For the last few years, there have been rumors and anonymously sourced tabloid items suggesting that Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic champion and somewhat comically befuddled patriarchal figure on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” was transitioning from male to female.
The various clues — the growing of his hair into ponytail length, the apparent shaving down of his Adam’s apple, the brightly colored polish on his fingernails — were gleefully reported by gossip websites and some of the more fact-challenged tabloid magazines. One of them, In Touch, even went so far as to superimpose a picture of Mr. Jenner’s head onto the body of the actress Stephanie Beacham, adding red lipstick to his mouth in an attempt to feminize his appearance and better reflect the headline, “Bruce’s Story: My Life as a Woman.”
But, for the most part, the so-called mainstream press has steered clear of this story.
Until now.
Last week, US Weekly put the Jenner news on its cover, with the headline, “Finally, the Truth,” and People magazine is now reaching newsstands with a cover article on Mr. Jenner, headlined, “He Is Finally Happy.” Meanwhile, reports have surfaced that Diane Sawyer of ABC News has lined up an interview with Mr. Jenner for May, shortly before a documentary series about the former athlete’s transformational process is expected to start airing.
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A handful of transgender advocates also expressed concern that in a year when the trans movement appears to be gaining steam — with a Golden Globe going to the television show “Transparent” and a Time Magazine cover being bestowed on the transgender actress Laverne Cox — the spectacle surrounding Mr. Jenner could prove to be a setback.
“It would be great to have celebrities who are respected going through gender transitions,” said Dr. Katherine Rachlin, a psychologist and gender specialist in New York. “I don’t know if this falls into that. The whole thing seems pretty tabloid to me.”
Still, Ms. Aurthur, of Buzzfeed, was optimistic.
“We’re in murky waters,” she said. “My biggest hope is that if there’s a show about all this, Jenner’s transition will cease being a freak show told by the tabloids and will instead bring about a larger conversation. Bruce Jenner has become a target and joke along the way, but that’s easily reversible.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 5, 2015, on page E1 of the New York edition. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
