Noted LA Times Sports Writer Announces Sex Change
(http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/04/042607times.htm)
(Los Angeles, California) Longtime Los Angeles Times sports writer Mike Penner announced a vacation and a new name in his column on Thursday.
“Today I leave for a few weeks’ vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine,” Penner wrote.
“It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words.”
It is believed Penner is the first transsexual sports writer for a major daily newspaper in the country.
She said that she realizes many readers, colleagues and friends will be shocked by the announcement.
“That’s OK,” she wrote. “I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my work will be transitioning as well. That will take time. And that’s all right. To borrow a piece of well-worn sports parlance, we will take it one day at a time.”
One of the best-known transsexuals in sports is Renee Richards who played on the women’s tennis tour in the 1970s.
In 2004 Australia’s Mianne Bagger became the first transsexual to play in a pro golf tournament.
Canada’s Michelle Dumaresq has made a name for herself competing as a mountain bike racer. Dumaresq had sex reassignment surgery in 1996 and competed for Canada at the 2003 World Championships in Austria.
In 2004, prior to the Athens Olympics the IOC executive board ruled that athletes who have undergone reassignment surgery will be eligible for the Olympics if their new gender has been legally recognized in their home country and if they have gone through a minimum two-year period of post-operative hormone therapy.
In her LA Times article Penner writes that “extensive therapy and testing have confirmed, my brain was wired female.”
“When you reach the point when one gender causes heartache and unbearable discomfort, and the other brings more joy and fulfillment than you ever imagined possible, it shouldn’t take two tons of bricks to fall in order to know what to do.
“It didn’t with me.”
Penner says the Times has been supportive.
“When I told my boss Randy Harvey, he leaned back in his chair, looked through his office window to scan the newsroom and mused, ‘Well, no one can ever say we don’t have diversity on this staff.’”
Penner’s decision is being hailed by gays in sports.
“I think it’s a great thing for Mike personally, to be able to finally express who she is,” Outsports editor Cyd Zeigler told 365Gay.com.
“Many people in sports don’t understand gay issues, but that is nothing compared to the people in sports, in mainstream culture, and even in the gay community who don’t understand transgender issues,” Zeigler said.
“To come out as gay in sports is one thing, but to come out as transgender in sports journalism - that takes courage and conviction so far beyond what the average
gay person has to muster to come out, it is admirable.”
©365Gay.com 2007
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