Jenner, the transgender woman formerly known as Bruce, has made her debut on the cover ofVanity Fair magazine, and spoken publicly as a woman for the first time.

"Bruce always had to tell a lie, he was always living that lie," she says in a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot.

Every day he always had a secret, from morning till night, Caitlyn doesn't have any secrets."

"As soon as the Vanity Fair cover comes out, I'm free."

The Old Hollywood-style cover, which was shot by renowned American portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz, features Jenner, wearing a white bustier leotard, with long wavy brown hair, and the cover line "Call me Caitlyn".

It is the first picture of Caitlyn Jenner to be released publicly.

Bruce Jenner, a former Olympic gold medallist, father and step-father of the Kardashian/Jenner family, first confirmed her identity as a woman in an interview with Diane Sawyer on April 25.

"For all intents and purposes, I am a woman," she said in the interview.

"People look at me differently. They see you as this 'macho male', but my heart and soul, and what I do in life… that female side is part of me. I was not genetically born that way."

She told Vanity Fair this shoot was not about the fanfare.

"The last few days of doing this shoot was about my life, and who I am as a person," Jenner said.

"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, this is about your life."

Jenner told the magazine that she has undergone facial feminisation surgery, a process that took 10 hours and was completed on March 15. She has not had genital surgery.

"If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, 'You just blew your entire life'," she said.

It was widely noted on Twitter that Jenner had chosen to buck the family trend of having a first name starting with the letter K, spelling Caitlyn with a C instead.

The cover and excerpts from the interview were released ahead of time on Monday in the US, the edition will not hit newsstands until June 9.

Members of the public, celebrities and Jenner's own family praised the cover, with step-daughter Kim Kardashian Tweeting "How beautiful! Be happy, be proud, live life YOUR way!"