LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner, earlier this year, began living as a woman and is now known as Christine Daniels. After the change, Penner/Daniels has remained a working sportswriter, and San Bernardino Sun sports columnist Paul Oberjuerge saw her at the David Beckham debut, and said some not-so-nice things:
none of us had actually seen Mike ... uh, Christine ... since the announcement. Aside from her friends in the biz.Ouch. But do you know what's more unsettling than that? Rick Reilly's SI column from last month, in which he described meeting Daniels, who had been his old friend back when she was Penner. It's actually a very sweet piece, until we sort of get the hint that Reilly would very much like to be more than friends with his old friend.[snip]
We were at the Beckham introductory thing at Home Depot Center ... and were heading upstairs for the small-scale interviews in the suites ... when I spotted a very large woman ahead of me ... and it struck me, "Whoa. That's Mike Penner. Christine."
Anyway, I feel bad for the guy/girl. From what little I've seen of the blog he/she is doing, she (I'm gonna try to stick with the female thing now) seems quite happy. Buoyant, even. Massively relieved to be living as a woman. And that's fine.
But ...
I hate to be judgmental about these things, but Christine is not an attractive woman. Which probably isn't a surprise when you're 50 and have spent your in-the-world life as a fairly drab guy. Who has a fairly prominent Adam's apple (not all of us do) ... Who also isn't exactly petite. Maybe 6-1, 200?
The "South Park" parody practically writes itself.
Posted by Stephen Silver at July 26, 2007 10:59 PM