--- title: Bruce Jenner Diane Sawyer Interview: Transgender Speculation description: Why the April 24 interview is so important canonical: https://time.com/3772675/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-interview/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-06T17:40:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T05:43:57.333Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Bruce Jenner's Interview With Diane Sawyer: What It Could Do og:description: Why the April 24 interview is so important og:url: https://time.com/3772675/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb532edeff500a83/698784d5cd68489b3a09a49a/bruce-jenner-kim-kardashian.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian are seen filming their reality show in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bruce Jenner's Interview With Diane Sawyer: What It Could Do twitter:description: Why the April 24 interview is so important twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb532edeff500a83/698784d5cd68489b3a09a49a/bruce-jenner-kim-kardashian.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bruce Jenner's Interview With Diane Sawyer May End One Conversation and Spark Another  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Apr 6, 2015 5:40 PM CUT  Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian are seen filming their reality show in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 2014. Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian are seen filming their reality show in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 2014.JB Lacroix—GC Images/Getty Images  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Apr 6, 2015 5:40 PM CUT ABC News has confirmed that their former anchor Diane Sawyer’s interview with Olympic medalist and _Keeping Up With the Kardashians_ personality Bruce Jenner is to air April 24\. Whatever direction the interview goes, it’ll mark the definitive end of a certain type of conversation about Jenner—and potentially spark another. For years now, the chatter that has swirled around the new interview subject has taken many tones—suspicious, cruel, supportive, genuinely curious—but has relied on visual evidence and the parsing of Kardashian family member quotes to support the notion that Jenner is transitioning from male to female. It’s been frustrating to witness certain figures in the realms of media and comedy treat Jenner with callous nastiness, and more frustrating still that those who are most inclined to speak sympathetically about transgender issues are also, often, those least inclined to speak as though Jenner were definitively trans. Because he hasn’t yet said, in public, whether recent aesthetic changes add up to an actual transition, most people inclined to treat the issue with good faith have been fairly limited in their ability to speak on the matter. It could well be that the Sawyer interview will not result in a coming-out, but instead two hours of the subject simply clarifying that various changes are personal choices divorced from any other aspect of Jenner’s life. (Solely considering the framing of the broadcast—two full hours!—that seems unlikely, but it’s worth considering.) If that’s the case, though, it will be the most substantively Jenner has ever spoken on the matter, and will allow viewers and the tabloid-consuming audience at large to turn the page on the conversation. And if Jenner does indeed come out as transgender, it will put a stop to the sort of speculation that has kept many potential Jenner defenders silent, because they haven’t been able to speak as though they had knowledge of the situation. As a member of the extended Kardashian family (Jenner acts as stepfather to tabloid magnet Kim, having married her mother Kris), Jenner is the quintessential easy target for mockery. If it weren’t a perceived transition that got people’s attention, it’d simply be an affiliation with a group that are shorthand for celebrity vacuity. But Jenner is also a figure with legitimate pop-culture importance, a Wheaties-box hero for an entire generation who could, potentially, represent the most public transition in history, humanizing the issue for people who still don’t understand. That is, Jenner _could_ do this, if he _is_ indeed transgender. The difficulty of even talking about what the interview might do is precisely why whatever clarity it provides will be so important. _Read next:_ [_Kendall Jenner Says She Never Spoke Out About Bruce Jenner’s Transition_](http://time.com/3749413/kendall-jenner-bruce-jenner-transition/?iid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3772675/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3772675/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-interview/"},"headline":"Bruce Jenner's Interview With Diane Sawyer May End One Conversation and Spark Another","datePublished":"2015-04-06T17:40:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:43:57.333Z","description":"Why the April 24 interview is so important","url":"https://time.com/3772675/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-interview/","keywords":["Television","Diane Sawyer","Bruce Jenner"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb532edeff500a83/698784d5cd68489b3a09a49a/bruce-jenner-kim-kardashian.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb532edeff500a83/698784d5cd68489b3a09a49a/bruce-jenner-kim-kardashian.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian are seen filming their reality show in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 2014.","caption":"Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian are seen filming their reality show in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 2014.","creditText":"JB Lacroix—GC Images/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3772675/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-interview/","name":"Bruce Jenner's Interview With Diane Sawyer May End One Conversation and Spark Another"}}]}] ```