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.