NEW YORK — In the 1970s, Bruce Jenner was a symbol of American masculinity as an Olympic champion. Nearly 40 years later, in an extraordinary television interview, Jenner told the world that he identifies as a woman and has felt gender confusion since he was a little boy growing up in the New York suburbs.

Jenner let his hair down — literally loosening a ponytail and letting his hair flow past his shoulders — in a symbolic moment at the start of his two-hour interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer that was televised Friday. “Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am a woman.”

For the transgender community, it was a moment as significant as Ellen DeGeneres’ coming out as a lesbian was for gays nearly 20 years ago. DeGeneres tweeted support to Jenner, saying the former Olympian was “saving lives and opening minds.”

“My whole life has been getting me ready for this,” said Jenner, 65, known to a younger generation as the patriarch of television’s omnipresent Kardashian clan. “It’s not just the last few years as they’ve been treating me as a joke.”

The interview was filmed in February in Los Angeles and New York, before a fatal car accident in which Jenner was involved.