LOS ANGELES, Nov 28 (Reuters) – A Los Angeles Times sportswriter who made headlines by announcing he was becoming a woman, then returned to work as a man, has been found dead in a suspected suicide, the paper reported on Saturday.
Mike Penner, a 25-year veteran of the Times sports staff, was found dead at his Los Angeles home at age 52. The paper said suicide was the suspected cause of death.
“He was one of the most talented writers I’ve ever worked with,” Times Sports Editor Mike James told the paper in a blog on its website. “He was a gentle man, a kind man. It’s just a tragedy.”
Penner stunned colleagues and readers in April 2007 with a column announcing that he was a transsexual and would become a woman.
“How do you go about sharing your most important truth, one you spent a lifetime trying to keep deeply buried, to a world that has grown familiar and comfortable with your facade?” Penner wrote.
His column became one of the most-read articles on the paper’s website and was widely reprinted on the Internet and discussed on sports talk-radio programs. read more………
QueerToday member Christopher Pagan posted on CNN iReport: ” I am writing to you about a tragic murder that has happened here in Puerto Rico. It has really only made local news simply because we are on this island, but you are the voice of those that are unheard throughout the world. On November 14 the body of a gay 19 year old was found a few miles away from the town in which he was residing in called Caguas. He was a very well known person in the gay community of Puerto Rico, and very loved. He was found on the site of an isolated road in the city of Cayey, he was partially burned, decapitated, and dismembered, both arms, both legs, and the torso.
