Bruce Jenner Lane Or Caitlyn Jenner Lane? Texas Neighborhood Debates Street Name Change
There is a 0.3-mile-long street in an Austin, Texas, neighborhood called Bruce Jenner Lane that has run into a slightly unusual problem after the street’s namesake announced she is really a woman named Caitlyn Jenner. Jenner made headlines when she came out as transgender and released her new name on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Mercury News reports that the Texas subdivision has an Olympic theme, with each street is named after a different gold medalist. Bruce Jenner was one of the selected names as the Olympic gold medalist had set a world record in the 1976 Summer Olympic games.
Though Jenner says she has identified as a woman for as long as she can remember, does that change the identity of Bruce Jenner Lane? Following the Vanity Fair release, neighbors that live on Bruce Jenner Lane say that people have began stopping by to take photographs of the sign name. Bruce Jenner Lane homeowner Ray Briggs thinks the whole situation is funny and people have stopped to question whether the street’s identity needs to be updated to Caitlyn to reflect Jenner’s true identity. He says with all the hoopla about the street sign he has thought about taping the name Caitlyn underneath Bruce himself.
“Should we put both of (the names) there? Tape one underneath it? I thought about doing it myself.”
ABC News notes that the Olympic Heights board members say they have no problem changing the street name to Caitlyn Jenner Lane. However, they say it must first be approved by the residents and city hall for the change to be official. The residents themselves say they have no issue with the street name either way. However, they note that it is a lot of paperwork to change a street name. It was also pointed out that there is a lot of hassle with changing a street name.
“It would be a bureaucratic hassle to not just change the sign but the name in public records and on GPS information.”
The Texas neighborhood is not the only street named after the Olympian. There are also Bruce Jenner Streets in Clarksville, Tennessee, and El Paso, Texas. There has been no word from either of those communities on plans to change the street names to Caitlyn Jenner Street.
What do you think? Should the communities leave the signs as-is, or should they make the identity of the street signs match that of their namesake by changing them to Caitlyn Jenner?
[Image Credit: Getty Images/Tony Duffy]
