Caitlyn Jenner laughs at Trump staffer’s transphobic joke

A staffer from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and one from Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ campaign began hurling insults back and forth on social media this week, a battle that culminated in a joke at the expense of the trans community.

It began when Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung posted a scathing takedown of DeSantis’s rollout of a Texas energy project.

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“It really was a bad moment for him,” Dave Rubin said, referring to Trump answering a question.

“Amateur campaign advance work,” Cheung wrote. “Horrible, sh***y audio from a horrible, sh***y candidate that just steals from President Trump’s policy book.

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In response, DeSantis rapid response director Christina Pushaw – who once said anyone who opposes Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill is a pedophile – decided to change the subject to trans women. “Can a man become a woman?” she wrote in a reply to Cheung.

Can a man become a woman?

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) September 20, 2023

Cheung shot back, “You asking for yourself?” The comment was clearly meant to accuse Pushaw of being a trans woman as an insult. And Caitlin Jenner, despite being a trans woman, clearly loved the joke. Jenner then reposted Cheung’s words along with three hysterically laughing emojis.

😂😂😂 https://t.co/L01qxb4Mv1

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) September 20, 2023

Jenner – who has been critical of DeSantis in the primary and has praised Trump – also tweeted the same laughing emojis in response to Cheung’s original criticism of the DeSantis campaign and said, “sounds pretty ‘sh**ty’ for them.”

😂😂😂 @TheStevenCheung sounds pretty ‘shitty’ for them https://t.co/4iA5fBd5ta

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) September 20, 2023

Jenner – an Olympic gold medalist, reality television star, failed Republican gubernatorial candidate, and Fox News contributor – has spoken out repeatedly against trans rights since her own transition. Despite being a transgender athlete herself, during her barely existent 2021 campaign as a California gubernatorial candidate, Jenner came out against allowing trans girls to participate in sports teams matching their gender identity.

And this is not even the first anti-trans joke she’s found funny this month. Last week, she weighed in on a controversy involving a Texas restaurant that used photos of her, pre- and post-transition, as signs for its male and female restrooms, respectively. Jenner said it was “Funny as hell.”

Pushaw’s question about whether a man can become a woman was a reference to a recent interview in which SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly asked Trump the same question. Trump has been criticized by the anti-trans right for his response, despite the fact that it was indeed anti-trans.

“Ummmmm,” Trump said before chuckling. “I think part of it is birth, can the man give birth? No? Although they’ll come up with some answer to that also!  I heard just the other day, they have a way that now the man can give birth. No, I would say. Yeah, I’ll continue my stance on that.”

Trump has a terrible record on transgender rights, but right-wingers are still upset that he hesitated at the beginning of the answer. Pushaw made that clear in a follow-up tweet.

This is why I had to ask Trump's spokesmen @TheStevenCheung and @Caitlyn_Jenner for clarification. pic.twitter.com/ZHmvLnHQl7

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) September 20, 2023

Trump’s answer to Kelly appears to be a fairly standard line for transphobes: he defined womanhood as the ability to give birth and then said that people assigned male at birth can’t give birth, so trans women aren’t women in his view. He also completely ignored the existence of trans men, as transphobes often do.

As president, Trump banned trans people from serving openly in the military, passed rules to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and removed federal guidance protecting trans students from discrimination in school.