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Mike Penner, the Los Angeles Times sportswriter, died yesterday. Penner had worked for the newspaper for 25 years.
Penner made international headlines when he announced he was transgendered.
He was found in his Los Angeles by colleagues on November 27th. According to the Huffington Post, he was pronounced dead at a hospital in LA on Friday.
Suicide is expected, although the coroner has not performed an autopsy or released an official cause of death.
His editor at the Los Angeles Times, Mike James, released a statement today:
“Mike was one of the most talented writers I’ve ever worked with, capable of reporting on any number of topics with great wit and style. He was a very gentle man who will be greatly missed. This is a tragic ending and a difficult time for all of us who knew him”.
Penner made the announcement that he was transexual in April 2007 in his column. The headline of the column was “Old Mike, New Christine”. He announced he was going on vacation and that he would return as “Christine Daniels.”
“During my 23 years with The Times’ sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame.
Today I leave for a few weeks’ vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.
As Christine.
I am a transsexual sportswriter. 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. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.
Transsexualism is a complicated and widely misunderstood medical condition. It is a natural occurrence — unusual, no question, but natural.”
Penner said he was seeking therapy, and had come to accept that he was in fact transexual.
“As extensive therapy and testing have confirmed, my brain was wired female,” he stated in his column.
When he told his colleagues, they were initially shocked but came to accept him.
“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.’
When I told Robert, the soccer-loving lad from Wales who cuts my hair, why I wanted to start growing my hair out, he had to take a seat, blink hard a few times and ask, ‘Does this mean you don’t like football anymore, Mike?’
No, I had to assure him, I still love soccer. I will continue to watch it. I hope to continue to coach it.”
Penner said in his column that he was “happier, more focused and more energized,” after he came out.
” The wicked writer’s block that used to reach up and torture me at some of the worst possible times imaginable has disappeared.
My therapist says this is what happens when a transsexual finally ‘integrates’ and the ever-present white noise in the background dissipates.”
Penner blogged about his transition in a blog called, “
“Woman in Transition,” but eventually stopped. He went under the name Christine Daniels in 2007 and 2008, but returned to writing under Mike Penner in late 2008.
He covered a variety of sports while writing for the LA Times including : Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the Olympics, World Cup soccer, and tennis.
At the time of his death, he wrote column for the Times called “Totally Random” which focused on lighthearted moments in sports. His last column appear in the newspaper on November 15th.
Penner was 52. He was married to fellow Los Angeles Times sportswriter Lisa Dillman. They had no children together.
No information has been released on funeral arrangements.
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For the record, Christine Daniels went back to using the name Mike Penner earlier this year and did not have surgery. He detransitioned quitely, apparently having decided that life as a female was not right for him. Some transpeople do make a move in the direction of transition but then decide against it, and possibly take up the issue again later on. If one decides against transition, it’s best to do so before taking the final step of surgery. Was this an issue of his suicide, if indeed it is confirmed that it was suicide at all? I doubt we will ever know. But suicide is high in this demographic with estimates in the adult population as high as 30% who attempt it and 50% among known youth.
Mike Penner/Christine Daniels is being mourned in transgender groups throughout the United States, because even though he decided to detransition, he was still embraced both as Mike and as Christine. He is also being eulogized in the Daily Titan,the journal of California State University, Fullerton; acknowledging him as a brilliant writer and alumnus of that school. He (as Mike) and she (as Christine) will be sorely missed by many who regard Mike/Christine as their own.
Jay Leno has long been criticized for cruel jesting against transpeople, especially in 2001 when he was on the cutting edge of ridicule against transition benefits offered by the City and County of San Francisco. The San Francisco program proved to be successful, with a rise of little more than $2 in premiums, and which turned out to be profitable for the insurer as well as beneficial for transitioning employees. Fears of the system being overrun with transition claims have been proven wrong.
I, too, was going to call out the improper pronoun usage. Now what I am not sure of was Christine/Mike post operative? The going back very well may have been due to frustration of so many not getting it right. And yes they do understand that if you knew them for forty years prior you may still call them by their old gender name. Unfortunately, the suicide rate for this group is way too high, but ask yourselves, would you go through telling people your were transsexual if it were just a lark?
I think he could probably take the Jay Leno jokes. But, the attitudes taken byh and articles written by former friends, sports journalists such as Paul Oberjuerge (http://lang.sbsun.com/blogs/inthiscorner/2007/07/christine-daniels-makes-galaxy.html) are probably what doomed him.
Below is part of what Paul Oberjuerge wrote in 07.
“I hate to be judgmental about these things, but Christine is not an attractive woman. Which probably isn’t a surprise when you’re 50 and have spent your in-the-world life as a fairly drab guy. Who has a fairly prominent Adam’s apple (not all of us do) … Who also isn’t exactly petite. Maybe 6-1, 200?
So … she looks like a guy in a dress, pretty much. Except anyone paying any attention isn’t going to be fooled — as some people are by veteran transvestites.
Another guy in the business was sitting near me when “Chris” wobbled by on her mid-size heels, and she demurely said hello to this other guy, who is about the same age as the two of us. And this guy said, “Hey, Mike … uh, Christine.” He was embarrassed because he wanted to get it right, but he didn’t. Christine said something like, “Some habits are hard to break.” She was kind about it.
The thing is, and maybe this is cruel, but there were women in that room who were born women in body as well as soul. And the difference between them and Christine was, in my mind, fairly stark.
It seemed almost as we’re all going along with someone’s dress-up role playing “
In response to Oberjuierge’s ideas, it should be understood that a lot of transsexuals are less passable as women than Christine Daniels was, and so are a lot of women who were born female. Looks and beauty aren’t the issue behind a decision to transition. One’s identity is.
In the case of Christine, she had a learning curve of her own, including getting used to the use of heels. One doesn’t gain full femininity overnight, though some do seem to “pass” well as transvestites. Since Oberjuerge wrote this in 2007, the year of Mike/Christine’s initial announcement, awkwardness is to be expected.
One endocrinologist told me that he has many patients who try to fast-track transition and want him to make them women yesterday and that it’s an unrealistic expectation. I agree. If one born female takes years of puberty to present fully as a woman, what can be expected of a middle-age transsexual? Transition is typically a process of several years from the initial assessment by a mental health professional to surgery and legal reassignment.
Wow. I guess he ended up a trans-transsexual, or a trans-morphingsexual? Was his therapist just plain wrong, or a scam artist who makes a lot of money telling people that they really were born whatever they think they are, regardless of underlying mental issues, as long as the money keeps coming?
Therapists with Masters degrees turn out to be wrong more than people admit. That is why a second letter is required before surgery, preferably from a PhD Psychologist. Some therapists, knowing the potential for failure ask the patient to seek the advice of a M.D. Psychiatrist in conjunction with therapy, especially when a decision might be made in the minimum 4 months time. Others draw out the assessment process to a year or more.
Even with 2 letters, though, there are some who have regrets after surgery. Usually those with regrets are those who took months instead of years in their transitions.
I feel sorrier for his wife than for him. Lisa you must have put up with a lot over the years. In any case, may he/she rest in peace.
Corey Ann, you should learn about a subject before you throw stones and call names. Mike/Christine lived as Mike, a male, for the final year of his life. He chose to return to his male identity, and male pronouns are being used for that reason.
Brenden, you should just STFU. If you hadnt already noticed someone else informed me of that. And the original article on the Advocate did not say he had gone back to Male. So get off your little ego trip and go jump in a lake k?
You stupid idiots, when someone transitions, and looks female and lives as female you call them SHE and you use their chosen name. How ignorant can you BE!
Mike was no longer living as Christine. Mike had returned to living as Mike.
And perhaps Jay Leno, that ass, will not make a joke out his being dead. He sure did when he became Christine.
How sad that everyone forgets that families and friends loved this person.
Oh, well. That sucks then.