“DAD IN DRAG”

FROM BRUCE TO CAITLYN, A JOURNEY OF

TRANSGENDER WOMANHOOD
A CASE STUDY ON GENDER DYSPHORIA

PIVEN JAMES C. SARONG

MARICEL L. BUSANO
 “DAD IN DRAG”
FROM BRUCE TO CAITLYN, A JOURNEY OF
TRANSGENDER WOMANHOOD
A CASE STUDY ON GENDER DYSPHORIA

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Bruce Jenner is 10 years old and home alone. He walks into his mother's bedroom
closet, brushing a hand over the cotton dresses. He selects one, careful to mark its exact
position with a piece of paper, so no one discovers. He accessorizes with one of Mom's
scarves and with shoes belonging to his sister, Pam, and dabs on some lipstick. After
surveying the ensemble in a mirror, the child ventures out of the red brick apartment
building in tiny Tarrytown, N.Y., making it around the block. It’s 1959, and Bruce has no
idea what’s going on. The adventure was both thrilling and painfully alienating
Before transitioning publicly, Jenner's is a lonely life of concealment. Trying to
"exorcise what was living inside," Jenner marries and divorces three women, trying on
their clothing, too. The wives are left deeply confused, as are the children. After their
makeup starts going missing, young Kylie and Kendall enable a security camera on their
computer, only to discover Dad in drag – they are "too young to understand."
In the eighties, the Olympic decathlete criss-crosses America, delivering corporate
motivational speeches to stay afloat financially. On these occasions, Jenner dons a suit
with a bra and pantyhose underneath. There are strolls in little black dresses through
anonymous hotel lobbies, excursions that leave Jenner self-conscious.
Excruciating electrolysis sessions and hormone therapy treatments are conducted
in secret throughout the mid-80s. Later, Jenner gets more daring, changing into dresses
and wigs in a car near the family home – and lurking paparazzi – in Los Angeles. With a
low, masculine voice, Jenner makes sure never to speak out loud, except for one
Starbucks run to order a vanilla latte.
Jenner looks at “Bruce” as someone that is always telling a lie, someone that tries
to live life not of his own and it took him 65 years of living a life of concealment just to step
out into the limelight of who he was. In the past people sees him as the ideal “macho
man” but Jenner stressed that the woman part of him has been part of who he was, what
he does, all his life.
 Hundreds of millions of people once cheered on America’s sports superstar, in
1976, Jenner was proclaimed as the greatest athlete of the world. Those times, according
to Jenner was packaged with running away from who he was, a big-time fear of keeping
your identity in secret. Even as a small boy, he feels a distinct confusion that the gender
on his body is different from the gender of his soul. He look at guys and wonder how they
are so comfortable with their own body, he looks at girls and envy them about how they
can explicitly enjoy about who they are while he was stuck in the middle. Back then when
he was adored as the world’s greatest athlete, he would travel different countries just to
deliver speeches about being an athlete, and under his suit he wore a pantyhose and a
bra just to make him feel more of himself.
For the next forty years of wrestling at his inner conflict of torment through
marriages of the women he loved, raising children he could not bear to hurt and finally as
an elusive character of a reality show in which every aspect of his private live seemed
ready to be bartered for fame. Bruce lives a lie, Caitlyn is not a lie. He could not bear it
any longer. He understands how people could be baffled and compounded about his
transformation. He highlights that he was never been into a relationship with a guy, all his
life he was married and raising kids and growing his celebrity career. He feels love doing
the woman stuff, but he can also desire sexually a woman every bit as much.
In the 80’s he was fighting a life-long battle, but falling apart. He isolated himself,
lived alone basically by himself up in the mountains at Malibu. He’s approaching forty, he
promised to himself that before he reached forty, he would make the transition, then his
39 and yet he still couldn’t do it. Divorced for a second time, he met his third wife, then
they built a family. It was a wonderful time of his life. But then, he was back again in his
house at Malibu, battling the same issues back when he was 10 years old, his income
falling off, and his fighting depression. Then he cleared his mind and said “now is the time
to come out publicly”.
With the help of his therapist he has made a big decision to stop trying to run away.
He begins transitioning into a woman. A doctor prescribes female hormones, estrogen
and he says right away, the daily feelings of intense fear and frustration subsides. He also
started changes on his face, getting surgery on his nose and hours of electrolysis to
remove his bears and the hairs on his chest.
Today Bruce once adored as the world’s greatest athlete now stands as Caitlyn
being the most courageous face in the transgender community.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Back when he was ten years old, the young Bruce was confused about the desire
of trying and exploring woman stuff, such as wearing her mother’s dresses, trying to put
on woman accessories and putting make ups on. He never had an idea about what’s
going on. The young boy Bruce feels that the gender in his physical body is different from
the gender shouted by his soul. This confusion and torment persist as he battled in living
the life he choose. The woman part of him, he knew and recognized it, and believed it’s
an integral part of his person. Clouded with fortunate fate, he excelled in sports and was
hailed as the world’s greatest athlete back in 1976. His physical body has been shaped
with the ideal form of masculinity. But it doesn’t stops him in taming his hearts desires.
Back then, when he criss-crossed America to deliver speeches about being an athlete,
under his suit he wore a bra and a pantyhose just to make him feel more of himself. He
would even leave at hotels wearing cross-dressed with make-ups on making him difficult
to be recognized. He has been living with a woman part of him, along with the daily feeling
of torment and frustration of living a life that is a lie. He had three unsuccessful marriages,
he loved the woman just as he tried to stay on the life he choose. He had children he
could not bear to hurt. But he was baffled and consumed. He suffered depression, and
for over six years of isolating himself in the mountains trying to put himself together, he
finally made the step of his transformation. He is a woman, but it doesn’t mean his gay.
He’s never been into guys, at least no attraction to them. All his life has been about
marriages, growing children and growing his career. He loves woman stuffs, wearing their
dresses and putting their make ups on, but he is also sexually attracted to them every bit
as much. He’s now 65 and finally decided to come out of the closet and try to live the life
he wanted to live back when he was 10 years old. Why now? What took him so long? He
is now 65, she is a woman…at least finally trying to cope up of what she missed for
decades of years.

DIAGNOSIS
Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner explicitly suffered from a condition known as
Gender Dysphoria (GD). The DSM-V defines Gender Dysphoria as the distress a person
experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth. In this case,
the assigned sex and gender do not match the person's gender identity, and the person
is transgender.
The diagnostic label Gender Identity Disorder (GID) was used by the DSM until
its reclassification as Gender Dysphoria in 2013, with the release of the DSM-5. The
diagnosis was reclassified to better align it with medical understanding of the condition
and to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.The American Psychiatric
Association, publisher of the DSM-5, stated that "gender nonconformity is not in itself a
mental disorder. The critical element of Gender Dysphoria is the presence of clinically
significant distress associated with the condition. Some transgender people and
researchers support declassification of the condition because they say the diagnosis
pathologizes gender variance and reinforces the binary model of gender.
The American Psychiatric Association permits a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria if at
least two of the following criteria are experienced for at least six months’ duration in
adolecsents or adults and at least two of the following criteria are met.

Criterion A: A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender

and assigned gender, of at least 6 month’s duration, as manifested by at least two of the
following:
1. A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and
primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the
anticipated secondary sex characteristics).

 At 10 years old, Bruce Jenner has been confused of wanting to try and to
wear his mother’s dresses, accessories and make-ups. He had a confusion
of his physical gender and the gender shouted by his soul. As an adult, his
physical body has been shaped with much masculinity being an athlete,
while he tamed the woman part of him in wearing cross dresses to hotels
and cafeteria, even wearing bras and pantyhose while delivering a speech
in an official business. Even on his married life as a husband to three
unsuccessful marriages, He has left his wives and children confused and
baffled about their lost stuffs and dresses as He hid them and sneak to wear
and try them in secret. Battling in depression and isolation, at age 65, He
finally took the step of coming out publicly, after a year of therapy for gender
reassignment, hormonal treatment and an excruciating procedures of
electrolysis.

2. A strong desire to be treated as the other gender other (or some alternative gender
different from one’s assigned gender

 For over 65 years, beginning at age ten, Jenner battled with everyday
feeling of torment and frustration. He suffered depression and choose to live
in isolation for over six years up in the mountains of Malibu. He promised to
himself, that before he turned 40’s he would make the choice to
courageously come out of the closet, but then he reached 39 years old, and
still couldn’t do it. Then He had his third marriage, yet still unsuccessful until
he suffered depression again struggling on the same issue he had back
when he was 10. It took him 65 years to come out publicly, undergone series
of transgender transformations, finally a woman, at least making the most
 of it. And promised to change the way America and the world looked at
transgenders. Now she stands as the world’s most courageous face of
transgenders.

Criterion B: The condition is associated with clinically significant distress or impairment

in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

 Before his 40’s Jenner suffered from a depression, and eventually choose
to live in isolation to the mountains in Malibu for over six years. This due to
his promise to himself of coming out. This re-occurred during the 80’s when
he battled for depression once more before finally taking steps towards
transformation.

Specifier: Posttransition: The individual has transitioned to full-time living in the desired
gender (with or without legalization of gender change) and has undergone (or is preparing
to have) at least one cross-sex medical procedure or treatment regimen-namely, regular
cross-sex hormone treatment or gender reassignment surgery confirming the desired
gender (e.g. penectomy, vaginoplasty in natal male; mastectomy or phalloplasty in a natal
female).
 During 80’s, with the help of his therapist, Jenner started to undergo
hormonal treatment, and gender reassignment therapy, breast enlargement
and electrolysis. He also began adding facial transformations such as the
operation done on his nose.

INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO DIAGNOSIS

In ’73, the American Psychiatric Association courageously proclaimed that homosexuality

is not a mental illness, but a variation in human expression. A key piece in Caitlyn Jenner’s
story is that even when she was growing up, and later becoming one of the most famous
athletes on the planet, she was impacted by what is known as Gender Dysphoria. This
means that Caitlyn experienced dysphoria — or discontent — with the sex and gender
she was assigned at birth. And, in a way, that’s what drove her to become an Olympian,
as she stressed to various interview that the woman part of him has helped him achieve
all the achievements of hard work Bruce has made.
Bruce was a son of a World War II veteran which turned into a tree surgeon. In his
childhood days, his family had frequent relocations. It is also notable that Bruce Jenner
was diagnosed with dyslexia. A condition of learning difficulty that affects a person’s ability
to read, comprehend, decode, recall, write, and spell. As a child, dyslexia greatly affected
Jenner by making him petrified of reading in front of her classes at school. This somehow
contributed to his lonely life as a boy, fearing public speaking and being called up to speak
in front of class.
Decades after winning the gold medal, Caitlyn decided to go through the transition
process. But first, as Julie explained, Caitlyn went through about a year of therapy with a
specially-trained mental health professional.
Caitlyn doesn’t have a mental illness. There’s argument about whether or not you should
have to claim a mental disorder to become the person you were born to be. There’s
definitely controversy about that, but the reason you have to do that all comes down to
insurance. The reason the DSM have kept the place for this diagnosis is to give chance
for those who are distressed by this condition to seek help and get due attention.
Unfortunately people who are transgender are at risk for depression, anxiety, being a
victim of violence and suicide and this creates a more complicated tract of maladaptive
behavioural functioning.
Hence, we can say that Jenner’s case is much less of a biological or genetic origin
but much of a social construct. If only we have a society back then that is far more
accepting and open to transgenders then he could have not suffered a lifetime of torment,
frustration and concealment. He could have lived the life that her heart desires.

RECCOMMENDATIONS FOR INTERVENTIONS

For Caitlyn’s case, she has freed herself from the 65 years of living a life full of lies.
Now she, takes the stand to live life her way, and she has so much to catch up from what
she missed decades ago. Her life will be clouded with so much changes and adjustments
and she gotta need more courage than she had before. She stand to be an epitome of
courage to people with the same story as hers. She will fight a more complex and difficult
battle of making the world understand her choices. It is when her support systems must
made themselves visible and available. A genuine acceptance by the family, a steaming
worthiness of herself and an appropriate people who can accept and understand her
story.
As for the interventions, the continuing gender reassignment therapy works best for
persons with gender dysphoria. Caitlyn needs to understand that her decision or choice
of gender is what she really want and what she really needs for her to keep moving
forward. And if another battle for depression ignites once more, she already knows the
right people to confide for.
REFERENCES
 Diagnostic Statistical Manual Fifth Edition, 2013
 www.theworldmail.com
 https:/thepowerofdyslexia.com/bruce-jenner
 https:/www.biography.com/people/Caitlyn-jenner-307180
 https:/www.imbd.com/name/nm0421063/bio