Cheers to Bruce Jenner for Proving It’s Never Too Late to Be Yourself
Bruce Jenner tells Diane Sawyer, “For all intents and purposes I am a woman.“
On Friday night, Bruce Jenner officially came out as transgender when he told Diane Sawyer, “For all intents and purposes I am a woman.”
Before we go any further, Jenner made it clear that he is, for now, still using male pronouns and will not be answering to a different name. At present, he is only referring to his feminine side as She and Her while he moves forward with his public transition on his new reality show, airing on E! starting July 26th. The public will meet Her when Jenner is ready for us to meet Her (but because she’s not quite the public, Sawyer was invited out to dinner with Her after the interview).
For many, the most shocking part of the conversation was when Jenner came out as Republican—assuring the audience that he is still heterosexual—and would be happy to have a word with his buddies John Boehner and Mitch McConnell about transgender rights. He thinks they’ll listen with open minds and do what they can to support the transgender community. Jenner is going to change the world. Let’s hope so.
Jenner has lived in fear all of his life, like so many people who grew up in small towns in the 50s and 60s knowing they were not the gender they were assigned at birth, compelled to keep their true selves a secret. “You don’t know what’s up,” he told Sawyer. “And there’s no place to go to get information.” And so he turned to sports to compensate for the female side he wasn’t able to acknowledge, and in 1976 was declared “The World’s Greatest Athlete” after winning the Olympic Gold in the Decathlon. Jenner described the time during which he trained for the decathlon as the time he struggled the most to prove his masculine gender to himself and the world. But as he and Sawyer watched the footage of that triumphant moment he said, “That’s me, that’s Her. You can identify as a woman and still kick butt.” Turns out, Bruce is a feminist too. “The female side is part of me. That’s who I am. That is hard for Bruce Jenner to say of course. Why? I don’t want to disappoint people.” He goes on to say, “Bruce is a lie, She is not a lie.”
While talking to Sawyer, Jenner listed various times in his life when he tried to come out to family members, wives, and lovers. After telling each of them his story a cloak of silence descended around the subject and the issue was never mentioned again; that’s a common phenomenon. You can come out to people about being trans and they will find it very easy to quickly drop the subject and act like it never happened. They don’t want to see you for who you are so they just keep seeing who they want you to be—the real you is suddenly a stranger they don’t want to know. Coming out as trans would be an especially tricky issue for an iconic figure like Jenner whose livelihood is dependent on his history as a great sports figure. So whether it’s due to transphobia, ignorance or simple selfishness, people often don’t want to talk about what a transperson is experiencing, or don’t know how to talk about it.
But the truth is, transpeople feel the same way. We know how we feel, but we’re not always sure how to put it into words. It takes time for us to figure out the appropriate language with which to express our truths and sometimes it can only be done through trial and error; we need to do things in our own way and in our own time.
In the last few years there has been a major shift in the public’s attitudes towards transgender people, thanks to the hard work and tenacity of gender activists and role models who have slowly changed the attitudes of the public and the media. This can be seen by the current national obsession with transgender youth, Jenner’s story, and so many others who have remained in the shadows who now feel free to publicly express their true selves.
In the first four minutes of the interview, Jenner spoke in very non-binaristic language, but as the conversation went on it became more and more about his being a woman. In my experience, using language which reinforces the gender binary is the simplest and quickest way to communicate that you are trans in a way that forces cisgender people to understand that you aren’t in a state of ambivalence. I love that Jenner said, “I hate ‘Girl stuck in s boy’s body.’ I’m me.” By saying that Bruce isn’t saying he isn’t a woman. Maybe he is. He did give out mixed messages, which is totally understandable and perfectly fine. There’s a whole gender spectrum for all of us to explore and we can inhabit different parts of that spectrum at various times in our lives. One thing is certain, Jenner clearly stated that he has the soul of a woman, but doesn’t want to change people’s memories of him as a legendary athlete and father. Even those accomplishments, however, don’t lessen the transphobic remarks he has endured, or the dangers and difficulties he faces while being chased and harassed by the press.
I confess I don’t find Bruce Jenner to be particularly likable, but that doesn’t matter. I do find his story to be worth following because it is a rare example of someone helping to create a space in which people who grew up in more oppressive times feel like they can begin a journey of later life reclamation—to freely seek out their most authentic selves at any age. To make drastic changes when you’ve been an adult for so long takes courage—and isn’t always easy—but we should be never stop exploring and growing. Jenner has an amazing journey ahead of him as he begins to discover who She really is.
When I began taking estrogen at the age of 49, I had no idea what was in store for me. It’s been a roller coaster ride; there’s no way I could have predicted the changes—physically, psychologically, and emotionally. All of these changes have affected my relationships in profound ways. Lucky for Jenner, his many children are, for the most part, very supportive and loving, which should go a long way toward making his journey a fulfilling one.
I think it’s great that Bruce is keeping some things to himself. We’ll see if that strategy lasts for long. It could be that with his new reality show looming on the horizon a lot of his present discretion is mainly to keep people in the dark until the series kicks off. Call me cynical, but I have a feeling that In the blink of an eye we’ll find out whether or not he’s decided to take the advice he received from his step-daughter Khloe Kardashian: “If you’re living your life as a woman you gotta have the va-jay-jay.”
Oh my.
Until we get confirmation on 'the va-jay-jay’ let’s take Bruce at his word, "I just want to have a free soul and have great friends.“ With a free soul an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the Twitterverse, there are plenty of people who want to get to know the new Her.
