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A few weeks ago, my husband asked me if I had heard about the LA Times sportswriter who announced that he was undergoing a sex change.
“Of course I haven’t heard about it!†I said. I’m always the last to hear about anything, and I don’t closely follow sports. “How are people reacting?â€
Happily (surprisingly?), the reaction is supportive. As Michael David Smith wrote at the AOL Sports Blog:
The news that Los Angeles Times sports writer Mike Penner is a transsexual who will soon begin writing under the byline Christine Daniels is a good opportunity to note that transsexuals are part of every segment of society and every occupation. In fact, Penner is not the only transsexual sports writer in America.
Christina Kahrl has worked on all 12 editions of the annual book Baseball Prospectus. In most of those editions Kahrl was a man writing under the name Chris Kahrl, but two years ago she changed her byline when she changed her gender.
"Nobody has batted an eye," Kahrl said at the time. "Everybody has been great and supportive."
That's a good sign. Simply by living their lives, Kahrl and Penner are helping to make us a more open-minded society.
Blogger Jackie Danicki calls Penner “a class act.†At Tampa Forums, JonNoH asks, “…how many of you would have the cojones to come out like this to the sports world?†Bad joke, but still a good point. Self-described “sports obsessed hick†Neate Sager at Out of Left Field warmed my heart with this thought:
Like myself, you might not know much about transsexualism, but the least one can do is try to understand. The writer's final column penned as Mike Penner even expressed hope that no longer being conflicted over sexuality might lead to fewer breakouts of writer's block at deadline. So don't dismiss it or laugh it at out of hand -- the sensible thing seems to be wish the future Christine Daniels good luck. Life is hard enough without people going around slapping labels on someone and focusing on one element of their makeup instead of what they can do. To be honest, just the thought of the future Christine Daniels appearing on CNN with the on-screen graphic "transsexual sportswriter" is irritating enough since obviously this individual is so much more than that, but some people won't be able to get past the label.
One thing that nags at my mind, though, is how the story is spun. ESPN wrote that Penner said that his brain is "wired female,†which honestly makes me cringe a bit. Not because I think it is wrong to feel that your sex and gender don’t match, but that it always winds up being played out in a way that reinforces stereotypes of what being “female†and “male†mean. (I’m just curious to know what a female wired brain is because you can ask 1,000 different people and get 4,000 different answers.)
Our society is too limited – and accordingly provides the narrowest of frameworks to express ourselves – to let people just be who they are without forcing them into a box. Perhaps switching boxes allows someone to be more comfortable, which is good, but at the end of the day, it is still a box. I think we'd all benefit from a world where brains are no more gendered than bodies.
Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants
