As the world watched last night, Bruce Jenner revealed what the media had been speculating on for nearly a year. He (as he said last night, he has separated his female self and gave this interview as Bruce) sat across from ABC’s Diane Sawyer and bravely told his story:
“I’m not stuck in anybody’s body. My brain is much more female than male. For all intents and purposes, I am a woman. People look at me differently. 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. I was not genetically born that way. … As of now I have all the male parts and all that kind of stuff so in a lot of ways we’re different, but we still identify as female. And that’s very hard for Bruce Jenner today. Why? I don’t want to disappoint people.”
Jenner’s stepdaughter Kim Kardashian said on Friday that her family members planned to watch the program together…
“I think everybody can learn from his story and I’m excited for him to be able to share that,” Kardashian said when asked what her daughter, North, can eventually learn from Jenner. We all just support him 100 percent. I hate so badly when I see things [like] my mom doesn’t support him, or this sister doesn’t support him. It’s all just a story that people want to put out there. None of us have spoken and we’re letting Bruce speak first.”
Jenner said he was sexually attracted to women and still is, making clear the difference between gender and sexuality. Was being on Keeping Up With the Kardashians a bad thing? He said, no. It now gives him a platform to be able to have real impact:
“We’re going to change the world. I really firmly believe that we’re going to make a difference in the world.”
One of the best lines of the night was intentionally ironic. When further asked about being on the Kardashians for all those years, Bruce said;
“This whole thing, the one real true story in the family is the one I was hiding and nobody knew about it… I had THE story all along.”
…and WHAT a story. Support for Jenner appeared all over as the interview was still in progress. GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis told The Huffington Post:
“Today, millions of people learned that someone they know is transgender. By sharing this story, Bruce Jenner has shined a light on what it means to be transgender and live authentically in the face of unimaginable public scrutiny. Though Jenner’s journey is one that is deeply personal, it is also one that will impact and inspire countless people around the world.”
Boy is that for sure. And even though Jenner said he’s not a spokesperson for the trans community, he, more than can be measured, helped cause last night by being true to himself. Screw the pronouns, that’s a brave PERSON!
(via The Huffington Post)
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