Mike Penner Found Dead In Home

The Los Angeles Times reported today that veteran of 23 years LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner has been found dead in his Los Angeles home apparently by suicide. Penner the on again, off again, transsexual was 52.

In 2007, Penner announced to his readers that he was taking a vacation and would return to the sports desk a few weeks later as “Christine Daniels”. In his column on April 26, 2007, Penner wrote, 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.

As Daniels, Penner got more than his “15 minutes of fame” as he was featured in Sports Illustrated, gave speeches including at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Convention in August of 2007, was honored by transgender groups for “her courage” and wrote a blog for the LA Times titled “Woman In Progress.”

But all that changed in October 2008 when Penner had a change of heart, when he retired Daniels and became Penner again, in what some have called “transgender regret”. The blog and by-lines of Daniels disappeared, and fortunately for Penner he never had a sex-change operation, otherwise he would have been known as “Penner the Eunuch”.

Despite researching for this posting, this writer could not find any quotes from Penner as to why he reverted back to Penner. The LA Times reports it will have a full obit at a later date for Penner and perhaps later it will be known, whether by fact or speculation, as to why Penner put Daniels back in the closet. But don’t expect a followup here, I post this only as a news event of a sportswriter’s death and not delving into the mind of a man who couldn’t decide what he wanted to be.

For that follow up you’ll have to seek out any number of transgender bloggers who will see this as a great tragedy.

Tragic yes that a man does himself in, but transgenders such as Autumn Sandeen at Pam’s House Blend will forget the obviously troubled man who committed suicide and turn this into a great tragedy for transgenderhood. And has turned into a pity party for, not Penner, but Sandeen at PHB.