Untold: Caitlyn Jenner tells of an athlete’s drive for acceptance

The new sports documentary anthology Untold on Netflix released its third episode on Tuesday, Aug. 24. The series dissects athletes and sports stories from an investigative angle, which usually entails emotional perspectives from the likes of Caitlyn Jenner.

Untold: Caitlyn Jenner continues the sports docuseries in an intimate interview with Caitlyn Jenner herself. In the one-hour special, she details her past athletic career as a character that she considers a separate identity, but still respects.

Jenner was the decathlon gold medal champion at the the1976 Montreal Olympics. In 2015, Caitlyn Jenner revealed that the athlete was a persona that she had created out of necessity.

Caitlyn Jenner charmingly talks about “Bruce” as a life once lived — a persona that she continues to respect. In this unique situation, Caitlyn creates an opportunity to talk about herself in past-tense with her former name. This is a way some trans individuals come to terms with who they are versus who they were. Not all trans people consider their closeted period as a separate person entirely, so please keep this in mind.

What is Untold: Caitlyn Jenner about?

Caitlyn Jenner looks back on her childhood with an introspective fondness. She considered herself below average, nothing special, other than the fact that she knew something was off from the beginning. Even as a kid, she would try on her mother’s dresses in secret. Although, at that point, she didn’t know why.

Jenner discovered a love for competition and athletics in fifth-grade gym class. From there, history was in the making.

After finding sports, Caitlyn realized that she could create an entire personality around it. Jenner didn’t have to think about gender, as she was then entirely focused on competition. Sports became an arena, literally, for escape.

Jenner wound up playing football at Graceland College in1969. Unfortunately, early on in her career, she tore her knee and was forcibly retired. This could have been the end, if not for the college track and field coach personally recruiting Jenner for the decathlon. Once she had a taste for the event, she knew it was her calling.

A rookie at the time, Jenner was miraculously chosen to be on the United States Olympic team in the 1972 Munich Olympics. Although she didn’t place, she became enraptured with the opponent from the Soviet Union, Mykola Avilov. The training regime for athletes from the former country was intensive and became an inspiration for Jenner’s future.

She dedicated four entire years to train for the event, six to eight hours a day, 365 days a year. This way, Jenner didn’t have to think about anything except training, especially gender identity. She yearned to prove her masculinity and self-worth by earning the title of “greatest athlete in the world.”

“If I win an Olympic gold medal, maybe I can prove these issues didn’t exist,” Caitlyn says in the present day.

The decathlon is widely considered the hardest event in the Olympics. It consists of 10 individual events over two days, crafted so that by the end, the athletes were worn out physically and mentally.

Caitlyn says that she won gold in the 1976 Montreal Olympics because she wasn’t afraid of pain. Not only did Jenner win, but she also set a new world record.

Post-Olympics realizations

After the Olympics were over, Jenner was considered a hero. This character was built up so publicly and endorsed so heavily that it was impossible to escape. However, as she had decided early on to compete only once, she no longer had the distraction of consistent training.

“Now I have to deal with myself,” Caitlyn remembers thinking.

While Caitlyn says she loved being a father, it was also a distraction from considering her personal identity. It was safer for her to remain this character, even if she was acting.

In the 1980s, Caitlyn had come to terms with the fact she was transgender. This was the most interesting part for me, and can be a reminder to others: just because someone isn’t publicly out, doesn’t mean that they are cisgender or straight.

Caitlyn Jenner didn’t suddenly realize she was a woman. Forty years ago, she was already seeing a gender therapist and underwent hormone treatment.

However, being yourself when you’re different is scary. Especially as a celebrity, your whole life is on blast. She stopped her transition process and returned to her past persona, a place she knew was safe.

Jenner returned in full force in the 1990s after her marriage to Kris Kardashian. The retreat to the persona didn’t mean that Caitlyn had disappeared.

“Maybe I can survive by just cross-dressing behind closed doors and still keep the old Bruce around,” Caitlyn had thought.

She decided to start up her transition process again after divorcing Kris. She began having surgeries but had decided at the time to keep it a secret. In a sad twist of events, TMZ found Jenner leaving a plastic surgery office post-tracheotomy.

Fast forward to 2015. Caitlyn Marie Jenner officially comes out. She reintroduced herself to the world in a spectacle that makes her one of the most famous transgender people in the world.

Where is Caitlyn Jenner today?

When Caitlyn started to do things that she used to do, such as sports, she began wiping her past self off the face of the earth. If Caitlyn was golfing, then “Bruce” no longer had that role.

“Bruce won the games, he did that,” Caitlyn states. She likes to honor who she was, even if that was a character that she felt the need to play. She also believes that her need for acceptance in a man’s world, which she hadn’t felt a part of for a reason, is what led Jenner to victory in the Olympic Games.

“But now it’s a new chapter, let’s see what Caitlyn can do,” she says at the end of the film. “End of story.”

Caitlyn is doing a lot. She has been the star of a few documentaries about her life and transition, such as this one. She’s received awards for courage, and she also prides herself in a Twitter award for being the fastest to reach 1 million followers (four hours!).

While the documentary itself did not include this, Caitlyn Jenner has not exactly been the biggest inspiration for the transgender community. It’s great that there’s a figurehead out there to show that, yes, trans people exist, but Caitlyn’s values don’t always align with the community.

In any case, the story of Jenner’s journey to Olympic gold and Caitlyn’s journey to self-acceptance is something that was captivating from start to finish. Along with Malice at the Palace and Deal with the Devil, the sports documentary series has not disappointed when it comes to innovative storytelling and engaging footage.

The Untold docuseries will continue next week with Crimes and Penalties on Aug. 31 and concludes with Breaking Point on Sept. 7. The first volume has been a rollercoaster ride so far, and I look forward to hearing more insider stories in the world of sports.

Have you watched all the Untold episodes so far?