Caitlyn Jenner feels that ‘old Bruce’ still lives inside her
One of the most well-known athletes of the 1970s was Caitlyn Jenner. At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, she set a new world record and took home a gold medal.
She became a national hero as a result of her decathlon victory, which opened doors for her to pursue a career in entertainment, sponsorship deals, and celebrity.
She spent the majority of her life struggling with her gender identification, despite her public persona as the embodiment of masculinity.
Born in Mount Kisco, New York, on October 28, 1949, as William Bruce Jenner, Jenner showed remarkable physical talent at a young age. Despite her struggles with dyslexia, she found solace in sports.v
She was a standout track and field, football, and basketball player in high school.
She subsequently turned her attention to track and field, and she was awarded a football scholarship to Graceland College in Iowa. But she had to completely focus on track and field after suffering a knee injury, which ultimately altered the trajectory of her life.
As a decathlete, a sport that demanded proficiency in ten distinct track and field events, Jenner’s coach, L.D. Weldon, recognized her potential.
She trained diligently under Weldon’s tutelage and took home the 1971 Kansas Relays title.
She qualified for the U.S. Olympic squad the following year and finished eighth in the decathlon at the Olympics in Munich.
Jenner spent up to eight hours a day perfecting her talents during the next four years of intense training because she was determined to get better.
Her hard work came off magnificently in Montreal during the 1976 Olympic Games.
She set a new world record with 8,618 points to win the gold medal in the decathlon at the age of 26. The triumph occurred during a period when the United States was coping with the fallout from the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War.
Jenner was celebrated as an American hero, and her victory gave the country much-needed pride. She became a symbol of power and masculinity with her athletic physique and flowing hair, but on the inside, she felt cut off from the identity that the world praised.
Jenner entered a life of celebrity and financial success after winning the Olympics. She rose to fame, landing endorsement deals with big-name companies and appearing in movies and television shows. Although it was mostly symbolic, she was even selected by the Kansas City Kings in the NBA draft.
Nevertheless, Jenner felt empty on the inside despite the recognition and financial achievement. She later disclosed that she felt like a fake, unable to show the world who she really was while standing on stages getting applause.
While training for the Olympics, Jenner married Chrystie Scott, a flight attendant, in 1971. Both Burt and Cassandra were born to the couple.
However, Jenner’s issues with gender identification played a part in the 1981 divorce that ended their marriage.
Although Chrystie was among the first individuals Jenner confided in about these difficulties, she was not quite aware of the depth of Jenner’s internal conflict at the time.
In 1981, Jenner married Linda Thompson after divorcing Chrystie. Brandon and Brody were their two sons. Jenner’s continuous battles with gender identification played a part in their final split in 1986, despite the fact that their relationship appeared stable at first. Later,
Thompson said she was supportive of Jenner’s transition and hoped it would encourage others going through similar struggles.
Jenner was suffering from a serious case of depression by the late 1980s. In the early phases of her transition, she started taking estrogen, had her nose done, and even had facial hair electrolyzed out.
Before turning forty, she intended to complete her transformation. But compared to now, public perceptions of transgender people were much less tolerant back then.
Jenner stopped the transition process and retreated into the Bruce Jenner persona out of fear of the possible outcomes.
Kendall and Kylie are the couple’s two daughters. Jenner married Kris Jenner in 1991. Due to Jenner’s renewed prominence brought about by the success of the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the marriage, which lasted until 2015, was widely reported.
She still battled her gender identity in private, even though she played the role of the family patriarch on the show.
Jenner begun her transition shortly after her separation from Kris in 2013. She was first afraid of her children’s responses, so she kept her plans a secret.
But in an interview with Diane Sawyer in 2015, she came out as transgender. Although there was a lot of praise for the announcement, there was also significant controversy and backlash.
Jenner formally changed her name to Caitlyn after undergoing gender confirmation surgery after her public disclosure. She starred in the reality series I Am Cait, which chronicled her experiences as a transgender woman, and wrote about her transition path in her memoir, The Secrets of My Life.