Looking Back: For some, shadow of regret cast over gender switch

2/26/2009

By Steve Friess, special for USA TODAY

The day Mike Penner left the Los Angeles Times made the news. The longtime sportswriter wrote the article himself, a personal essay explaining that he was taking some time off and, upon his return, he would be known from then on as Christine Daniels.

Penner's public acknowledgment in April 2007 that he was transgender and would soon live as a woman shocked the world of sports journalism and turned his new identity, Daniels, into an instant celebrity. Daniels gave speeches, was profiled in Sports Illustrated, collected honors for courage from transgender groups and wrote a blog for the Times titled "Woman In Progress."

Except that the transition didn't last. In mid-October 2008, after a lengthy leave of absence, Penner, 51, returned to the sports pages and the Times newsroom as a man.

And just as suddenly, Penner's story, heralded in its early days as a triumphant example of transgender progress, has instead become a cautionary tale of the lesser-known phenomenon: transgender regret. . . .Read More

Looking Back: About The "Real Life Experience" and Detransitioning

by Autumn Sandeen

Oct 24, 2008


[Note: LenaD has a related diary entitled The road not taken on the same subject as this diary, but with a somewhat different take. ~~Autumn~~]

Some days I hate my job at Pam's House Blend, and this is definitely one of those days. I really need to explain what the Real Life Experience [(RLE) -- also referred to as the Real Life Test (RLT)] is and why some transsexuals detransition...And, this is because the person I met as Christine Daniels is apparently detransitioning (also called retransitioning) to Mike Penner.

Basically, I need to separate the personal from the professional when discussing how detransitioning fits into transsexual experience -- a sometime component of transitioning sexes -- and yet on the very personal level I wish it weren't at the impetus of someone I've known and care deeply about that's leading me to discuss the subject.

But life is what it is. . . .Read More