The case of the transsexual sportswriter
by susan mernit

In one of the best opening lines of recent years, LA Times sportwriter Mike Penner opened his recent column with the lede:

"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."

Mike's column has many powerful statements, like this one: "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 façade?"

Check this one out--the truths there are ones all women working to show themselves will recognize.

Submitted by susan mernit (view blog) on Fri, 04/27/2007 - 8:46pm

Comments

 

Thank you for bringing this

Thank you for bringing this up. This issue is going to come up more and more as our society slowly becomes more open and free. Major employers have embraced transgender workplace diversity for more than a decade, but others are just getting up to speed. They are going to have to, as more and more laws are passed protecting people from prejudice. More at http://transworkplace.blogspot.com

Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss

Submitted by drjillygirl on Sat, 04/28/2007 - 06:46
 

It's a scary crossing...

and I commend Christine for staring in the face of one of the most patriarchal of all societal institutions: sports.

But we've come a long way, a long way since the first public appearance of my internal rumblings in 1998. The closing of the 20th century was full of scary writings about the horrors faced by trannies, and well... are you up for facing these horrors?

Hell, no. As if I had any choice.

There was good, and there was bad. There was the bad that came with verbal abuse as a partnership disintegrated... think not only of me facing the issue, but what was faced by my partner, watching me blow up in her face and take her life as she knew it right along with me. And there was so much that flowed along with this in one major pile of life debris. Almost everything.

There was my mom, accepting. My sis, accepting. There were friends who held me up, none of them ever letting me shut down. I tried like hell for a moment, but... some also planted seeds to rebuild.

And then my new employer, one who gave me a chance, one that has strict anti-discriminatory policy, and encourages me to strive towards the better. I cannot understate the subtle but immense value of being free to post diversity stickers in my workspace, to have rainbows, rainbow dogs, rainbow cats, a Melissa Ferrick sticker... just a bit of who I am.

We've come a long way in nine years... society & me. Methinks Christine will face individual challenges, but it's sooooooooo much better than it once was.

nelle

Submitted by nelle2nelle on Sun, 04/29/2007 - 18:25