Bruce Jenner has been an Olympic superstar, the hunk on the Wheaties box, a Playgirl cover boy, the author of inspirational sports books and a sometime actor and celebrity game-show contestant. In recent years, he has also been an ancillary but vivid participant in the bizarre public spectacle that is the Kardashian family.
Now Mr. Jenner, who muscled his way into American consciousness when he won the gold medal in the decathlon in the 1976 Montreal Summer Games and was anointed the World’s Greatest Athlete, may be entering the newest and most surprising phase of his multi-act career. Though he has not confirmed it, he is widely reported to be in the midst of making a transition from male to female.
Other prominent people have been here before. But never has the process been played out quite like this — at the intersection where celebrity exhibitionism meets public voyeurism. Never before has it involved someone of such public ubiquity whose transition, at least so far, seems to be unfolding before our very eyes.
Dwight Stones, a former Olympic high-jump medalist who has known Mr. Jenner for years, said that his apparent transformation presented a “phenomenal opportunity.”
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Marcia Ochoa, chairwoman of the feminist studies department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that much of the publicity swirling around Mr. Jenner, especially the obsession with his physical changes, had been ugly and prurient.
“It’s such a courageous act, if she’s going to be transitioning publicly and subjecting herself to that kind of ridicule,” Ms. Ochoa said, using the feminine pronoun to describe Mr. Jenner. “In some ways, this is changing the whole landscape of it, because ultimately it looks inhumane, and she is a person who deserves to be happy.”
Richard Sandomir contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 7, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Transition of Bruce Jenner: A Shock to Some, Visible to All. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
