Acts of Kindness

I'm going to leave this article here. It was written by Linda Thompson, the second wife of Bruce Jenner and mother to his sons Brandon and Brody. This is the first time she's spoken out about Bruce's sexual identity, though she's known about it for years.

I found this article fascinating for several reasons. First of all, I remember Linda from what I was a little girl and my grandparents would watch HeeHaw. I knew she married some famous athlete and lived in Hawaii, which to my little girl self sounded very glamorous. It wasn't the kind of life I wanted. She was blonde and to my child's mind, this seemed like a very 'Blonde Glamorous.' That would never be me.

She talks a lot about her confusion and hurt. I think that's reasonable, especially given the time period. This wasn't a subject that was often discussed and if you don't sign up to marry a woman, the prospect of suddenly realizing you are married to one is probably very disjointing. There is also the fact that Bruce Jenner, at the time, was considered the greatest athlete alive. He was seen as the epitome of masculinity. And no, the traits we associate with 'masculine' don't exclusively belong to cis men, but that's the general thinking.

I find Linda impressive in many ways. Even though she didn't really know how to process what Bruce was going through, she felt a lot of sympathy for him. She never tried to exploit his situation and did all she could to protect him. Her last plead in the article was for people to be kind to him about this. Kindness is very important right now, for everyone involved.