 |
| Bruce Jenner |
The reality TV star and former Olympic athlete told Diane Sawyer in a highly anticipated ABC interview broadcast on Friday night that she now regarded herself as female.
“For all intents and purposes I’m a woman,” she said, loosening her hair from a ponytail.
Jenner referred to herself mostly in the third person and with the male pronoun but said she was embracing femininity after a lifelong struggle with gender identity.
“I look at it this way – Bruce always telling a lie. He’s lived a lie his whole life about who he is. And I can’t do that any longer. My brain is much more female than it is male. It’s hard for people to understand that, but that’s what my soul is.”
Wearing a blue shirt and black trousers, Jenner said she began cross-dressing aged about either or nine, clandestinely trying on dresses from his mother’s and sisters’ closets. “At the time I didn’t know why I was doing it besides it just made me feel good.”
The habit continued into adulthood while travelling as a motivational speaker. “I’d literally go up into the hotel room, change [into women’s] clothes, and walk around.”
The athlete, who won a decathlon gold medal in the 1976 Olympics before finding fame as a member of the Kardashian clan, said people did not know her true self.
“They see you as this macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life – it is part of me. That female side is part of me. That’s who I am.”
Advertisement
Millions were expected to tune in to the two-hour 20/20 special, which followed a months-long tabloid frenzy over Jenner’s changing appearance.
The broadcast was an edited version of several interviews conducted in February. ABC kept a tight lid on the material and released only a few enigmatic clips in advance to build suspense.
Jenner was reportedly not paid for the interview.
In one of the interview’s few lighter moments she laughed off suggestions that the transition was a stunt to promote Keeping up with the Kardashians. “Yeah we’re doing this for publicity. Yeah right.”
However, going public, and having the show as a platform, could aid understanding of transgender people, Jenner said. “What I’m doing is going to do some good. And we’re going to change the world.”
Jenner said Laverne Cox, a transgender actor on the TV drama Orange is the New Black, had advised her about transitioning in public. “I would like to work with this community to get this message out. They know a lot more than I know … I am not a spokesman for the community.”
The Olympian said she underwent cosmetic facial surgeries over the years and took the female hormone estrogen for five years in the late 1980s, then resumed taking the hormones for the past year and a half.
Further surgery or treatment was an area of uncertainty. “As of now I have all the male parts and all that kind of stuff, so in a lot of ways we’re different, OK?” Jenner told Sawyer. “But we still identify as female. And that’s very hard for Bruce Jenner to say. Because why? I don’t want to disappoint people.”
The former Olympian sounded upbeat but uncertain about the future. “I hope I’m going to be OK. I feel that I’m going to be OK. 2015 is going to be quite a ride. Quite a ride.”
Earlier on Friday Jenner’s step-daughter, Kim Kardashian, said the family would watch the broadcast together. Jenner’s third wife, Kris Kardashian, made no immediate comment.
Jenner has six biological children and four stepchildren through marriage to Kris. The couple split last year.
Jenner’s 17-year-old daughter Kylie expressed support on Instagram, sharing a throwback black and white photo of her father wearing denim shorts and a cut-off shirt, signing it #love. Jenner’s second wife, Linda Thompson, also took to Instagram in praise.
The transgender community expressed mixed feelings in advance of the broadcast – some hoping for a milestone, others fearing media exploitation.
Sarah Kate Ellis, the head of GLAAD, issued a statement welcoming the interview, saying it would impact and inspire countless people. “Today millions of people learned that someone they know is transgender.”
Jenner’s evolving appearance has fuelled intrusive and copious tabloid coverage in recent months. Paparazzi with telephoto lenses have staked out Jenner’s movements and his home in Malibu, prompting Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to visit the house earlier this week.
The media circus dented growing acceptance of transgender people, lamented the Los Angeles Times television critic, Mary McNamara. “After all the strides made by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in recent years, we’re back to gawking at what appears to be the sight of someone we consider a man wearing a dress.” She said the media’s obsession with Jenner had gone from “stalkerish to zoological”.
The New York-born Olympian’s triumph at the Montreal Olympics led to pin-up celebrity status, a career as a television actor and motivational speaker, and then renewed fame as a de facto Kardashian.
Jenner said she could no longer “pull the curtains” on her identity. “I’ve built a nice little life, I just can’t – again, Bruce lives a lie. She is not a lie.”
Jenner continued: “If I die, which, I could be diagnosed next week with cancer – and boom, you’re gone. I would be so mad at myself that I didn’t explore that side of me, you know? And I don’t want that to happen.”
No comments:
Post a Comment