I don’t give a damn whether Bruce Jenner wants to be male or female.
We’ve never met, I’ve never deliberately watched him on television, and I skip over any stuff about him in magazines.
I’m just not that personally interested in him or his travails as one of the Kardashian family saga.
So when I heard the rumors over the past few months about him ‘becoming a woman’, they entered one ear and exited the other faster than he used to throw a javelin.
So what?
He’s part of the most famous reality TV family in history, and this latest development is no more shocking to me than most of the ‘bombshells’ that have engulfed the Kardashian brand over the years.
Frankly, if Bruce Jenner now wants to put on a dress, wear lipstick and call himself Brucille, that’s his business, and I wish him all the very best with it.
(Let’s face it, he won’t have to go far for supplies given all the fashion and beauty lines his myriad children and step-children now endorse.)
But then I read People magazine’s scoop: ‘It’s official: Bruce Jenner is transitioning into a woman.’
And I felt a rising tide of disgust.
Not by anything Bruce is doing to his body, but by the quite repulsive reaction to it from so many people.
‘An ugly woman with a penis?’ read one comment below the story on People’s website, ‘Count me out. LOL! Bruce, how far you have fallen.’
‘See what hanging around with the TRASHY KARDASHIANS can do to you’ read another, ‘from an ALL AMERICAN BOY to whatever you call it…what a shame.’
Others didn’t even try to mask their bile in sick humour.
‘I feel sorry for him.,’ wrote one commenter, ‘Anybody who thinks they are the opposite sex is a truly messed up and sick person.’
And so it went on, page after page of unbelievably vile, contemptible sexual bigotry and abuse.
The general consensus of opinion was that Bruce Jenner is a depraved human being embarking on a sinful exercise, and only doing it purely to commercially exploit the Kardashian brand even further.
Then one insult flashed out at me even more vividly than the others:
‘You COWARD, Jenner!’ it screamed.
A coward?
There are lots of things you could call Bruce Jenner; vain, narcissistic, flashy, publicity-mad.
Piers was nine years old when he watched Bruce light up the summer Olympics in Montreal. Few made a bigger impression than Jenner, because he seemed to be so brilliant at absolutely everything. He became an instant American sporting hero – tall, powerful, handsome and supremely talented
But my mind goes back to 1976 when he lit up the summer Olympics in Montreal.
I was 9 years old at the time and this was the first time I’d been old enough to properly watch and engage with the Games.
There were many heroes, of course.
But few made a bigger impression of me than Jenner, because he seemed to be so brilliant at absolutely everything.
As a decathlete, he had to sprint, jump, hurl, toss, vault and hurdle – all to a phenomenally high standard.
Jenner won Gold, smashed the World Record, and became an instant American sporting hero.
He was tall, powerful, handsome and supremely talented.
He also dived into quite extraordinarily deep reservoirs of courage to beat off equally determined rivals.
Bruce, seen here with son Brandon and a television camera last weekend, will tell us when he’s ready – and almost certainly in a reality TV show for which he will be paid lots of money
‘I don’t think anyone chooses the decathlon,’ said another former U.S. gold medal Olympic champion Bryan Clay, ‘as much as it chooses you,’
Of all the sports in the world, few could lay claim to be a harder challenge than one that requires competitors to excel at 10 different disciplines.
Men and women who succeed at the decathlon are hard as nails, trained to survive and thrive with a mixture of raw power, tenacity, agility, skill, determination and guts.
Bruce Jenner was one of the best decathletes in history.
So to call him a coward is as pathetic as it’s so clearly inaccurate.
So much commentary about his struggles has been vile, when what he’s going through is no doubt extraordinarily difficult
What’s truly cowardly is the way so many have raced to sneer, mock and humiliate the guy at probably the most difficult time of his entire life.
You think it’s EASY for him to do what he’s doing?
EASY for a male American sporting hero to transition into being a woman?
EASY for a father to have to explain all this to his kids?
I don’t care how many reality show episodes he’s appeared in, or how trivial we perceive his life to now be.
This is a human being experiencing one of the most dramatic human upheavals imaginable – physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually.
I don’t know precisely what kind of ‘transition’ Bruce Jenner is going through, or how he wishes it to be categorized.
I’ve learned from personal experience debating this issue with members of the transgender community that it’s a very complex thing.
Some see the process as a physical ‘sex-change’ from male to female. Others see it as realignment to one’s true, original gender.
All, understandably, want the right to determine the true nature of their own personal transition themselves.
It’s something that Bruce will, I’m sure, tell us when he’s ready – and almost certainly in a reality TV show for which he will be paid lots of money.
I don’t begrudge him that; it’s his body, his life.
If others weren’t far more fascinated than me in everything that he and his family do, they wouldn’t all be multi-millionaires.
Like I said at the start of this column, I really don’t care what Bruce Jenner does.
His family is supporting him, as this group photo shared by stepdaughter Khloe last week reminded the world
Nor do I criticize the media for obsessively chasing the story (DailyMail.com has led the way in reporting it) because he’s deliberately made his private life public property for a long time.
But I do care about the despicable way Bruce Jenner’s being treated.
Even Jill Soloway, the woman who created the powerful recent transgender movie ‘Transparent’, had to apologize today for retweeting a mocking spoof poster entitled ‘TRANSDASHIAN’.
We may as well stick the poor man in medieval stocks and chuck flour and eggs at him.
I don’t expect everyone to cheer Bruce over the finish line like they did in 1976.
But who would begrudge him this chance to take a journey to personal fulfillment and happiness, or support his right to take it?
To do otherwise is shamefully intolerant, and un-American.
''Allow him to change to a woman peacefully'' Piers morgan finally speaks out following bruce jenner's sex change claims; read more
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