For those that are interested, Bruce Jenner will have a documentary series/reality show on tv beginning July 26 about his transition.
I thought it was really well done and as someone who has never met a transgendered person, I thought it was done in a very informative, thoughtful manner.
I agree with the other assessments. The interview was conducted with care, respect and dignity. Well done on all sides.
Is the show called TransJenner?
Did Jenner say why zie did this interview presenting as a man? I’m naive about transgender people and how transitioning works. I would have expected that once Jenner realized zie must live as a woman because zie is and has always been a woman, zie would want to be interviewed presenting as zir true self, a woman.
I am glad to hear that, Pizzagirl. But I still have no interest in watching it, any more than I’ve watched other interviews/shows about trans people in recent years, or read any published memoirs. I don’t need to be reminded so viscerally of a difficult time in my own life. (Especially since tomorrow happens to be the 10th anniversary of my transition – the day I started living 24/7 as myself.) It’s different reading short news articles because there’s more distance, and less of an instinctive tendency to empathize in a painful way than there is when I’m actually watching and listening to someone who’s going through what I went through, or when I’m reading an entire book.
The fact that Jenner is doing a reality show makes me feel a little queasy. Not that I think the interview was all for “publicity,” as some rather nasty comments and articles elsewhere on the Internet have suggested, but it is clear that Jenner is saving the “big reveals” for his own series – e.g., presenting in public as a woman, using female pronouns, and revealing the female first name that he has chosen. (I am using a male pronoun to refer to Jenner here only because he apparently stated, during the interview, that for the time being he prefers it – even though he did use “she” and “her” to refer to himself in the third person. I have my doubts as to the wisdom of this course of action, with respect to the effect both on himself and other trans people when it comes to pronoun usage, but I do respect that the pace of his “coming out” is his choice, and that he probably feels that a gradual approach is better for someone who, like him, has been in the public eye as a man for most of four decades now.)
Cardinal Fang: I didn’t see it, but from all reports, he explicitly stated that he prefers the male pronoun “he” for now. Why not respect his choice?
ETA: i posted this before DonnaL’s post appeared. In reading news reports, it sounds like he is doing the reality shoe because he thinks it will advance the cause. The bottom line is he still wants to be called he; his motives are really none of our concerns.
Cardinal Fang, I think I may have given something of an answer to your question (albeit inadvertently) in my just-posted comment.
I have not read this thread, nor did I see the interview (so my apologies if this has already been addressed), but in reports, it is really bugging me that they’re referring to him as having gender “issues.”
“Issues” is just such a loaded word and it’s just really rubbing me the wrong way.
There are many XY women. They are not (necessarily) trans.
Just like there are many XX men. Same thing.
ETA: Oops, see someone addressed this already. (That’s what I get for not following along!)
I think Bruce Jenner is happy, truly happy, for the first time in his life. Kind of a kick in the pants when you think about it. A golden boy, an American hero, a gold medal, a celebrity, a few trophy wives and model looking kids and the whole time he wasn’t completely happy because he wasn’t living his life the way he really felt.
He has his own place now. He has explained things to his kids. He has money. Now he can live as he wants. He said he started taking female hormones in the 80’s. They are working. He looks thin, not even close to the masculine hunk he used to be. Better late than never. It took serious guts to make the decision to do what he is doing and it took guts to share it with the world, not that he had a choice, but to look into the camera and do it.
The segment about how his father would have reacted was very emotional and I am not the kind of guy that usually gets emotional watching TV. Very emotional. His dad had been dead 14 years, WW II vet, landed on Omaha beach during D-Day, that kind of guy. That is tough stuff right there. That is not easy and even though I’ve not been though that I can imagine how tough that would be. His mom said such beautiful things, all of his family, except Kris, who chose not to comment, did. They all said such really sincere and beautiful things.
I can’t help but be really happy today for Bruce Jenner.
DonnaL, not to be nosy, but I hope you are as happy now as BJ is. It must take serious guts to do what you have done. At the end of the day, we all want our families to love us, be proud of us, protect us and respect us. We are all the same even though some are gay, straight, male, female, etc.
I only saw still photos of the interview. Jenner looked so much classier than Kim, Khloe, and the rest of the Kardashian clan.
Well, Kim and Kanye have been very supportive, according to Bruce.
“How a bright boy with a penchant for tinkering grew up to be one of the top women in her high-tech field”
Posting here the story of Lynn Conway, a professor emeritus at UM, who transitioned years ago when it was much more taboo.
http://articles.latimes.com/print/2000/nov/19/magazine/tm-54188
“Robert” was a brilliant engineer at IBM, married with two little daughters even though from a very early age he felt he ought to dress, act and look female. One night his wife woke to hear him sobbing in another room…she found him holding a handgun on the verge of suicide. He told her he had to live as a woman or he could not go on living. Back then, it was such a wrenching decision because it meant not only divorcing from his wife, but doing so with no legal right to continue to see his children.
The article is five years old, but it’s still a fascinating portrait of someone born with a body that was anatomically perfect yet “profoundly inappropriate.”
I see it differently. I think he has had gender “issues” his entire life, meaning that his entire life he has been viewed as/been expected to be very male, when in fact in his soul he is female. THAT is an “issue;” not that he identifies as female, but that he was tortured for decades with the reality of those expectations that he be male. Not only male, but VERY male.
JMO and I may be completely off the mark.
ETA: I’m watching the interview right now, and he uses the terminology “my issues” when referring to the gender conflict as separate from sexual orientation.
I thought it was very well done. I never watched the Kardashian show and have to admit that while the interview was tasteful the idea of a reality show bothers me just because the Kardashian/Jenner clan has been so overexposed and has made so much money letting America watch their lives. Anyhow, I think BJ used the word “issues” a number of times which makes it okay for the media to use it since they are referencing the interview. I thought it was helpful to have the explanation of the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. I think that is something that is hard for a lot of people to understand and that DS did a good job addressing those issues without being salacious.
Just finished the interview. I also thought it was very well done. Bruce comes off as a really fine person. As I said before, I’ve seen many of the Kardashian shows, and he seemed like such an outstanding, normal, good guy. I loved what one of the experts said: “If this was a good person before the transition, he/she will be a good person afterwards.” Maybe not an exact quote, but close enough. I thought that was a very important point to make.
The segments with his kids had me very teary. How wonderful to get that love and support from the people he loves the most. I imagine many transgenders do not receive the same love and acceptance from their families. And that’s really gotta hurt.
This sounds snippy, but I can’t help wondering if he will donate some of his future pay checks to research.
Yes, that sounds snippy to me. 
DonnaL, I can certainly understand how you don’t want to watch the interview. Some things I see trigger a painful memory in my life and I have to turn.
One thing you said resonated with me. You said 10 years ago I started living as me. Bruce Jenner said those words almost verbatim. I was really touched when you wrote that statement.
I was also touched by his kids. Bruce Jenner seems to have done something right with his kids to have brought up such supportive caring children. If you can say nothing else about him or the circus that is the Kardashian’s, what his kids did means a lot. To me.