Caitlyn Jenner amps up for election with release of Netflix's 'Untold: Caitlyn Jenner'

Caitlyn Jenner has been working hard to promote herself both in social media and on mainstream media over the past several months. The ex-Olympian is running in the special elections for Governor of California this fall and is taking every chance she gets to be seen and heard.

In fact, if you look at Caitlyn Jenner's Instagram account, it has become filled with pictures promoting herself for the elections over the past several months. Caitlyn has plenty of practice at competing, so it certainly doesn't come as a surprise her story is being told on Netflix now.

(Photo: Instagram@caitlynjenner)

In perfect timing for the upcoming elections, Netflix released a mini-documentary on the life of Caitlyn Jenner. 'Untold' is a docuseries on Netflix, and the first volume of five episodes gives viewers an inside look at the stories of notable athletes and incidents in the history of sports. Given Caitlyn Jenner's unique story, it certainly isn't surprising that producers chose to dedicate an episode to her.

This is Netflix's synopsis of the episode for 'Untold: Caitlyn Jenner': "Caitlyn Jenner’s unlikely path to Olympic glory was inspirational. But her more challenging road to embracing her true self proved even more meaningful."

Caitlyn Jenner has been in the news a lot over the past several years, especially since her transition. Join us as we take a look at Caitlyn Jenner's eventful life and find out what she is up to now!

Caitlyn Jenner was born in 1949 and she grew up in Tarrytown, New York. Her father was a tree surgeon, and her mother was a housewife. Jenner was an energetic and fun-loving youngster; she was so energetic her father gave her the nickname "Bruiser."

Pictured, Caitlyn's parents circa 1942.

(Photo: Instagram @caitlynjenner)

In the late 50s, when she was around 8 or 9 years old, Jenner began to feel the need to experiment with women's clothing. In an interview with ABC News, Jenner spoke about how she snuck into her mother and sisters' closets to try on their clothes. "I marked the closet so when I put it back, I could put it all back, everything back in the exact same spot so I wouldn't get caught. And, at the time, I didn't know why I was doing it besides, it just made me feel good."
Pictured: Caitlyn at two years of age.

(Photo: Instagram @caitlynjenner)

Without easy access to information about gender identity, which at the time was a very taboo subject, young Jenner had no clue what was going on with her and her "urges" to dress femininely. Thus, she kept this part of her life a complete and total secret so as to not face shaming by family and friends.

During the 1960s, Jenner was in high school and was quite popular as she was a very talented young athlete. Jenner was awarded the title of "Most Valuable Player" of the high school's basketball, football, and track team and also won the water skiing slalom championship.

(Photo: Instagram @caitlynjenner)

Despite being MVP in so many sports and quite popular at school, Jenner was a teenager struggling with deep secrets. In the ABC interview, Jenner said, "I look at guys and I go... 'He's comfortable in his own skin. And I thought, 'Wouldn't that be a nice way to go through life?' "

At this time, Jenner realized that sexual orientation and gender identity were not one and the same. Even though she felt like a girl trapped in a boy's body, she felt very attracted to girls. To ABC, Jenner stated: "I was never attracted to the guys or any of that kind of stuff, OK? Because sexuality was totally different from what my issues were," Jenner said. "I always felt heterosexual."

After her graduation from high school in 1968, Jenner attended Graceland College with a football scholarship. However, due to a knee injury, she was forced to quit football. The track coach, however, saw Jenner's potential and convinced her to switch to the decathlon.

In 1972, Jenner got her big chance and made the US Olympic team for the Summer Games in Munich. Jenner landed 10th place in the decathlon category and began training for the following Olympics as soon as she returned home. Jenner made a vow that she would take the gold in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and trained harder than ever.

Jenner married her first wife, Chrystie Scott, in 1972, and they would go on to have two children together. The young couple both worked hard to support Jenner's dream of going to the Olympics again, with Jenner selling insurance and training and Chrystie working as a flight attendant.

Jenner made it to the 1976 Summer Olympics and met her goal of winning the gold. Jenner beat the legendary Nikolai Avilov of the Soviet Union in the decathlon, set a world record with her performance, and was called by the US the world's greatest athlete.

Having beaten a Soviet during the Cold War turned Jenner into an American hero overnight. Sponsorships and endorsement deals were aplenty, and Jenner became a household name, appearing in tv commercials, movies, and TV shows.

Even though Jenner's career as an athlete was going amazingly, her marriage was suffering. After six years together, the couple welcomed their first child. Shortly after, when Chrystie was expecting their second baby, the couple separated. Not long before, Jenner had explained to her wife that she sometimes did a little "cross-dressing," and Chrystie had a hard time dealing with it; the couple divorced in 1981.
Pictured: Chrystie with their son.

Jenner didn't stay single long after her divorce from Chrystie, and later in 1981, she married wife number two, Linda Thompson. Linda was a songwriter and actress; the couple had two children together, son Brandon and Brody.
Pictured: Linda Thompson in 1981.

However, Jenner's struggles with gender identity continued to be a problem in the new marriage. Jenner spoke to her new wife Linda about her struggles, and not long after, in 1984, the couple separated.

In 1986, Jenner and Thompson were divorced, and Jenner became depressed. She was no longer sought after for endorsement deals and had two failed marriages under her belt. Jenner decided to seek medical advice and soon after began to take estrogen, had a nose job and electrolysis to remove facial hair.

During this time, Jenner struggled with her feelings and went on a journey of self-discovery. Eventually, Jenner decided to speak to her sister Pam. In an interview with ABC News, Pam said, "He told me that he had always felt that he should have been a girl. I said, 'what?' I couldn't believe it. I didn't understand it."

Bruce Jenner and Kris Kardashian met in 1990 while Kris was in the midst of her divorce from the famous defense attorney Robert Kardashian. Jenner needed to be more upfront about her gender identity struggles straight away, as her chest had developed a womanly shape after years of taking hormones. However, Jenner failed to fully explain, and Kardashian fell under the impression that it was more of a cross-dressing situation rather than a gender identity issue.

After Kardashian and Jenner got married in 1991, Kris used her management skills to boost Jenner's career. Soon Jenner was working again on fitness infomercials, appearing on game and talk shows, and giving motivational speeches. However, Jenner has said that she felt like a fraud for living a double life and dressing as a woman in private.

The couple also had two children together, which combined with the children both had from previous marriages made for a very large family of 10 children. All the while, Jenner kept her struggles private, with Kris being fine with Jenner's dressing as a woman, so long as she was discreet and not in her face about it.

After nearly 20 years of marriage, Kris made a deal for the family to have their own reality show, and 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' was born in 2007. Jenner has stated that she had hoped that perhaps she would be brave enough to come out as a woman at some point on the show and make a difference by being open about her identity.

However, with a marriage that was already starting to fade, when Jenner told Kris how much she really wanted to live as a woman, the marriage ended.

In 2013 Jenner moved into her own home in Malibu; in 2014, Kris and Jenner divorced; she resumed hormone therapy and soon began the other small steps towards her transition. When a tabloid caught Jenner leaving from a doctor's office after having her adam's apple shaved down, the media went wild. Jenner became very anxious because she had not yet come out to her family, to her children.

The anxiety and overwhelm of having been outed by the media was almost too much for Jenner. In an interview with ABC News in 2015, she said, "Heart's pounding… and I thought, wouldn't the easiest thing to be right now -- and I could see where people get to that -- is go in the room, got a gun, 'boom,' you know, 'pain's over. It's done,' you know, 'go to a better place'... and I thought ... 'I can't do something like that'... I want to know how this story ends, you know? How does my story end?"

Despite Jenner's fears, her parents, sister, and children have all accepted her transition. In 2015, Jenner was finally able to change her name from Bruce to Caitlyn legally.

Following her revelation about her identity, Caitlyn has had plenty of opportunities in the entertainment world. In June of 2015, she began filming a reality tv show about her transition and life called "I am Cait"; the show ran for two seasons. She also appeared in 2016 on Amazon's series 'Transparent,' which explores what happens within a family when a parent comes out as transgender. Caitlynn appeared on the show as herself. She continued to participate in "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" as well.

Following the completion of Jenner's gender reassignment surgery in January of 2017, she released her tell-all book, 'Secrets of My Life' the same year. In 2021, Caitlyn appeared on the 5th season of the tv show 'The Masked Singer' as 'The Phoneix .' She was the first transgender person to appear in the series.

Caitlyn is a Republican; she voted for and supported Trump. However, she quickly realized her mistake of believing that Trump would support the LGBT community. Caitlyn is heavily involved in the LGBT community and in raising awareness and fighting for more community rights.

On Friday April 23, the 71-year-old Jenner announced that she is joining the field of candidates to run for Governor of California in the 2021 recall gubernatorial elections. She is said to be consulting with GOP advisers and Dave Rexrode, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, about running, according to a spokesperson from the organization.

Last year in a 'People' interview, Caitlyn described herself as "economically conservative, socially progressive." She will certainly make a unique Republican candidate in such a conservative political party.

One thing is for sure; when Caitlyn Jenner sets her mind on something, she achieves it! Now that Caitlyn has decided to run for Governor of California, she will give it her all!