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Transsexual sportswriter dies, apparent suicide
November 29th, 2009Mike Penner, a sportswriter for the L.A. Times who in 2007 announced he was transsexual and would write under the name “Christine Daniels” (and who later when back to the byline Mike Penner) has died at 52, apparently of suicide.
You can read the story here, but one thing I find curious is how the article uses the “he” pronoun (like I did above once, in reference to “Mike” announcing his decision so it was clearly a male-to-female transition) throughout. Is that politically incorrect? (I know I took heat once referring to Alexis Arquette as “he” after Alexis announced the intent to transition.)
Thanks to Renee Baker for post this info.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Sad, sad story. Arnold, you and the LA Times shouldn’t take any heat about the pronoun as the Times article stated he resumed using his male name in 2008.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
From my understanding, you use the pronoun that fits the name. So when discussing Mike, you should use he. When discussing Christine you should use she.
For example, in the article referenced above it says, ‘As Christine,” he wrote.’ I find this offensive and the average reader will find it confusing. I would say that the pronoun should be “she” in this instance, since we are referring to Christine, a female.
I cannot vouch for what is PC, but this is how I’ve seen it, and it’s very intuitive. For the reader, it allows them to understand the story and the transition. By starting with Mike (and he) and following with Christine (and she), it’s obvious you are referring to a Male-to-Female transition. Also, it makes it easy to discuss both Mike (pre-transition) and Christine by referring to each as “he” and “she”, respectively.