While I understand the Los Angeles Times now has a liberal ownership, some of its management and employees have a lot to answer for, not the least if which is the Times’ pathetic tabloid coverage of the transgender community and its complicity in the death of one of its former respected writers, Christine Daniels, who once was a male sportswriter for that paper. She publicly transitioned in 2007, gave up a year later and then committed suicide. How the Times’ handled that story, how her co-workers and readers reacted, and the Times’ long history of erasing us is still a problem in society and the media.
Christine Daniels’ Needless Death
by Christine Beatty
(2009, unpublished)
I was saddened though not surprised to read of the death of Christine Daniels, known to most Los Angeles Times’ readers as sportswriter “Mike Penner” who transitioned from male to female. In 2008 Christine Daniels de-transitioned and resumed using the name “Mike.” I know from personal experience that hers was likely a decision made under great duress and with a heavy heart.
Trans women like Christine Daniels, who for decades deny the inner truth of their gender, often reach a place in middle age where the fear of what they might do to themselves if they don’t transition finally surpasses their fear of how others will react. It becomes a “damned if they do and damned if they don’t” situation. Christine Daniels reached her breaking point two years ago.
What she doubtlessly found, as many middle-aged transitioners do, is that the families, friends and colleagues built up over their adult lives react with shock, fear and anger at what they see as a betrayal. Usually these people have little idea of the internal battle their husband or father or child or colleague or friend has waged for so long. All they can see is how the transition will affect them in their comfort zone.
Usually decision to accept one’s transsexualism brings great relief that the internal fight is over, a sense excitement at the new possibilities. Sadly, when the people in your life learn what you intend, that’s when the blame and ostracism and retribution begins. The hope and optimism become tainted with fear.
When I first transitioned in my mid-twenties in 1985, I was stripped of my friends, family, my job and my academic career. I hit bottom in every way possible. In terrible despair after only fifteen months I threw in the towel and tried to go back to being a guy. That’s when my suicidal arc began in earnest. It was as much divine intervention as dumb luck I lived to re-transition two years later.
Christine Daniels faced all of my problems tenfold: a multitude who knew of her only as Mike until her announcement in 2007. She had not only her family of origin, there was also her family of marriage, a career spanning decades that reached many thousands of fans. Finally, and perhaps the greatest hurdle was that Christine worked in the macho world of Sports.
I did not know the particulars of Christine’s story, but after decades in the trans community I’ve seen and heard of the total excommunication by “friends” and family, of employment discrimination, of the derision and disgust and demonizing by total strangers. I know the fear that you will never ever be happy ever again, that you will die a painful and lonely death.
Worst of all, I know of the self-betrayal of trying to go back, the feeling of cowardice and the deepest hopelessness of all: that no matter what you do, you will never find peace. Those who believe they can successfully shame or threaten a trans person from following their path need only look to Christine’s tragic end to know that putting the mask back on is not the answer.
Christine wrote of knowing of her gender issue since childhood and of hundreds of hours in counseling, so making the decision to live as Christine was made only after careful deliberation. For most of us transition is a path not lightly chosen; it is not a whim. We understand we will face much difficulty, pain, opposition and fear born of other misunderstanding and prejudice. Yet we do it because we have only one real choice: between being true to ourselves or killing ourselves.
The LA Times‘ post mortem treatment of Christine Daniels was doubly repulsive, starting with the erasure of her female identity. Her blog and bylines as Christine Daniels were removed from the newspaper’s website. Her photos disappeared from all but one of the articles: the Times obituary. Christine was been extirpated as thoroughly as if God’s own eraser had descended from upon high and rubbed her out as definitively as any Old Testament smiting.
Given her detransition—doubtlessly because her colleagues and society wasn’t as supportive as the rosy picture the her “Woman in Progress” blog painted—and reverting to her former name of “Mike,” I cannot fully fault the paper for using that name and male pronouns. The outrage is how eagerly the paper and her colleagues perpetuated the idea that “Mike” was just a tortured and fundamentally unhappy guy who would have killed “himself” no matter what gender s/he lived in.
“It’s a pity you couldn’t get the substantive therapy you needed,” said one of her colleagues. “There’s nothing ‘natural’ about what you describe, and the fact that your DNA doesn’t change is proof.” Apparently this person never read about the hundreds of hours Christine spent in therapy before making the transition. I have little doubt whoever said this was less than supportive of her transition and then went on to blame her for not withstanding all the ridicule and hate.
Soon after Christine’s suicide I submitted a well-written Op-Ed suggesting that the “poor, tortured Mike” narrative put all the blame on Christine while whitewashing the wall of social rejection she encountered. Mine and I imagine other Op-Eds were never printed because the paper and its staff wanted to duck any responsibility for discouraging Christine from being her true self. Better to blame “poor, tortured Mike” than to contemplate any role in her death. (I did not make that direct accusation in my Op-Ed.)
The LA Times historically has done a terrible job of covering the trans community beyond tabloid, crime stories, and the Christine Daniels episode was just another example. Gwen Araujo’s tragic story was another. I have ceased reading the Times for that and other reasons, but I hope the new ownership becomes aware of its past sins of omission. Let Christine Daniels be their latest journalistic victim.
Selah.
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