Grace Dent: That Bruce Jenner's interview is such big news speaks volumes

Bruce Jenner now identifies as a woman. Photo / ABC

Opinion

Bruce Jenner identifies as a woman. "I have always been confused by my gender identity," he told interviewer Diane Sawyer on US TV. Months after the global Princess of Pop Culture Kim Kardashian had her "Break the internet" moment by flashing her plentiful rump on the cover of a magazine, her stepdad Bruce choked the Twittersphere with a revelation of his own.

For readers who - unlike me - might have missed the previous 10 series of worldwide light-entertainment hit Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Jenner is the affable, dry-humoured, long-suffering patriach of this extended showbiz brood. He's a terrifically good egg. That's the pronoun he's using so I shall, for now, too.

Fair minded, gentle in spirit, and a frequent intra-family voice of reason, to see Jenner in pain, which he clearly was in the interview, caused me pain too. How he's kept his gender issues secret during this eye-wateringly honest reality TV saga is testament to his fear of the possible repercussions.

Yet the fact that Jenner's interview is such enormous news says much about where we stand, globally, with the sorts of lifestyles the umbrella term "transgender" caters for.

It's not that we don't realise that transgender people exist. It's more that we may feel it's a rare thing that happens to other, far-off family units. Something never touching our vanilla lives at all.

I'm pretty certain even forward-thinking people see the initials LGBT and think, "L? Lesbians... yes, know some of them. And G? Gay, of course. I'm positively swimming in gay friends. And, B? Bisexuals... well, cough, aren't most people a bit y'know, open to offers at some level? And T? T? Transgender? Oh no, don't know any of them. There aren't any of them in Bridlington."

To say that our understanding of transgender issues is hazy is an understatement. We meet gorgeous, Jessica Rabbit-style mega-eyelashed boys dressed as girls in nightclubs - largely for cabaret or entertainment purposes - and feel certain that this is transgender. Except it's not, it's different, but we can't be bothered to work out why.

At best, we might secretly use the notion of a husband sticking on his wife's dress as a punchline to our jokes. At worst, we present transgender people as tragic, as loners.

Roughly speaking, attitudes in the UK to this issue seem reminiscent of how lesbians and gay men were treated about 60 years ago: a flimsy acceptance that transgender people exist, flavoured by a wish that "these people wouldn't push it in our faces".

Reactions on Twitter to Bruce Jenner's news were ostensibly positive - from his family and fans at least - but nevertheless peppered with an undercurrent that he is attention-seeking, insane, nausea-making and offensive to "real" women and men.

This is why decent, sensitive people like Jenner battle on with their secret for decades. Or go through a painful transition alienated from their loved ones, afraid to leave their homes.

This is why little boys are sent home from kindergarten for wanting to wear princess gowns, and why "boyish" girls are stopped from playing football at junior school with the boys. This is why many people live an entire life trapped within their skin being someone they simply aren't. The sooner we accept that gender, for many people, isn't a cut and dried thing, the better.

But ironically, while the rest of Britain catches up slowly on ideas such as the slang word "tranny" now being seen as derogatory - yes, even if your local drag night calls itself TrannyAttack - infighting among the communities of people who really do care passionately about trans-issues and equality is rife.

In fact, at any point in any given day one can find transgender people, their supporters, firebrand feminists, human rights activists, radical lesbians and so on, arguing on the internet with hot-blooded zeal.

I understand how decades of marginalisation, misrepresentation and vile abuse has made people combative. But then I watch daily arguments involving several people who really do care about minority issues, warring over hypothetical quandaries such as: "If a secretly transgender man who identifies as a lesbian wants to use a unisex disabled toilet, which a cisgender (assigned at birth) female with post-traumatic shock following a historical sexual assault classes as her 'safe space', then has he the right to insist?" The replies to this would be furious, wounded, incandescent. Not only would those on the cisgender woman's side be "wrong" , but, importantly, they are "fascist", "transphobic", and should be removed from public life.

This always feels like a terrific shame to me because - in the great scheme of things - anyone who is passionate about fighting gender barriers is largely on the same page. By the time, last February, that Mary Beard and Peter Tatchell were finding themselves branded transphobic for signing a petition encouraging free debate, it was plain to see that many writers, thinkers and do-ers would err on the side of never touching this subject with a barge pole.

But, silence be damned, I want to live in a world where Jenner can make a transgender announcement and the only people who need to deal with it are his family. It's nice that so many people have reacted positively, but frankly this is getting in the way of all the other riveting Keeping Up With the Kardashians tittle-tattle. I've not watched 10 whole series to let events be railroaded like this.

We need to know - urgently - whether Kim's ovulation is regular enough for Kanye Baby II. And whether Khloe might rekindle with Lamar. Or if Kourtney might ever cheer up. Bruce has had his big moment, let down his ponytail, and wiped his tears. Come on girls, it's on with the show.

- Independent