Transsexual Los Angeles Times sportswriter has been found dead in a suspected suicide, the paper reported on Saturday.
Mike Penner was a 25-year veteran of Los Angeles Times sports staff and he was found dead at age 52 at his Los Angeles
home. Cause of the death: suicide.
Times Sports Editor Mike James write in a blog on its website: “He was one of the most talented writers I’ve ever worked with. He was a gentle man, a kind man. It’s just a tragedy”.
Mike Penner astonished his colleagues and the readers of the paper with an ad in April 2007 that he was a transsexual and would become a woman: “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 facade?”
His ad was discussed over the internet and sports talk-radio programs and became one of the most-read articles
on the paper’s website
Tags: Los Angeles Times sportswriter, Los Angeles Times sportswriter found dead, Mike penner, mike penner found dead, mike penner suicide
I wrote the novel Secret Choices about gender issues, and so reading Mike Penner’s story, I had to wonder if maybe he was a cross-dresser – which both heterosexual and homosexual men can be without identifying as the female gender. I know a cross-dressing heterosexual man and have discussed details with him. While he had electrolysis to remove facial hair, his sexuality focuses on women. And he dresses as a male most of the time but also likes to dress as a woman and join a conversation group where all the others are women.
Now I’m writing a book on suicide and will include Mike’s story.