Hero to a new audience When he won the gold medal for the decathlon at the 1976 Olympics, Bruce Jenner became a national hero and was widely viewed as the personification of masculinity—the world’s best male athlete—leading to lucrative contracts as the spokesperson for the popular cereal Wheaties (left), among other products. When in 2015 Jenner appeared in Vanity Fair magazine (right) as a transgender woman, Caitlyn, she became a hero to thousands of transgender persons who hoped that this high-profile revelation would reduce the public’s misunderstanding of and prejudice against transgender individuals.