Dear Knights,

Imagine if every day of your life you lied to every person you talked to, pretending to be someone else in order to fit in with society. Your clothes and hair showed one person, but deep down you felt you should be someone else; you felt you should be wearing different clothes and a different hairstyle. You weren’t being true to yourself. Imagine living this lie for 65 years. For 65 years, Bruce Jenner walked, talked and dressed like a male, and we all perceived him as a male. When the media was not looking, Jenner dressed as a woman and even took female hormones to have the female features. It wasn’t until this past Friday on ABC News when Jenner sat down with Diane Sawyer and put all the rumors to rest.

“For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman,” Jenner said to Sawyer. “People look at me differently. They see you as this macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life — it is part of me.”

In a two hour special, Jenner, for the first time, publically told the world that he is a woman. He has been on and off taking female hormones since the 1980s to become the gender he always desired to be. Behind closed doors, Bruce no longer exists, and he becomes “her.” In the interview, he did not give the name of his new identity, only providing the term, “her.” The interview showed Bruce Jenner’s closet, but it also showed “her” closet. Jenner even pulled out the dress “she” would be wearing to dinner that night.

Bruce Jenner has been battling this emotional rollercoaster since he first put his sister’s dresses on when he was a young boy. Jenner has been cross dressing for many years, sometimes caught by family members and other times, he has gone out in public without anyone knowing that he was a man. His Olympic background and reality show, “Keeping up with the Kardashians” put him in the media’s spotlight and cover stories for magazines and newspapers. Paparazzi would follow Jenner to doctor’s appointments, daily errands and to his house to get more information about his transformation. Jenner confided in his family and ex-wives about his hidden identity, they were accepting and wanted the best for him. Although not everyone took this news easily, many tears were shed, and confusion filled the air, in the end, they wanted the best for Bruce.

During the interview, four of Bruce’s children opened up about their father’s transformation. “I saw a sense of bravery that is, for all your previous accomplishments, I think far exceeds all of them,” Brandon Jenner told his father during an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer. “I’m just honored and more proud than ever to be a part of the family.”

Jenner’s story differs from many other stories from the transgender community. Jenner has family members who have listened and accepted of his decision. Many others do not have the same. Some people have committed suicide, gotten beat up, kicked out of their homes, became unemployed due to their  change in genders.

Our society has been taught since we were little kids to not judge a book by its cover, respect everyone, and treat others the way you want to be treated. But there are many cases where people have lost their morals and will make fun of people for changing the way they look and appear. We need to take an individual like Bruce Jenner and use his story to remember the emotional turmoil than he has been through. Other human beings have dealt with similar or even worse situations that Bruce Jenner. As a society, we need to respect and not judge how people want to live their lives. Just because someone wants to become a transgender does not make that person wrong or right, it makes them different and unique.

Sincerely,

Siena