https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4BkXEKDGH4

 

I watched this interview today as Bruce Jenner openly admitted to going through a gender change. Watching this interview helped me to distinguish something and that is that gender and sexual orientation have nothing to do with each other. I already knew this, but I never put this into perspective. As quoted in the interview, “sexual orientation is who you go to bed with and gender is who you go to bed as”.

I know understand that it doesn’t really make sense to ask a transgender “What is your sexual orientation now?” Just because they have changed how they identify themselves does not mean that who they are attracted to has changed. And this can be hard to digest because that is probably the part that people care about the most.

Gender as an institution played a big role in his life.  While keeping this to himself he carried out the role that is expected of his gender. He became an athlete, he got married, has kids, and has really been a good father to his children as far as we can see. These are all things that are expected of a man in our society. And he did it all because he didn’t want to hurt the people that he loves. That’s powerful to me because I could not keep something like that buried inside of me for 65 years.

People have so many negative things to say about it and I don’t understand why. I don’t get why it is so important for people to know how someone identifies themselves.  To me, that’s none of anyone’s business. A person is a person because of who they are and people should be judged off of how someone makes another feel. And if we could ever come to understand that as a society, I think we’d be so much happier.

I think that what he is doing is courageous.

Go Bruce!