Caitlyn Jenner, Trans Champion: "Maybe This is Why God Put Me On Earth"

Caitlyn Jenner is a Woman of the Year because..."She made the decision to transition publicly--so that in the future kids don't have to wait until they're 65 years old to discover who they are."

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__Caitlyn Jenner is a Woman of the Year because… "She made the decision to transition publicly—so that in the future kids don't have to wait until they're 65 years old to discover who they are." __

—*Alex Schmider, Los Angeles LGBT Center *

Finding Her Calling: "I started thinking, Maybe this is why God put me on earth," says Jenner, photographed in Los Angeles.

A year ago Caitlyn Jenner did not have a name. The Olympic hero turned reality-star patriarch was still living a phantom existence, her changing appearance igniting a tabloid frenzy around the rumor she'd run from for most of her 66 years: that she was transgender. She was confined to her house in Malibu, California, where she'd been forced to build a wall to shield herself from paparazzi cameras. "There I was, in this beautiful beach house, all by my little lonesome, right back where I started, dealing with the same issues I had when I was 10 years old," she remembers. Her breaking point came when photographers showed up outside her doctor's office, spying on what she'd hoped could be a private medical procedure to reduce the size of her Adam's apple. That night she couldn't stop thinking about a gun she kept in her home. "Go in there, no more pain," she recalls saying to herself. But in the light of morning, she had a revelation. "I thought, 'OK, you transition, big deal! You are still alive. You have to make your life interesting.' "

So Caitlyn decided to live. She knew it wouldn't be easy. She had two skeptical audiences to contend with: the millions of fans of multiple iterations of Bruce, both Olympic savior to a nation and beleaguered patriarch of the Kardashian-Jenner clan; and the transgender community she was suddenly meant to represent. "But I started thinking, Maybe this is why God put me on earth," she says. "This issue has been swept under the rug for so long. I need to tell this story on the highest level you can possibly do it. Not just for me but for this entire community."

A year, an iconic Annie Leibovitz photograph, an Arthur Ashe Courage Award, and 4.5 million Instagram followers later, Jenner is finding new meaning in her life. Seventeen million people watched her vulnerable Diane Sawyer interview, which explained her lifelong struggle to make sense of her gender identity, stopping the tabloid gossip overnight, and, most important for Jenner, sealing her family's support. She watched the program on a sofa with five of her daughters—Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall, and Kylie—who were blown away by the online support. "They were all sitting there with their phones, going, 'Oh my God! Look what Lady Gaga said!' " remembers Jenner. Adds Kylie, "We were all holding hands and crying."

Next up was her glamorous Vanity Fair cover—which Jenner considers "more important than the Olympics by far"—and a speech at the ESPY Awards, during which she turned the spotlight on the problems faced by transgender youth. "When you have a voice, and you have an opportunity at the world level to be able to speak, it has to be right," she says. The speech also positioned her as the most visible face of the trans community. "My mother used to say, 'It's impossible to hate anyone whose story you know,' " says Jennifer Finney Boylan, cochair of the board of GLAAD and a transgender advocate. "Thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, the stories of thousands and thousands of trans people—in all their glorious, messy, contradictory struggles—are at last becoming known." Adds Jen Winslow, who began transitioning at age 47, "When she gave that interview, I got a phone call the next day from my parents, saying, 'We get it.'"

Soon after the Sawyer interview, Jenner hosted a dinner for six transgender women. For most of her guests, it had been five or 10 years since they'd begun their transitions; for Jenner it had been just a few months. The realization was humbling. That's when it hit her: "I don't know anything about the horrors of this community," she says. "I literally know nothing." With this in mind she helped launch I Am Cait, the docuseries meant to educate the public and, crucially, herself. Jenner was insistent that the show not be about only her, and it has featured advocates addressing important issues like suicide—a tragic 41 percent of trans or gender-nonconforming Americans have attempted to take their own life. "I want this show to be about the issues, the people who are out there," she says.

It hasn't always been smooth sailing. Some in the trans community feel that Jenner's wealth and privilege make her an outsider in their world too ("I'm the exception to the rule, not the rule, OK? I get that," she says). She's also faced her share of mean-spirited comments online. But after years of feeling she had to hide who she is at all costs, she is determined to be relentlessly open. "That means you have to be vulnerable," she explains. "You have to be able to listen."

While Jenner's journey clearly resonates with viewers—her show has just been picked up for a second season—her ultimate impact is more potently measured in small moments. "This morning I went to Starbucks, and it was nothing but love," Jenner says. She is thrilled that she can finally wear nail polish long enough that it starts to chip off. ("Fortunately, I have a good manicurist, so it doesn't chip off very often," she notes cheerfully.) Says Kylie, "She's happier, so I'm happier, and we connect more." Jenner echoes that sentiment: "I am just excited about the future for the first time in a long, long time," she says, with the contagious confidence of a champion. "And that is a nice feeling to have…. To be honest with you, if the worst thing in the world that happens to you is you are trans, you've got it made."

HER WORDS TO LIVE BY: "Gamble, cheat, lie, and steal. Let me explain: Gamble for your best shot in life—dare to take risks. Cheat those who would have you be less than you are. Lie in the arms of those you love. And finally, steal every moment of happiness."

*Thomas Page McBee is a trans media advocate and the author of *Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness, and Becoming a Man.

See All of the 2015 Glamour Women of the Year Honorees »