Before we can find our true selves, many of us have to go through a lot of hard things in life. Those who are still struggling can find hope in the story of Caitlyn Jenner. Caitlyn Jenner was able to accept herself for who she was and stop being Bruce. Hopefully, her story will show you how important it is to stick with your goals and not give up until you reach them.
Since she was a child, Caitlyn has known how hard it is to get to the top.
Caitlyn has been interested in sports since she was a child. At school, she played basketball and football. And it was football that gave her the chance to go to college on a special scholarship. Her coach noticed how hard the future star worked and said,
always ahead of the line when we did warm-up laps and never ran out of steam.
But not many people know that Caitlyn had to struggle in life and on the field before she could fully use her athletic skills. This is because Caitlyn has trouble reading. At the time, not many people knew about this diagnosis, so her teachers just thought she was “lazy.”
The biggest problem with dyslexic kids is not the perceptual problem, it is their perception of themselves. That was my biggest problem. I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was. I’d look around to my peers, and everyone else could do this simple process of reading, but for me, it wasn’t working.
But that didn’t stop Caitlyn. Through sports, she grew and satisfied her desire to be successful. Even though she hurt herself once and couldn’t play football anymore, that didn’t stop her from going further. She started trying out for the decathlon. Within a few years, she won an Olympic gold medal and made her name in the world of sports for all time.
Even though Caitlyn’s athletic fame isn’t as big as it used to be, her Olympic stamina and hard work have helped her be successful in business, from advertising cereal to running her own company with big clients. Jenner’s film career, on the other hand, hasn’t gone as well as her sports career. Still, Caitlyn is a regular guest on a number of TV shows and programs. And that’s not even a full list of everything the star does.
Caitlyn Jenner tried to go against who she was and live like a normal man.
At the start of her athletic career, Caitlyn met Chrystie Scott, who would later become her wife and give birth to two of her children. Scott was with Jenner for 9 years. During that time, she saw her husband go from a young athlete to an Olympic legend. Chrystie had to push her way through a crowd of fans to congratulate the new champion after this win. But in the end, the marriage broke up. The couple broke up, which wasn’t a good thing for Caitlyn. Chrystie says that Caitlyn had already told her that she “always wanted to be a woman” back then. Scott was shocked, but he thanked her for trusting him and keeping the secret for years.
The next person Caitlyn Jenner married was the model and singer Linda Thompson. With her, Caitlyn has two wonderful children, and Thompson, in an honest essay about Jenner, says that their early years were like a fairy tale. What more could she want than a man who is ambitious, athletic, and happy to be with her?
But Caitlyn told her later what her secret was:
Bruce lamented, ‘I have lived in the wrong skin, the wrong body, my whole life. It is a living hell for me, and I really feel that I would like to move forward with the process of becoming a woman, the woman I have always been inside.’
Before Caitlyn Jenner was finally “born,” her last marriage was to Kristen.
It was a blind date. They both liked riding motorcycles and eating meat, which Caitlyn got from a café. Five months later, they got married in the backyard of a friend’s house. There was nothing fancy about it. It had only been a month since Kristen and Robert Kardashian split up. Even better, Caitlyn and Robert were still friends.
Caitlyn Jenner and Kristen were going to be together for 23 years, during which time “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” would become famous and they would have two more children.
But they did split up in 2013. Caitlyn says there were a few different reasons for this:
My identity, it was not a big part of us separating. There were so many other bigger issues out there. The only thing, I think, because of my frustration with myself, I might have been a little bit shorter with her near the end. But there were a lot of things going on.
“Bruce always telling a lie. He’s lived a lie his whole life about who he is. And I can’t do that any longer.”
This sentence divided Caitlyn’s life into “before” and “after” parts. Hormone therapy, which was first used in the 1980s, and secretly feminine clothes… All of that was behind her when, in 2015, Caitlyn gave an honest interview and told the world she was a woman. There were many people shouting about their newfound freedom:
People look at me differently. They see me as a macho male. But my heart and my soul, that female side, is part of me, that’s who I am. I was not genetically born that way. I hate that terminology ’girl stuck in a guy’s body.’ I’m me, I’m a person, this is who I am. I’m not stuck in anyone’s body, it’s just who I am.
Caitlyn’s only worry was how her family would react to the big news. But there was nothing to worry about because Jenner had the support of everyone in public. Kristen, her ex-wife, was one of the first to speak out after the interview:
https://twitter.com/KrisJenner/status/591804938256154624?s=20&t=pEldrU2vRKFuX9u-EObyUQ
Kylie was shocked, but she didn’t miss the chance to tell her father she loved him:
Understandingly, this has been very hard for me. You will hear what I have to say when I’m ready to but this isn’t about me. I’m so proud of you, Dad. You are so brave. My beautiful Hero.
Others close to her also found the warmest words of encouragement and posted photos of themselves and Caitlyn together. Her son from her second marriage, Brandon, shared a photo of himself as a child with the caption “Proud son.”
The public was abuzz, with most expressing support for Jenner, though some criticized the standing ovation. For example, Glamour magazine’s decision to make Caitlyn “woman of the year” was called both a publicity stunt and a misogynistic act. Angry comments poured in from every direction: comedians and late-night show hosts joked about Caitlyn, while the creators of the satirical series South Park often used her image in an unflattering way.
But Jenner was emotionally ready for it, especially since she had a lot of support, like her show, promotional contracts, awards, and kind words from people who cared about her. Everything was back to normal. And the star was on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine.
In her speech accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, Caitlyn made it clear to her critics that she would not only deal with angry comments herself, but also help other trans people, especially children:
If you want to call me names, make jokes and doubt my intentions, go ahead because the reality is I can take it. But for thousands of kids out there coming to terms with the reality of who they are they shouldn’t have to take it.
Which brave act gives you strength?
