Thursday, August 02, 2007
Male Sportswriter Returns To Work As a Woman
For all of its trappings of money, fame, and corruption, professional sports has a lot to do with character. Avid sports fans seem to respect those who face up to overwhelming challenge and overcome adversity. So it should not come as a surprise that readers rose in solidarity when a 23-year veteran sports writer announced in the Los Angeles Times that he would return from a short hiatus ... as a woman.
On April 26, Mike Penner wrote what he thought would be the toughest article of his career. "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." The piece ran in the Sports section, next to his regular column.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Penner's story was "by mid-evening, one of the most heavily viewed stories on latimes.com in the last year, with about half a million page views." Nancy Sullivan, executive director of communications for the newspaper, says "There was a massive response to this story, not only on our website, but across the media spectrum." The online message board accompanying the article was closed to comments in less than 8 hours, with 800 comments logged in. Hundreds more messages were sent via e-mail. Responses to the revelation came in three distinct flavors: kudos from sports fans, effusive thanks from other transsexuals and rants from bible-thumpers. Readers' initial shock, however, subsided almost immediately. . . .
Autogynephila in the advice column
My straight (?) man who loves women and their curves and smiles and butts and legs, who loves me and my mom and his mom and all the pretty girls who pass us on the sidewalk, also really, really likes looking at transsexual porn. . . .
The Rainbow Babies.com Turns One Year Old
TheRainbowBabies.com turns one year old this month. With over 200 pages of original content aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered parents and those wishing to become parents, TheRainbowBabies.com is the destination site for up to date information and news impacting LGBT families.
Long Beach, CA (PRWEB) July 31, 2007 -- TheRainbowBabies.com is a web site dedicated to providing space for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to share stories of their respective paths to parenthood. Launched on June 27th, 2006, the website is excited to be celebrating their one year anniversary. TheRainbowBabies.com is also a place where parents (and would-be parents) can turn to for timely and timeless information, advice and stories about getting pregnant, having babies and raising children, from experts in various fields and other gay parents.
TheRainbowBabies.com features information on such topics as insemination, surrogacy, adoption and foster parenting. Also featured on the site are book and movie reviews, articles on legal, financial and mental health issues and most importantly, stories from moms and dads. All information is provided free of charge; the web site is funded in part by advertising.
The Rainbow Babies is proud to have made it to the one year mark. "One year in internet terms is likely equal to 4.5 regular chronological years, so we figure that we're doing pretty good," says founder Angela Watson. "Additionally, the entire web site team is proud of the fact that we have well over 200 pages of original and unique content that is aimed specifically at LGBT parents and their families."
With well over half a million hits in the last six months alone, the web site hopes to continue it's phenomenal growth. Watson continued, saying, "As we enter into our 'Terrible Twos', we are changing around the look and navigation of the web site and this new look should roll out in the next 30 days. We are all 'terribly' excited!" . . .
Debate with radical feminist Julie Bindel
Recommended!
First, read the stories regarding Bindel I posted yesterday.
