Being liberated from secrets is the best thing to happen to Caitlyn Jenner

From Olympic gold medalist as a man to the worlds most famous trans, Caitlyn Jenner has few secrets left. But as Suzanne Harrington finds from her book, being liberated from secrets is the best thing to happen to her.

CAITLYN Jenner, former Olympic decathlon gold medallist and hapless former patriarch of the Jenner Kardashian reality television industry, has just published a book, The Secrets Of My Life. Once you read it, you’ll realise she no longer has any secrets, which must be rather a relief to her. Caitlyn Jenner has been keeping secrets since she was eight years old, secretly dressing up in her mother’s clothes, thrilled at how it felt, terrified she’d get caught.

She was Bruce Jenner back then — in fact, she was Bruce Jenner until just two years ago, when a Vanity Fair cover story launched her as Caitlyn. (Her autobiography is co-written by Buzz Bissinger, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who wrote the Vanity Fair piece.) Caitlyn is 67, and has known all her life that she was a girl — yet it took her 65 years to make the transition (she had what she terms “the Final Surgery” this January — it “was a success — I feel not only wonderful but liberated.”)

What makes Caitlyn Jenner the most famous trans woman in the world is not just her connection to that extended television family whose names all start with K, but the fact that as an Olympic athlete, she used to be the butchest man on Earth. Muscles, stamina, gold medal focus. Bruce Jenner, decathlon winner at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and sought-after giver of motivational speeches thereafter, was secretly haunted.

“I go to bed with frustration and shame. I wake up with frustration and shame.” Bruce was an act. People “don’t know that I am not Bruce Jenner, but a woman I will come to call Caitlyn, who still has to be Bruce except for stolen moments here and there…where I can be my authentic self.” Meanwhile, massive muscled Bruce gave his motivational talks on achievement and power while secretly miserable, dressed in female clothes under his suit.

Born in New York State in 1949, as a child Bruce Jenner had dyslexia and body dysmorphia. He — and surrounding society — had no idea about either condition, so he pursued sport as an escape and distraction.

“I had low self esteem and identity issues,” Caitlyn told BBC’s Woman’s Hour. “Sport was an opportunity to prove myself.”

But once Bruce had won gold, taking the top prize and proving to himself, his family and his country that he was the best, there was the agonising loneliness of Now What.

As Bruce with his then wife Kris Kardashian.

“The Grand Diversion was over,” writes Caitlyn. As Bruce was named the ultimate American athlete, feted for his sporting prowess and with a budding career in television, all he wanted to do was transition. Yet it remained unthinkable — society wasn’t ready. Neither was he. “I became totally fixated on my gender identity and lived as a hermit much of the time,” Caitlyn recalls. Bruce even played golf alone.

Family life provided another long diversion when sporting glory ended. He had four children from two marriages when he met his third wife, Kris Kardashian, who already had four children of her own (the ones with K names). They married seven months after meeting in 1990, and had two more children together, so for the next 23 years Bruce helped raise his blended family, although Caitlyn admits candidly in the book that Bruce was not always a great dad, especially to his own four children in their earlier life. “For long periods of time I shamefully abandoned them,” she writes.

Kris Kardashian had been married to Robert Kardashian, defender of OJ Simpson — Caitlyn didn’t much like OJ (writing that he was “the most narcissistic, egocentric neediest asshole in the world of sport”). Together, he and Kris had a brainwave on how to monetise their telegenic children, and in 2007 Keeping Up With The Kardashians was born. The couple parted in 2015.

Since becoming Caitlyn, she has ceased to be quite such a loner.

“I like being around people now,” she writes. “I like parties, when for 65 years of my life I hated them because I felt socially awkward and insecure. I like them now because I am comfortable with myself.”

Caitlyn Jenner in her book, ‘The Secrets of my Life’ tells her story of social awkwardness and shame as a woman in a man’s body.

Perhaps the most eye-popping aspect of Caitlyn Jenner’s entire story is that she voted for Donald Trump. “It’s been harder to come out as a Republican than as a trans woman,” she told one interviewer. However, her disillusionment with Trump has been swift, as she remains active in her support for trans rights .

“I will never stop fighting on behalf of the trans community here. I love America. Whatever political views I have, they will never interfere with a community that has been so unfairly maligned and marginalised. If I can move the needle an inch, then I have moved something.”

She remains single.

“I face my mortality, and I don’t want to face it alone,” she writes. “My mom worries about me becoming lonely again. She thinks it would be nice for me to find a companion.