The Secrets of My Life

New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2017. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. x, [4], 320, [2] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Signed on the fep. Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born October 28, 1949), formerly known as Bruce Jenner, is an American television personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. Jenner was a college football player for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a knee injury that required surgery. Coach L. D. Weldon convinced Jenner to try the decathlon. After intense training, Jenner won the 1976 Olympics decathlon event at the Montreal Olympic Games, gaining fame as "an all-American hero". Jenner set a third successive world record while winning the Olympics. The winner of the Olympic decathlon is traditionally given the unofficial title of "world's greatest athlete". With that stature, Jenner subsequently established a career in television, film, writing, auto racing, business and as a Playgirl cover model. Jenner has six children with three successive wives: Chrystie Crownover, Linda Thompson, and Kris Jenner. Since 2007, Jenner has appeared on the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians with Kris, their daughters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and step-children Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian. Previously identifying publicly as male, Jenner revealed her identity as a trans woman in April 2015, publicly announcing her name change from Bruce to Caitlyn in a July 2015 Vanity Fair cover story. Her name and gender change became official on September 25, 2015. She has been called the most famous openly transgender woman in the world. From 2015 to 2016, Jenner starred in the reality television series I Am Cait, which focused on her gender transition. In this remarkable memoir-written during her pivotal first years of becoming her authentic self-Caitlyn Jenner reflects on her past as she looks to her future. "Imagine denying your core and soul. Then add to it the most impossible expectations that people have for you because you are the personification of The American Male Athlete." Bruce Jenner, the celebrated Olympic icon and later the patriarch of one of the most famous families in the world, seemed to be living a dream life of success, fame, and prosperity. But the all-American image and million-dollar smile belied a lifelong struggle with gender dysphoria, and it wasn't until the sensational Diane Sawyer interview that the public mask of Bruce Jenner was finally retired, and through the memorable Vanity Fair piece by Buzz Bissinger, that Caitlyn Jenner was introduced to the world and set free to exist on her own terms. Since then, Caitlyn has undertaken an arduous emotional and physical odyssey to achieve the completeness she always felt was missing. In THE SECRETS OF MY LIFE, Caitlyn reflects on the inner conflict she experienced growing up in an era of rigidly defined gender identities, and the cruel irony of being hailed by an entire nation as the ultimate symbol of manhood. She recounts her Olympic triumph, her rise to fame, and relates how her sense of frustration and shame grew with the passing years and the lengths to which she had to go to conceal her true self. Caitlyn in turn uncovers the toll that these personal struggles had on her three marriages and, subsequently, the relationships with her children. She also talks candidly about her life in the public eye as a member of the Kardashian clan, what led to her decision to become Caitlyn, and how she, her family, the transgender community, and the rest of the world has since embraced her new life. Filled with incredibly personal and moving stories of struggle and victory, of anxiety and fear, and, finally, of becoming herself.