The Secrets of My Life

by Caitlyn Jenner

  I can tell he couldn’t care less about my pleas. He’s going to print the story on their website, which will then go out all over the world with the all-but-certain implication I am becoming a woman.

  I go home that night. I try to sleep but wake up in the wee hours, knowing that a story is most likely going to come out in just a few hours. I pace back and forth across the hallway. The same thought goes through me over and over.

  You keep a gun in the house. Why not use it? Just get it over with.

  I cannot handle this. I cannot deal with this anymore. I have already been labeled a freak in the tabloids. It will only get worse, more paparazzi than ever pursuing and trying to make a buck off of me. And my children. First and foremost my children. I am still in the process of talking to each of them individually to explain the gender issues I have had all my life. And now they are going to see some story that humiliates them and humiliates me.

  I keep thinking the same thought.

  You keep a gun in the house. Why not just use it?

  I finally get a few hours of sleep. I leave the house the next morning and walk to an open field to get some air. I have one of my model helicopters with me. I love flying them; it’s my only other outlet besides golf to get away from the chaos when I lived with Kris and the kids. I put the helicopter down and just start walking.

  The breeze off the ocean helps revive me, clear my head. I realize that suicide is never the answer, although I can see how a trans person, in the heat of despair, could be driven to it. For all my pain, I have had a life that has been inspiring and positive to others. I have had every possible creature comfort. I don’t want to end it. I don’t want to put my kids through something like that. I think:

  What a terrible way to end my story.

  Why give Harvey and the tabloids the satisfaction? Because now I am curious to see how it all plays out. How does this story end?

  All I want now is for the whole public mess to die down. Which it eventually does. After about a month, in January 2014, I decide to go ahead with the tracheal shave. But this time I am going to be even more careful.

  I schedule the procedure at six thirty on a Sunday morning so no other patients will be there and the streets will be empty. I am driven to the office in Beverly Hills, once again by Ronda. We pull into a small alley. An assistant who works in the medical office is waiting at the back door. She lets me in, a distance of roughly two feet. The procedure takes about three hours. I am wearing a blue patient smock when I leave with a small bandage over my Adam’s apple. I am a little dazed after waking up from the anesthesia. My hair is a mess, frankly witch-like. I look out of it and awful. But who cares? I just want to get home so I can sleep.

  Ronda goes out the back door into the alleyway to get the car. She sees a security guard there. She returns with the car and the security guard is gone. She scans in every direction and doesn’t see any paparazzi. A nurse escorts me out the back door into the car, once again a distance of two feet.

  Roughly twenty-four hours later…

  I am home in Malibu when I get a call from a friend.

  Have you seen the Internet?

  No…

  There’s a picture of you with a bandage on your neck. They say it means you are becoming a woman.

  What?!

  I go on the Internet. The story is all over the place, further fueling the rumor that I am in the process of transitioning when I myself am still not sure. Thinking seriously about it? Yes. But remember, I came close once before and pulled back.

  Obviously a photographer was lurking in the shadows. But who tipped him off?

  Come to think of it, where did the security guard go?

  It seems that for every precaution I take there is always one more I should have taken. Like maybe never leaving the house at all. Why is everything so complicated? I am just trying to be me, find peace in my soul, and all I do is get destroyed publicly for it and laughed at.

  Maybe I should leave Malibu, where I have lived for much of my forty years since the Olympics. Maybe it’s better for everyone, including me, to disappear, go somewhere remote. There must be one place in the world where there aren’t paparazzi and paid snitches. It is familiar soul-searching again with a slightly more emphatic result:

  Fuck all these assholes.

  They are not going to dictate my life. They are not going to make me leave a place I love. I am not giving in to them. Nor am I going to make it any easier for them. They want to take a picture of me, they are going to have to work their asses off for it.

  The Internet uproar over the tracheal shave has made it clear: if I am ever to come to a resolution about my life, I must finish talking to all the kids and tell them about my struggle.

  I must also stop fooling around with God.

  It’s time for each of us to put our cards on the table.

  I go to a church called the California Community Church. Kris and I founded it. The pastor there is Brad Johnson, and I trust him and feel I must talk to him privately about what I am going through and what God really thinks. Does God love me? Has he always loved me? Will he still love me? Why did he do this to me? Was it a test of my strength or a condemnation? As I have now discovered, so many trans men and women have asked themselves the very same questions.

  Why did God do this to me? Is there a reason, and what is the reason?

  Perhaps Pastor Brad can help me find answers.

  It is a beautiful day in Malibu when I meet with him at my beachfront rental. There is a particular chair I favor in the dining area because it overlooks the Pacific Ocean and I can hear the waves crashing. Brad comes in and I sit him down in the chair so he is comfortable. I sit facing him and begin to talk.

  I have some things that have been going through my head all my life, and you may be a little shocked by this. I am going to tell you a lot of things about me that you may not understand, but I will do my best to explain them. This is what I’ve dealt with all my life.

  Brad just listens.

  I sometimes think that when God looked down and made little Bruce, he decided to give me all these great qualities. He decided to make me handsome. He decided to make me a great athlete. He decided to make me kind. He decided to make me smart and articulate. He gave me more than any person could possibly hope for. Perfect, really. And then he threw in one little curveball to see how I would do with it, something to balance it all out and make my life a little more challenging and interesting. He decided to give me the soul of a female.

  It was the only way I could justify in my heart that God was not condemning me but was testing my strength and resolve.

  Brad then spoke. He still didn’t say much. But what he did say spoke volumes.

  God is not judging you. He loves you. We are all different.

  I did feel great strength after I heard that. It was a turning point in going through transition without turning back.

  God does love me. I have not committed a sin. Maybe this is the reason God put me on this earth, to live an authentic life and bring the issue of gender forward. But God is still challenging me. It is not going to be easy. But now I will have his faith to fall back on.

  It’s still not going to be easy.

  In the process of telling all my kids, I had purposely started with Brandon because of his Gandhi-esque temperament. If anyone was going to be empathetic and supportive, I figured it would be him. I talked openly. We talked openly. He was not surprised, since his mom had told him long ago of my gender dysphoria after he wanted to know why I had breasts. I think in some sense he had been waiting for roughly twenty years.

  After we talked for a while he said this to me:

  Dad, I’ve always been proud to be your son. When I go to the airport and they ask for my ID, they always say, “Hey, is your dad Bruce Jenner? Oh, we love Bruce. He comes through here, and he’s so nice.” But Dad, I’ve never been more proud of you than I am right now.

  I think that may be the nicest and most important thing anyone h
as ever said to me. If I could have just stopped with Brandon, I would be home free.

  But nine still to go.

  The older Jenner kids, in their thirties at this point, are wonderful. Like Brandon, Burt and Casey were told of my issues when they were younger and were not surprised. They, too, are euphoric for me and also proud. Brody had not been told anything until his late twenties, and was shocked and stunned. But he also felt it explained a great deal about my emotional distance and absence from his life and the lives of his siblings.

  If you can’t be comfortable with yourself, how can you truly be comfortable with anyone?

  Then I start with the Kardashians. Kim basically already knows and is totally supportive. So is Kourtney. Khloé has the hardest time with it. She is upset because I never specifically told her I was going to transition. She is right: at that time I still did not know what I was going to do, if transition was even possible. It is something Khloé and I should talk about privately, as we have on many occasions on other sensitive subjects. But we have not, although I have tried. We have not been the same since.

  Kendall and Kylie are nineteen and seventeen. Which also makes telling them the most difficult of all. I am not sure if they will understand it. Kids at that age are still tender and prone to embarrassment. They, too, are supportive. But the question posed by Kendall reverberates:

  So, do we still call you Dad?

  Yes. I’ll be your dad always.

  They have called me that ever since.

  I passed an incredible hurdle in my life by telling all the kids about my issues.

  I think I am about ready to transition.

  There is only one problem.

  How am I going to do this without being subjected to even more worldwide ridicule than I already have been? The idea of a man becoming a woman is still shocking and weird to people, ghoulishly funny. There is no place to hide.

  I could move to the Sahara, and the paparazzi and the tabloids would find me.

  It wouldn’t become a serious story but a tabloid one: JENNER FOUND ALIVE IN DRESS! It is too important a story, not just for me but for the trans community, to land in the gutter. It’s been in the gutter since the 1980s. I am not going to let it stay there.

  There is only one solution: better call Nierob.

  I have not worked with Alan at Rogers and Cowan for a quarter of a century. I haven’t spoken to him and am not even sure he still works there. He was a cub when he handled me in the 1980s, helping me through the storm of the New York Times when the rumors were rife. I knew through the grapevine that he had become one of the top public relations executives in Hollywood. He knows everyone and is highly regarded for his no-bullshit approach, not one of these people who only tell you what you want to hear.

  I assume he has branched out to his own firm. But just for the hell of it I call directory assistance for Rogers and Cowan in Beverly Hills. Then I dial the number. A receptionist answers.

  Can I help you?

  Alan Nierob.

  One second, please.

  My God, he still works there.

  Hello?

  Alan, it’s Bruce Jenner.

  His first instinct is to make sure I am okay, that the mainstream media is not looking to do a story that will blow up my life.

  Are you all right?

  I’m fine.

  That’s good.

  I bet you’ve been waiting for this call for the last thirty years.

  No, not really.

  It’s good to know that he hasn’t changed a drop.

  Alan, you gotta come out this weekend. We have to sit down and talk.

  We make a date. I sit him down in the exact same chair as Pastor Brad (it’s my lucky chair). He already knows my story and gender issues, so I don’t have to recite them again. There is one new wrinkle since we spoke about it in the 1980s.

  I think I am truly ready to transition and would like to do it without being inserted into the media meat cleaver. It is also a story that needs context, as much about the transgender community and the problems it faces as about me.

  How the hell can we pull this off? It cannot be something that’s in the gutter because it’s there right now with the tabloids. We have to find the right people who can tell this story with compassion.

  Alan immediately mentions Diane Sawyer because of her reputation on sensitive stories, fair and firm but no pulling of punches and end-arounds.

  He, of course, knows her and her producer Mark Robertson.

  We move on to print. Alan asks me point-blank:

  What would be your ideal dream choice in print?

  Vanity Fair.

  It is a highly credible news source. It does detailed profiles and is celebrity-driven. It’s also edgy and likes to push the envelope a little bit.

  Wanting Diane Sawyer and Vanity Fair are fine: just about everybody wants them when they think they have a story to tell. But actually getting them interested…

  How are we gonna do this?

  Let’s see if I can deliver.

  Alan issues only one caveat:

  I can’t effectively do this by committee. It’s me and you.

  Alan is aware I have ten children, none of whom shrink when it comes to opinion.

  I’m in.

  Mark Robertson flies out to Los Angeles the following week to meet me. Brandon is there. So is Alan. So is Ronda, whose competence and loyalty and friendship have been unlike those in any relationship I have ever had. All of them are protective of me, which makes me feel better. They are also aware of my propensity to say yes just to please someone.

  Robertson is a straight shooter. Nor does he need much convincing that this is a legitimate and worthy story.

  I would love to do this.

  His sense is that Diane will jump at it as well. But she is on sabbatical: in the space of several weeks her husband, Mike Nichols, and her mother have died. The tragedy is incomprehensible. When Robertson goes to her apartment and approaches her in New York about the idea, she is still understandably shaken by all the losses she had to face so quickly. Robertson realizes that this simply isn’t a good time. He comes back the next day and tells Diane about me and my readiness to talk openly. Diane does not hesitate. She wants to do it. She thinks it is a worthy story that will help people and make a difference. It will also be her first piece coming back to work, give her something to dive into, and help take her mind off the tragedies she has experienced.

  As for Vanity Fair, editor Graydon Carter already broached the idea of getting my cooperation for a story, given all the rumors. Alan does not know that. He independently approaches Jane Sarkin at Vanity Fair. She is the features editor of the magazine and has known Alan for close to thirty years. She has handled a slew of sensitive Vanity Fair cover stories and photographs and also has a very close relationship with photographer Annie Leibovitz. Alan trusts Jane. Jane trusts Alan. He knows she will make sure the story is handled fairly and with sensitivity. She knows that when Alan promises something, in this case complete access to me for several months, he will not insist on a million conditions. Alan has a private conversation with Jane in early 2015. Roughly two days later he calls me.

  Okay, you got the cover of Vanity Fair.

  Holy crap, are you kidding me? I am doing this.

  The magazine chooses contributing editor Buzz Bissinger to write the story. I am familiar with the book he wrote about high school football in Texas, Friday Night Lights. Alan vets Buzz with an old friend he grew up with in Los Angeles, Fred Mann, an editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer when Buzz worked there. Mann says he is firm and prickly, can be tough, but is also fair. Alan has also read some of Buzz’s other work, a book he wrote about his brain-injured son called Father’s Day and an intriguingly bizarre piece for GQ about his extreme leather fetish. He fits all the criteria: writing about sports, parenting, and, perhaps most important of all, what it is like to be different.

  The pieces are in place. But this is an undeniably big story. Not just f
or the public but for me. Bigger for me. How my transition will be perceived will be contingent on how I am portrayed. Diane Sawyer will go first in an exclusive interview on ABC’s 20/20 set to air on April 24, 2015. I will tell her I am transitioning (in fact I already have when the piece runs, since the actual interview was in February). This is about Bruce’s struggle, what he has been dealing with all his life. So Caitlyn will not appear nor will her name be mentioned.

  Roughly two months later, Vanity Fair will reveal my name for the first time on the cover, along with an Annie Leibovitz portrait. Alan is determined that we own the story and tell it the way we want to tell it. He doesn’t want a complete circus. The way he sees it, the 20/20 interview is saying goodbye to Bruce and Vanity Fair is saying hello to Caitlyn.

  I am very nervous when Diane comes to the beachfront home in Malibu to interview me. The segment is scheduled for one hour. But after Diane interviews me for five hours she goes to her bosses and says the segment now needs to be two hours. I trust her totally.

  Often journalists are preoccupied with questions about genitalia instead of the bigger, more pertinent issues at hand. When Orange Is the New Black actress Laverne Cox, who set a landmark for the transgender community with her recurring role on the show, was asked about her genitalia, she gave the perfect answer: “The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people. And then we don’t get to really deal with the real lived experiences.”

  Just because you are a trans woman or man, why does the media think such a question is okay? Just because you are a trans person, it doesn’t mean you have to answer every question. The implication of it is obvious: you’re not the real thing unless you have had gender-affirming surgery. It is beyond malarkey. You don’t have to do a single thing physically to be a trans man or woman. There is no rulebook.

  To trans women and men, such a question is the equivalent of asking a cisgender man how his ejaculation went today or a cisgender woman how her period is going. In other words, it’s inappropriate and offensive unless a trans woman or man brings it up on their own. Sadly, it is the thing the public is preoccupied with the most, and you feel pinned into a corner and have no choice but to answer it once so there will be no more speculation. Which there will be anyway.