Bruce Jenner has confirmed that she identifies as a woman, ending years of rumour and speculation that shone an uncomfortable light on the transgender community.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all intents and purposes I\u2019m a woman,\u201d she said, loosening her hair from a ponytail.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at it this way \u2013 Bruce always telling a lie. He\u2019s lived a lie his whole life about who he is. And I can\u2019t do that any longer. My brain is much more female than it is male. It\u2019s hard for people to understand that, but that\u2019s what my soul is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s and sisters\u2019 closets. \u201cAt the time I didn\u2019t know why I was doing it besides it just made me feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The habit continued into adulthood while travelling as a motivational speaker. \u201cI\u2019d literally go up into the hotel room, change [into women\u2019s] clothes, and walk around.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see you as this macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life \u2013 it is part of me. That female side is part of me. That\u2019s who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millions were expected to tune in to the two-hour 20\/20 special, which followed a months-long tabloid frenzy over Jenner\u2019s changing appearance.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Jenner was reportedly not paid for the interview.<\/p>\n
In one of the interview\u2019s few lighter moments she laughed off suggestions that the transition was a stunt to promote Keeping up with the Kardashians. \u201cYeah we\u2019re doing this for publicity. Yeah right.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, going public, and having the show as a platform, could aid understanding of transgender people, Jenner said. \u201cWhat I\u2019m doing is going to do some good. And we\u2019re going to change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner said Laverne Cox, a transgender actor on the TV drama Orange is the New Black, had advised her about transitioning in public. \u201cI would like to work with this community to get this message out. They know a lot more than I know \u2026 I am not a spokesman for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Further surgery or treatment was an area of uncertainty. \u201cAs of now I have all the male parts and all that kind of stuff, so in a lot of ways we\u2019re different, OK?\u201d Jenner told Sawyer. \u201cBut we still identify as female. And that\u2019s very hard for Bruce Jenner to say. Because why? I don\u2019t want to disappoint people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Olympian sounded upbeat but uncertain about the future. \u201cI hope I\u2019m going to be OK. I feel that I\u2019m going to be OK. 2015 is going to be quite a ride. Quite a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier on Friday Jenner\u2019s step-daughter, Kim Kardashian, said the family would watch the broadcast together. Jenner\u2019s third wife, Kris Kardashian, made no immediate comment.<\/p>\n
Jenner has six biological children and four stepchildren through marriage to Kris. The couple split last year.<\/p>\n
Jenner\u2019s 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\u2019s second wife, Linda Thompson, also took to Instagram in praise.<\/p>\n
The transgender community expressed mixed feelings in advance of the broadcast \u2013 some hoping for a milestone, others fearing media exploitation.<\/p>\n
Sarah Kate Ellis, the head of GLAAD, issued a statement welcoming the interview, saying it would impact and inspire countless people. \u201cToday millions of people learned that someone they know is transgender.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner\u2019s evolving appearance has fuelled intrusive and copious tabloid coverage in recent months. Paparazzi with telephoto lenses have staked out Jenner\u2019s movements and his home in Malibu, prompting Los Angeles County sheriff\u2019s deputies to visit the house earlier this week.<\/p>\n
The media circus dented growing acceptance of transgender people, lamented the Los Angeles Times television critic, Mary McNamara. \u201cAfter all the strides made by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in recent years, we\u2019re back to gawking at what appears to be the sight of someone we consider a man wearing a dress.\u201d She said the media\u2019s obsession with Jenner had gone from \u201cstalkerish to zoological\u201d.<\/p>\n
The New York-born Olympian\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Jenner said she could no longer \u201cpull the curtains\u201d on her identity. \u201cI\u2019ve built a nice little life, I just can\u2019t \u2013 again, Bruce lives a lie. She is not a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner continued: \u201cIf I die, which, I could be diagnosed next week with cancer \u2013 and boom, you\u2019re gone. I would be so mad at myself that I didn\u2019t explore that side of me, you know? And I don\u2019t want that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bruce Jenner has confirmed that she identifies as a woman, ending years of rumour and speculation that shone an uncomfortable light on the transgender community. 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. \u201cFor all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":111526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-111525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-togbe-afede"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}