Mike Penner, a longtime writer for the Los Angeles Times who came out as a transsexual two years ago and changed his name to Christine Daniels, was found dead at 52 of a likely suicide. Story here.
The curious thing to me is this:
After his vacation, Penner did indeed return as Christine Daniels, not only continuing to report on sports for the Times but also authoring a blog called "Woman in Transition," detailing his experiences.
However, he eventually dropped the "Woman in Transition" blog and returned to writing under the name Mike Penner.
I can't find any information as to why he switched his working name back, or if this was a change that went deeper than the byline. It will be interesting to see if any information of note is released regarding this particular aspect of his life. It seems hard to believe that he (I refer to him as male because the article does) did so without being in some way compelled to do so, even if it wasn't due to any sort of direct pressure from the company, family, etc. And if that's the case, I wonder if he would have been ok had people just left him alone about it.
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An overwhelming portion of the trans population considers suicide, and quite a few (though how many exactly, we have no clue) goes through with it.
I can't say anything about Penner's specific situation, but I do know this: the struggle for trans women and men does not end at transition. Especially with high profile transitions late in life, it's particularly difficult to just step back and be yourself. Not to mention that as much progress has been made with physical transition, it can still leave a whole lot to be desired... All in all, you can end up in a situation where you feel trapped in a man's (or woman's) body regardless of treatment, and socially stuck somewhere in between with a huge stigma attached.
I don't know, I'm projecting really. I was fortunate enough to begin my transition pretty early, but there's not a moment I don't wish I could have started earlier. There's a lot of baggage that lingers.
From what I've read, it was Mike's choice to switch back to his birth name and he also asked the LA Times to change the Christine Daniels bylines back to Mike Penner in their online archives.
One of the commenters on one of the LA Times articles said that he never actually had gender reassignment surgery. So I don't think outside forces compelled him to switch his name back, I think he was just a troubled individual who couldn't find his place in the world. It's a very sad story all around.
I think I saw an article written by this person some time ago discussing going back to living as a man, and then switching to live as a woman again. I am sure it was the same person, as it was an MtF sports writer, and I definitely recognise the names, but nothing I can find online mentions that this person went back to living as Christine again after going back to being Mike, so I'm sort of confused. The article was an insightful account of the difficulties of navigating gender. Does anyone else remember this article?
It is really sad to hear about this, so soon after TGDOR.