A transgender man is facing backlash for posing in a sports bra for Calvin Klein. He says it's a reminder that 'trans representation matters.'
When Bappie Kortram wore a sports bra in a Calvin Klein campaign, he hoped the imagery would serve as an "opportunity for people to learn" about the nuances of gender-affirming care, specifically when it comes to facial feminization and top surgeries.
"I [was] a trans man with breasts and I wanted to showcase that before I got my top surgery, because [my breasts] are a form of celebration," the 32-year-old tells Yahoo Life about embracing his pre-surgery body, noting that every trans person's relationship with their body is different. "Not all of us get surgery, but most people understand that surgery can be part of it, and they understand that hormones [can be] part of it."
The Calvin Klein images were taken just weeks before Kortram underwent gender-affirming top surgery to remove his breasts and were part of the brand's 2022 Pride campaign. Since the images were released, Kortram's mostly been met with hate instead of the educational moments he expected. Most recently, he was subjected to a Bud Light-like controversy when a tweet from Danish doctor Anastasia Maria Loupis went viral.
For Kortram, however, the Calvin Klein backlash is yet another reminder that "trans representation matters," and an opportunity to use his platform to shed light on the real-life harm caused by transphobia.
"All of these culture wars are happening in America, with the misinformation around trans people, drag queens, grooming, all of that," he says. And now, he laments, "they're adding me to the fear-mongering of LGBT people and diverse bodies."
It's not the first time he's had to defend the Calvin Klein campaign, as folks criticized the images and even threatened to boycott the brand last fall, he shares. At one point, commenters negatively compared his campaign photos with his partner Jamil to those of Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss, who posed together for the brand in the late 1990s. Similar posts, which he describes as "hurtful," appeared last week.
"It really sucks," he says of being ostracized for his body. "We just want to be normalized and accepted."
Kortram says Calvin Klein has never reached out to him about the online treatment he's received, then or now, nor has the brand acknowledged it publicly. The company did not reply to Yahoo Life's request for comment on this story.
Looking ahead, Kortram hopes brands will consider adding a "media backlash clause" as a way to provide "mental or financial" protections for models experiencing online bullying.
"In this day and age, people want progressive branding and progressive ads, but if you're using real [models] who want to live their life online and offline, and are now suddenly being targeted, then what?" he asks. "Companies should say, 'Hey, we're going to do a Pride campaign that will have a lot of exposure, both positive and negative. We have a therapist ready to engage if you get flooded with hate. We have, maybe, a financial backup if you're not able to model for a long while because brands might avoid you.'"
Above all else, however, Kortram says the experience is a reminder that you're never going to please everyone. And that's OK.
"I don't always have to save or change the world," he says. "I'm allowed to be selfish at times and be like, well, this week I'm not going to engage with the world. I'm just not in the mood for it."
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