Caitlyn Jenner Goes to the Dark Side and Goes Dark on Us

I got a kick watching a video of Lady Gaga dealing with Caitlyn Jenner as they were entering the Elton John AIDS Foundation's 30th annual Academy Awards viewing party Sunday night.

Jenner tripped all over herself to try and get in the media spotlight Lady Gaga was creating. "Are you still in Malibu?" Jenner asked Lady Gaga. "I don't see you at Starbucks anymore," Jenner pressed. Lady Gaga pressed on, barely acknowledging Jenner, and giving her a dismissive retort. "Well, I switched baristas."

Classic!

Like Lady Gaga, we've all been more and more dismissive of Jenner since she started to reveal herself once she transitioned. First, she gave a full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump. Then she backpedaled and said she wouldn't vote for him when he was up for reelection. But her hypocrisy glaringly showed through when she idiotically ran for governor during the California recall. She ended up hiring half of Trump's campaign tribe, and I wrote about it, calling her candidacy a waste.

I also, prophetically it seems, wrote a column asking if Jenner was our community's Tucker Carlson. In the column, a former friend of hers, leading trans advocate and author Jenny Boylan, said, "I am angry and hurt, and I think that's why I just really have nothing left to say about her."

And I added, "Neither will I. This will be my last column about Jenner. Unless she runs for president and chooses Carlson as her running mate. What would we all have to say about something like that?"

Well, she and Carlson aren't teaming up for a presidential run, but they will be partners in literal crime at Fox News. Jenner announced, almost cynically on International Transgender Day of Visibility, that she would be joining the network as a contributor.

This is a day to celebrate and recognize the importance of the transgender community. Joining Fox on this special day is another time that Jenner has spit in the eye of that community -- a community that no longer celebrates her because of the anti-LGBTQ+ positions she continues to adopt. However, she'll be welcomed with open arms as the newest staple at the most reviled and lie-infested network.

How bad is Fox? Former Fox top political anchor and well-respected veteran journalist Chris Wallace, who recently left the network for CNN's new streaming service, told The New York Times, "I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox."

Well, Jenner must feel very comfortable with this network's programming that slams trans people and has been a conduit of Russian propaganda during the last presidential administration, and more alarmingly during the current Putin-inspired war in Ukraine. The Kremlin seems to even urge Russia's state media to show Fox News clips.

A recent Kremlin memo included a wildly ominous instruction: "It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] Nato, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the eastern countries and Nato towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally."

Jenner said in her statement about her new role at Fox, "I am humbled by this unique opportunity to speak directly to FOX News Media's millions of viewers about a range of issues that are important to the American people."

So apparently she'll also be speaking to Russian audiences too, at the behest of the Kremlin.

Her first appearance on the network will be with the Donald Trump whisperer and sycophant Sean Hannity. According to The Guardian, Hannity said that Vladimir Putin was "channeling his inner Trump" when Putin recently staged that lie-invested rally in Moscow to defend his invasion of Ukraine. It was delivered by Hannity like a compliment to the butchering Russian dictator.

Mind you, this was on the same day that the Russian foreign minister praised Fox News for "trying to present some alternative point of view," and amid controversy over Fox News hosts and guests repeating Russian disinformation. Hannity also mocked Joe Biden and read out a Kremlin statement attacking the U.S. president.

Jenner will now pal around with Hannity and with Carlson as they tear up Biden and build up Putin. She will be in the studio as Hannity and Carlson and Laura Ingraham take up and talk up the Republican agenda of tearing down transgender people and screaming their support for all those states passing anti-trans bills. How in God's name can Jenner be a part of all this demonic denunciation?

She has absolutely no credibility now in the LGBTQ+ community. Jenner didn't have much in the first place, but now she's not only an adversary to the LGBTQ+ community, and most especially to the trans community; she's an adversary of the United States. She is an affront to all of us who care so deeply about our community and the rights we fight for in this country.

There was a time in Jenner's past -- winning the 1976 Olympic decathlon -- when Jenner was regarded as an All-American and a stellar representation of the United States. And she could have been again now. However, she's jumped through hoops to make herself a pariah.

The lust for exposure, for being on television, for having her opinions barfed out on Fox News has erased her responsibility to be a good role model to other transgender individuals. It is now crystal clear that Jenner's selfish, sinister, and horrid behavior has no bounds.

Good luck at Fox, Caitlyn Jenner, and make sure to enjoy their free coffee, because you're going to have a helluva time finding a barista at Starbucks who will serve you.

John Casey is editor at large of The Advocate.