February 5,
2015 NICHOLAS KRISTOF
When I was a
growing up, yearning with my pals to be a track star, one of our heroes was
Bruce Jenner. He won a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics in the decathlon, and he
adorned our Wheaties boxes. We all wanted to be Bruce Jenner.
I haven't
thought much about him in years. But Jenner is in the news again, widely
reported to be preparing to come out as a transgender woman.
At first,
there were snickers, but, lately, the tone has been respectful. And news
reports say Jenner is planning to chronicle the transition in a program for E!
television channel and in an interview with Diane Sawyer for ABC News. All
this, and comments by family members, suggest that Jenner is willing to be a
role model and help educate the world on transgender issues.
Radar Online
quoted his mother, Esther Jenner, as confirming the news and saying she was
prouder of him now than when he won his gold medal. His stepdaughter, Kim
Kardashian, told ''Entertainment Tonight'' that it was Jenner's story to tell
but added: ''I think he'll share whenever the time is right.''
Good for
Jenner. All this is probably harder than the training for the Olympic decathlon
-- but more important, because transgender people face hate crimes and
discrimination at an astonishing rate.
Remember
Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old gay university student in Wyoming who in 1998
was tied to a fence, badly beaten and left to die? That was seen as the ultimate
hate crime and now seems to belong to a different era.
Yet, just so
far this year, at least three transgender people have been reported murdered in
the United States. The Human Rights Campaign issued a report the other day
listing 13 transgender women murdered in 2014: They were shot, strangled,
burned and beaten.
''Violence is
something that is disproportionately affecting transgender people -- and for
specific reasons,'' says Elizabeth Halloran of the Human Rights Campaign.
''Inability to access employment, housing and safety-net services, as well as
family rejection, all conspire to create a reality that makes transgender
people -- especially transgender people of color, transgender women and
transgender people living poverty -- more vulnerable to violence.''
Vincent Paolo
Villano of the National Center for Transgender Equality said that there has
been progress in laws protecting transgender Americans, but that public
attitudes remain a problem.
Sex and gender
are such befuddling mysteries even for those of us who are in the mainstream
that you'd think we'd be wary of being judgmental. Yet much of society clings
to a view that gender is completely binary, when, in fact, there's overwhelming
evidence of a continuum.
And
considering the violence and discrimination that transgender people endure, no
one would go through this except for the most profound of motivations: to be
authentic to one's inner self.
A 2011 survey
by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that 57 percent of transgender
people interviewed reported significant family rejection. Partly because of
widespread job discrimination, they were often impoverished, and almost
one-fifth had been homeless. And 41 percent reported having attempted suicide.
''Gender needs
to be taught about in schools,'' Leelah Alcorn, a transgender 17-year-old who
had been sent to conversion therapy by her parents, wrote in a suicide note
when she killed herself last year. ''Fix society. Please.''
Gays and
lesbians began to gain civil rights when Americans realized that their
brothers, cousins, daughters were gay. Numbers are elusive, but research at the
University of California at Los Angeles suggests that while 3.5 percent of
American adults identify as gay, only 0.3 percent are transgender.
Jay Brown, a
transgender man who has written an excellent online guide to how the public can
support those transitioning, notes that as 65 percent of Americans say they
have a family member or close friend who is gay, compared with only 9 percent
who have such a connection to someone who is transgender.
Yet there are
signs of a real opening, with TV shows dealing with transgender issues, Vice
President Joe Biden referring to transgender discrimination as ''the civil
rights issue of our time,'' and President Obama mentioning transgender people
in his State of the Union address last month.
That's the
context in which Jenner is now stepping forward. If the aim is to educate us,
bravo!
Cynics might
say that the television plans are more about self-promotion than leadership.
All I know is that Jenner seems to be preparing for a bold public mission
involving something intensely personal, in a way that should open minds and
hearts. So, in my book, Bruce Jenner is now a gold medalist again. Come on,
Wheaties. It's time to put Jenner back on the box!
