Work in Progress, Worklife, Workplace, TIME

April 26, 2007 3:00

Coming Out as Transgender at Work

Posted by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen | Comments (3) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

I just finished reading this stunning piece by Los Angeles Times sportwriter Mike Penner. It begins:

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.

Holy sashimi. What a lead. It continues:

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.

That's OK. I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my work will be transitioning as well. That will take time. And that's all right. To borrow a piece of well-worn sports parlance, we will take it one day at a time.

I don't know Mike, but I'm familiar with his byline and I have a few friends who work at the LAT. In other words, I feel like I know him. It occurs to me: this could be anyone on my staff, too.

I'm trying to imagine being in his, soon to be her, shoes. I'm imagining growing up wanting to be a journalist, and finally landing that dream job of jobs, a full-time post at the LAT. He doesn't delve into it in his piece, but I'm imagining the hyper-macho world of sports journalism, and how he's going to adjust in that realm. What'll happen the next time he steps into the Angels' locker room?

I'm imagining the many hours of staring at the computer as he wrote those words: "I am a transsexual sportswriter."

He tells of breaking the news to his colleagues, his boss, his soccer buddies. His boss had a funny reaction:

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."

Revealing a secret about yourself at work is wrenching enough. It's exponentially more so when you're in the public eye. Penner chose to seize the moment and his platform and share his story with the world. In doing so, he's done an incalculable service to the many others who must struggle with his predicament.

Carry on, Christine. We're with you.

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Reader Comments (3)

Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss:

This is an issue that is coming up more and more as we become a more free and open society. Transgender workplace diversity challenges our notions of "normal", but it doesn't have to be traumatic. Most major employers support it. http:\\transworkplace.blogspot.com

Posted by Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss | April 26, 2007 2:19 PM

Lily McBeth:

Like many of us,Christine was a long time finding her way to the surface of life from the depths where she was buried in Mike.For people like us it comes down to reaching the point when you finally realize in the deepest part of you,your soul.I am what I am. Now that I know that,then you ask yourself that crucile question.Now what am I going to do about it?
What else is life all about? Simply a journey to the truth about yourself.
I often wonder what took me so long to reach the same conclusion as Mike.Transition at age 70 for me was a real challange,but worth every moment of life for Lily

Posted by Lily McBeth | April 28, 2007 10:20 AM

Sarah Marci:

I am bi-gendered. I do not particulary like the term transsexual, as that has specific meanings. Personally, I do not disavow my male side, as I cannot. Marci (my Hungarian male name) is a part of who I am. Sarah, however, has also been a part of me. I could not tolerate her being locked in prison. I equate the feeling not to losing a 40 yard line or whatever she said, but rather giving birth. Sarah wanted to come out, as much as a mother giving birth to a child, when the child wants to come out. I just want to be whole, be me.

I can say that what Christine Daniels did took massive courage. She did more for everyone, not just transsexuals, as live is a spectrum. Gender is a spectrum, as is sexual preference. People need to learn that life is not a few boxes or even many boxres, but a wave inifinite in its diversity and infinite in its combinations (IDIC).

As a sports writer for a well known paper, she has done more to expose diversity than anyone in recent memory. That I write this comment is an indication to that. I do not like watching or following sports, so I do not know her. I heard about her from two other sources, who are not transsexual, but do know me. That says something.

I hope there comes a time, when people get accepted and looked at for who they are on the inside and not who they are on the outside, be it black, Hispanic, Lesbian, Gay, Transsexual, Republican, Democratic, or a million other terms.

Nobody who transitions should hear:

I was friends with Martin. I tolerated Marci, but I do not accept nor am friends with Sarah. All are me, always have been and always shall be. If anything, I am happier now in a sense that I integrated myself and feel whole.

Posted by Sarah Marci | April 30, 2007 6:46 PM

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Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a staff writer for TIME. She blogs about work. Why? Because TV was taken. Think of her as the grumpy colleague ranting by the water cooler.
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