FORMER OLYMPIC CHAMPION and reality TV star Bruce Jenner has told the world that he is transgender.
In a US TV interview with Diane Sawyer, Jenner – who is a step-father to the Kardashian sisters – said that “for all intents and purposes, I am a woman”.
He told Sawyer of trying on his mother’s and sister’s dresses as a youngster.
“I’m not this bad person,” said Jenner, who hoped the two-hour interview could help others struggling with gender identity issues. “I’m just doing what I have to do.”
Jenner will be part of an E! network documentary about his transition that will begin airing in July in the US.
The two-hour interview with Diane Sawyer was filmed in February in Los Angeles and New York, before a fatal car accident in which Jenner was involved.
Jenner said he self-identifies as “her,” not a specific name. But he told Sawyer he felt comfortable using the pronouns “he” and “him,” a designation that is an important issue for many in the transgender community, which believes that transgender people should be referred to by the pronouns with which they choose to identify.
Jenner said his “brain is more female than it is male.” He said he began gender reassignment therapy in the 1980s — taking hormones, having surgery to make his nose smaller and having hair removed from his face and chest — but gave it up.
As Jenner, 65, got older, he realised that if he got sick and faced death without facing up to this issue, “I’d be so mad that I didn’t explore that side of my life.”
He added that he is not gay and did not know if he would undergo gender reassignment surgery.
Jenner’s four oldest children appeared on the interview special to support their father, but not the two girls he had with Kris Kardashian. He said his stepdaughter Kim has been a big supporter, urged on by husband Kanye West, but that his stepdaughter Khloe was taking it the hardest.
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