking and screaming, not only toward acceptance but approval.”

The GOP’s struggle with the issue was evident by the fact that no major Republican candidate had anything to say about her this week. Even Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who has made a point of reaching out to people who are normally resistant to his party, declined to comment.

For the ones who have spoken previously, the results were awkward.

After Rick Santorum said of Jenner last month, “If he says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman,” conservative movement activists grew irate. So the former Pennsylvania senator softened what he said.

“It was an attempt to deflect and focus on the principle of loving everyone,” Santorum said in an interview with Breitbart News Network, a conservative website.

The Internet lit up this week with scorn for Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher, over a revived video of a February speech in which he said: “I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in P.E.”

The response to both comments — one supportive, one an attempt at humour — show how perilous such sensitive issues can be for Republicans.

“My advice: stay the hell away from it,” longtime GOP strategist Ed Rollins said.

“You can wish him or her well, but if you’re not careful, you can end up insulting a large portion of the population. Huckabee’s humour, for example, wasn’t seen as funny.”

The terms of the debate are now you either applaud it or you’re a bigot