In the 1970s, Bruce Jenner was a symbol of American masculinity as an Olympic champion. Nearly 40 years later, in a television interview, Jenner told the world that he identifies as a woman and has felt gender confusion since he was a little boy growing up in the New York suburbs. “Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am a woman,” Jenner said during the two-hourinterview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer. The interview, filmed in February in Los Angeles and New York, was broadcast Friday night and watched by 16.9 million people, according to the Nielsen consumer information company. “My whole life has been getting me ready for this,” said Jenner, 65, known to a younger generation as the patriarch of television’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians. “It’s not just the last few years as they’ve been treating me as a joke,” Jenner said. He said he self-identifies as “her,” not a specific name. But he told Sawyer he felt comfortable using the pronouns “he” and “him,” a designation that is an important issue for many in the transgender community, which believes that transgender people should be referred to by the pronouns with which they choose to identify. Jenner said his “brain is more female than it is male.” He said he began sex-change therapy in the 1980s — taking hormones, having surgery to make his nose smaller and having hair removed from his face and chest — but gave it up. As Jenner got older, he realized that if he got sick and faced death without facing up to this issue, “I’d be so mad that I didn’t explore that side of my life.” Jenner said he has not decided whether he will undergo a sex change. “These are all things that are out there in the future for me to explore,” he said. “There’s no rush for that. And I would do it so quietly that nobody in the world would know.”
Anthony Anderson can recall when he worried about scrounging up money to pay for the rest of his college tuition, food and housing while attending Howard University. Now the Black-ish star wants to help students avoid the same struggle. The actor-comedian and other celebrities, through their foundations, teamed up with the United Negro College Fund to donate scholarships to worthy students in college. “My parents couldn’t afford sending me to school, so I understand firsthand,” said Anderson, who attended Howard on a partial scholarship until his junior year in 1991. He returns to host the United Negro College Fund’s 36th annual An Evening of Stars, which airs tonight on BET. More than $500,000 in scholarships were given collectively to 20 students by Anderson, singers Usher and Toni Braxton, Pharrell Williams, comedian Kevin Hart, rapper Big Sean and Los Angeles Clipper Chris Paul. Each of the scholarships on the show was funded by the celebrities except for two that were matched by the organization. “We’re here to help alleviate the burden off their shoulders,” Anderson said.