Bruce Jenner Interview

I watched the Bruce Jenner interview mostly because I love Diane Sawyer I am as surprised as most people are that a man I had always thought of as extremely masculine has always felt he is a woman.

But seriously, I do also think Diane Sawyer rocks. And I want to be like her when I grow up.

I don't have any issue with anyone being or becoming who they are, barring of course any sort of lifestyle that puts the person or their loved ones or anyone else in harm's way. I think it's interesting to hear how they've dealt with the feelings they struggle with and how they made the decision to cope with their particular differences in the way they've coped with them.

My only question was why someone would go through all of this at 65, after having lived one's whole life as a man. He talked about that specifically, and I get it now. I had no idea he had tried to transition in the 80's and then stopped or that he has been cross-dressing and wishing to be the person he feels like inside behind the scenes for all these years. He talked about dying and the tragedy of having never lived his true life, and that makes all the sense in the world.

I also understand that the people around him are shocked, as much as the public are. It's funny to think about how much of a role gender plays in our lives. For most of us, it's just not something to which we give a single thought each day, yet when Bruce Jenner tells us he's really a woman, we realize how much of our perceptions of a person are actually attached to their gender.

So... shocked? Yes. Supportive? 100%. He will be a much needed voice for those suffering through gender identity issues.

There was show on on one evening this week, where a transgendered woman was estranged from her young adult daughter. The daughter was crying and said, "You told me I can't call you 'Dad' anymore."

The father said it would be weird for her to call her "Dad" in public, since the father was a woman now. She wanted the daughter to call her by her name instead. If the daughter had been okay with that, then fabulous, but it meant a lot to her to call her father "Dad." She felt her father had left her to live a completely new life without her. It was incredibly sad.

So I found it very heart-warming when Bruce said he wants his kids to keep calling him "Dad"!