In April 2007, Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner became Christine Daniels, announcing in a column that he was transitioning to she. Last October, Daniels ditched her chosen name and became a man again, writing under the name Mike Penner. It was a confusing re-transition for many, and USA Today this week has tackled the phenomenon of transgender regret.
When Penner returned to the LA Times, I started researching this very story. I talked to a couple trans people and was told that this was not uncommon: Many people who transitioned to another gender identity ultimately switched back. Even some who have gender-reassignment surgery have deep regret over it.
What is left circling in my mind is this statement by Penner in the LA Times: “We are born with this. We fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins.” He said he fought it for years. That he was born a woman in a man’s body. That he knew it since he was a kid. He was so out front on the issue, so up front on the issue. And I can’t believe for a second that any of that was not true.
Unfortunately for all of us, Penner won’t talk about it. He hasn’t written about his transition back. He hasn’t returned my request for an interview. USA Today said he never returned their request. The LA Times has scrubbed their Web site of Christine Daniels (who was writing a blog and articles for them). It’s as though Penner wishes his decision in April 2007 and Daniels didn’t exist. And that’s too bad. He is in a unique position to spread understanding not just of these issues, but of humanity. I just want to understand a little better - not judge, but understand. Hopefully Penner will figure that out someday and share his thoughts with us.
Hat tip to Ted Rybka at GLAAD.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I’m a scientist. The bias in my worldview is to look for numbers, things that can be measured. That’s not always the best way to look at things, but it does for me.
The biology tells me that “male” and “female” are really good approximations. 59 times out of 60, everything lines up, everything matches. No need for a “gender spectrum”, it’s a hard binary. 59 times out of 60…. but not 60 times.
There’s two clusters, but between those two, things aren’t so clear. Even within the clusters, people are more or less “typically masculine” or “typically feminine”. And it’s not just one-dimensional, women can be more “typical of the female norm” in some areas, and less typical in others. The norm is that no-one is “normal”, “average”, “typical” in every respect. It would be indeed “abnormal” if they were.
If you add sexual orientation into the mix, insisting that “typically masculine” means gynaphillic, exclusively sexually attracted to females, the 59 in 60 is more like 55 in 60. Maybe less.
We’re starting to get a good handle on neuroanatomy, how it relates to instinctive or natural behaviour. We know that the brain is at least as sexually dimorphic as the genitalia. Two main clusters. But within those clusters, things vary, different parts of the brain and different parts of the rest of the body can be more or less typical. There’s also some plasticity in some areas, less in others, and some areas are hard-wired.
Mike has “gender issues”, or he wouldn’t have attempted transition. Whether Mike is more accurately described as a neurally feminised man, or a bodily masculinised woman is a difference more of degree than kind. For those outside the two typical clusters, such labels are really only approximations, and may be very bad ones.
Has Mike found out that he’s more accurately described as a man after all? That’s rare, but it happens. Will Mike try transitioning again in the future? More common, but again, it may not. The thing is, my opinions and guesses don’t matter. Only Mike can say what’s best for him, and even he has had difficulties with that. Transition is hard even for those for whom it fits, all it can take is one rape or threat of rape, one parent saying “I will die if you continue”, and it can be too hard, even if it’s the right thing to do.
Some transition and take to the target gender as if they were born for it. Which they were. Some attempt transition and find that they’re just as uncomfortable in another stereotype that doesn’t really fit, and find a niche as androgenous, a mix. And a few tragically find no comfort anywhere, nothing fits, not male, not female, not andro (both male and female), not neutrius (neither male nor female).
Some Intersexed people are the same way, most fit in one or the other of the two clusters, regardless of how atypical their bodies may be. About 1 in 10 have “gender issues”, and many of those transition. But some are able to find a different way, 3rd sex, or andro, or neutrius. A few never find a place of rest.
I don’t care what Mike eventually ends up looking like on the outside, or whether he ends up presenting as Mike or Christine. I just hope that he finds a place of balance, a place of comfort.
I hope that those who are in the 59 in 60 if merely gay, or 55 in 60 if straight, find this information useful. I’ve been there, so to speak.
I’m Intersexed rather than Transsexual, but I played a male role for most of my life, because I looked male. So TS is close enough. I transitioned, and was fortunate enough to find that I was far more typically female than I thought before. It’s comfy where I am, natural at last. The relief is indescribable. I’m still a tomboy, a geek girl, not girlie at all. But me at last. I hope Mike finds his place, just as I found mine.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Cyd, while there are certainly some people who regret transition, let’s think about why that might be. Transition is stressful, both financially and emotionally. Its costs are overwhelmingly not covered by medical insurance nor even (at this point in time) tax deductible. Many people experience considerable personal and professional loss. Some transitioners face loss of their primary relationship and even face hostile legal proceedings involving a lack of access to their children. And most shamefully, many face a lack of any meaningful legal protections either from hate crimes or job/housing discrimination. So why do they do it despite all this… most often to save their very lives. And very often, people who can’t deal with all these stresses detransition only to retransition later on. And in spite of all that we deal with, the rate of people detrainsitioning after a full transition is very low, with estimates around 2%. So, saying that “many” people detransition even after SRS is a bit of a misnomer… some people do, and some of those end up retransitioning later on.
I feel compassion for Mike Penner and all he’s gone through in both directions. He’ll very likely live with regret about not being able to complete transition for the rest of his life. I’ve known people who’ve gone down that road and, believe me, detransitioning in no way makes your gender dysphoria any less, if anything it intensifies it. Very likely Mr. Penner is experiencing a lot of shame, mixed feelings and conflicts about what’s happened, what hasn’t happened and the very public way it occurred. He deserves all the respect for his privacy we can give him.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Gina, I appreciate your thoughts, but I didn’t say anything about people retransitioning after gender reassignment surgery. And I said nothing about not respecting his privacy - I simply said I HOPE he talks; And all of your reasons for people retransitioning are exactly why I hope he shares his experience.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Cyd,
“Many people who transitioned to another gender identity ultimately switched back. Even some who have gender-reassignment surgery have deep regret over it.”
Your use of the word “many” without any real attempt at explaining what percentage it is of the total makes it seem a much more common phenomena than it is. Likewise, it doesn’t take into account retransition by people who have detransitioned which, from my experience, is a high percentage of detransitioners. Understand there are still many forces in the US medical establishment (much less religious right) who are completely against people being able to transition and find medical services. There is a sizable percentage of the population that still views SRS as “mutilation.” So, kindly understand when our community has issues when people try to overstate the numbers of detransitioners.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Hi Cyd
I have to admit I didn’t much like your use of the word many. I do regret things about my transition, but not the fact that I did it. I was forced to leave a $130k a year job and nearly lost the $60k job I got as a replacement, the person that I still hold to be the ‘love of my life’ left me, my daughter disowned me. Is that ‘transgender regret’? Cause I regret all those things happened simply because society is too ignorant to understand…
I too hope Penner does speak out about his decision some day, but I also think I have to respect his right not to. Perhaps he does wish he had kept it a ‘dirty little secret’ and that it had never happened. I know there were times when I wished that very same thing.
on Feb 27th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
The word “many” came from talking to TWO leaders in the trans community in New York City. Sorry, that word isn’t mine; It is taken directly from people at the forefront of the issue.
on Feb 27th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
If the people you have failed to quote directly, but instead paraphrasing them, are truly “leaders of the trans community in New York”, and honestly believe the word “many” is appropriate in this context, then they simply are out of touch.
Cyd, disowning your own words is an admission of someone that has done too little research into a subject. Please feel free to email me with questions should you wish to write on subjects that directly effect _transsexual_ people, and also get in touch with other transsexual people….. A small amount of research (or maybe even reading the article you hyperlink to __all__ the way through) will do wonders for your journalistic credibility.
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Zoe Brain you rock! Nice post. I am a wildlife bio/forest ecologist and love evolutionary biology and arguments about that. You’ve taken it to the next level and put humans and their sex and neurological wiring under the microscope. Dang and you got paid for that
OK, I used to get paid to hike 
Oh, thanks Cyd everyone/all for bringing the transgendered topic up as honestly I am ignorant. I’m thinking being a life long rural gay man is a cake walk compared to the transgendered folks and the potential biological “wiring” issue Zoe speaks too.
Now I dont believe for a minute Cyd is the big poon hound he is reported to be (funny) but he did stir the pot quite nicely and totally by accident it seems. I don’t know Cyd personally (seems like a cool guy, but…) but he may have chronic foot and mouth disease or steps in it fairly frequently. Or I could be full of it as I am frequently told. Have a good week end all. Night. Kev