Posted on 04/26/2007 3:04:42 PM PDT by ZGuy
A veteran sports writer for the Los Angeles Times said in his column Thursday that he is a transsexual.
Mike Penner told readers of his struggle to embrace his gender, and said when he returns from vacation in a few weeks he will be known as Christine Daniels. He did not say whether he was having surgery or why he's changing his last name.
"I am a transsexual sports writer," 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."
The 49-year-old Penner said his brain has been "wired female" and he's tried to fight off the urge to change sexes. He called writing a story about his sexuality the "most frightening of all the towering mountains of fear I somehow had to confront and struggle to scale."
"How do you go about sharing your most important truth, one you spent a lifetime trying to keep deeply buried, to a world that has grown familiar and comfortable with your facade?" Penner asked.
Penner, who is married to another Los Angeles Times writer, said he started coming out about two months ago by telling his boss, his barber and a soccer teammate, and that he now feels happier and healthier.
"Mike Penner has been an exemplary contributor to the Los Angeles Times sports pages for over two decades and today's column is no exception," Randy Harvey, the newspaper's sports editor, said in a statement. "The decision to go public cannot have been an easy one and, while we do not make a habit of commenting on the personal and private lives of our journalists, we do look forward to continuing our relationship into the future."
John Amaechi, the first NBA player to publicly come out of the closet as being gay, said he read Penner's column Thursday after returning from a speaking engagement in Berkeley at the University of California.
"It's incredibly bold and far more courageous than anything I could have done," said Amaechi, who spent five seasons in the NBA. "I commend him."
Penner has spent more than 20 years at the Los Angeles Times and has covered the Olympics, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and has served as the Times' sports media critic.
Waiting for Keith Olbermann to make the same announcement.
having a peckerectomy? releasing his inner lesbian?
Reason #6822 why the LA Times is spiraling the crapper: Puff pieces about transsexual sports writers.
Now he will learn first-hand about sexual inequality in sports stadium facilities.
I guess he can no longer comment on ball games.....
Just wondering.....
Is it OK to tell a transsexual to “go screw yourself!”
releasing his inner lesbian?
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And in love with Rosie......
But he’ll be an expert on switch hitters.
Batter out!
Darn, wish I had a subscription to the LA Times so I could cancel it!
The guy's gender is MALE.
There is no such thing a “transsexual”, merely a screwed up person.
“he started coming out about two months ago by telling his boss, his barber and a soccer teammate,”
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Did he tell his wife?
Great...now my day is complete.
>>Batter out!<<
I was going to make some joke involving the word “schwing” but I just cant bring myself to do it...
Well, best of luck to “him” [”her”? “it” sounds so much better] - so, best of luck to “it” with “its” newfound identity. But why on earth push it in other people’s faces? I, for one, was not interested before, and am not interested now.
He can’t change his sex. He can only mutilate his reproductive organs. If he can change the X-Y chromosome in each and every one of the tens of billions of somatic cells his body is made up of, to a feminine Y-Y form, then something can be said. To that, add generative ovaries that can produce eggs with the same sort of genetic randomness as in a real woman, then he’s become the woman he wants. All this, not in his lifetime, nor his offspring’s.
No you won't,pal.You'll always be known as "Mike"...or "Perv".
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