Reality TV star and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner penned an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she renounced her endorsement and support for President Donald Trump.
"Sadly, I was wrong," Jenner wrote in the mea culpa, which was published Thursday afternoon. "The reality is that the trans community is being relentlessly attacked by this president."
Jenner had been a rare transgender supporter of the president and the Republican Party, and her politics earned her the ire of many LGBTQ advocates, who widely view the president's policies as harmful.
Jenner also explicitly renounced her efforts to work from within the GOP, calling it a mistake.
"My hope in him — in them — was misplaced, and I cannot support anyone who is working against our community," Jenner wrote. "He has made trans people into political pawns as he whips up animus against us in an attempt to energize the most right-wing segment of his party."
Jenner's op-ed was published less than a week after The New York Times reported on a leaked draft memo from the Trump administration that proposed redefining gender to mean an unchangeable biological condition determined by anatomy at birth.
Jenner has long faced criticism for her embrace of the president and other conservative Republicans, like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In 2016, Jenner said she liked Cruz and would like to serve as his "trans ambassador" if he were elected president.
She also traveled to Cleveland in 2016 during the Republican National Convention, where she attended a GOP event and said: "It was easy to come out as trans. It was hard to come out as Republican."
In a 2017 appearance on ABC's "The View," Jenner revealed that she had visited the Department of Education to lobby the Trump administration.
"These meetings were generally positive and almost always led to encouraging conversations," Jenner wrote about her trips to lobby officials in Washington. "Despite the criticism I received from segments of the LGBTQ community for engaging with this administration, I remained hopeful for positive change."
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Jenner ended her op-ed with a message to other transgender people, writing: "The world needs to hear us. The world needs to know us. We will not be erased."
There’s was a mix of responses from prominent transgender advocates on social media to Jenner’s op-ed.
Indya Moore, a transgender advocate and one of the stars of “Pose” on FX, pleaded with others to “forgive” Jenner.
“She’s still trans. She’s still a woman,” Moore wrote in a tweet. “We need solidarity now more than ever.”
In response to Moore, transgender advocate Tiq Milan pushed back, saying Jenner “hasn’t done the work needed to be forgiven.”
“She actively supported an administration that is trying to erase us out of existence,” Milan tweeted.
Twitter users also responded directly to Jenner after she tweeted out her op-ed, and many of the responses contained exasperated comments.
Some comments encouraged Jenner to use her new perspective to continue pushing for change.
