Six highlights from Caitlyn Jenner's interview

Winning a gold medal at the Olympics is a gold-letter day in memory for Bruce Jenner, but posing as her true self, Caitlyn Jenner, for Annie Leibovitz's camera tops even that, she says.

"That was a good day, but the last couple of days were better...," she tells writer Buzz Bissinger in the interview in Vanity Fair's July issue.

"This shoot was about my life and who I am as a person," she says. "It's not about the fanfare, it's not about people cheering in the stadium, it's not about going down the street and everybody giving you 'that-a-boy, Bruce,' pat on the back, okay. This is about your life."

Among other highlights in the interview:

Surgery. She had 10-hour facial-feminization surgery in March (Bissinger reveals that she has not had genital surgery), and had a panic attack when it was twice as long as she expected.

"What did I just do? What did I just do to myself?" she thought. But professional counselors assured her that such reactions often were induced by pain medication, and that second-guessing was human and temporary.

Telling lies. Jenner tells Bissinger that Bruce was "always telling lies." She describes public appearances after the 1976 Olympics where "underneath my suit I have a bra and panty hose and this and that and (I'm) thinking to myself, They know nothing about me. ... Little did they know I was totally empty inside." Caitlyn, she says, "doesn't have any lies."

Her older kids knew. By the time she talked to each individually, the transition was a non-issue for Burt, 36, and Cassandra, 34, Bruce's children with first wife Chrystie, and Brandon, 33, and Brody, 31, with second wife Linda.

Bissinger reports that Burt and Cassandra had learned from their mother roughly 20 years earlier. Brandon had assumed it because of the obvious physical changes he had observed. And Brody was told by his mother when he was 29.

They told Bissinger they are happy for and inspired by Caitlyn, whom they view as their dad regardless of gender label. But, Bissinger writes, "Brandon said he was a little taken aback when he saw Caitlyn for the first time after surgery and she pulled her top up to reveal her new breasts. "Whoa, I'm still your son," he reminded her.

Girls nights. She started hosting small gatherings where she could dress as a woman and feel natural in the presence of women. That's when Cassandra met Caitlyn for the first time.

"I was just nervous that I wouldn't make her feel comfortable," Cassandra told Bissinger. "I was worried I wouldn't say the right things or act the right way or seem relaxed." But almost all of it melted away when she got there. "We talked more than we ever have. We could just be girls together."

Pronouns. Bissinger apologizes to Jenner for repeated pronoun confusion and asks whether she is sensitive about it. "I don't really get hung up," she says. "A guy came in the other day and I was fully dressed — it's just habit, I said 'Hi, Bruce here,' and I went, Oh (damn), it ain't Bruce, I was screwing up doing it."

It's not a stunt. She's prepared for the criticism to come when the docu-series on her transition airs this summer on E!. She knows some will say she's done all this just for a reality show or for the money.

"I'm not doing it for money," she declares."I'm doing it to help my soul and help other people....You don't go out and change your gender for a television show. O.K., it ain't happening. I don't care who you are."