It was sad to read about the awful tragedy of Los Angeles sportswriter Mike Penner, who started living as a woman, then regretted it and went back to being a man, and finally killed himself (or so it seems).He was found dead at the age of 52, but left no note or warning of his intentions. Why he committed suicide is a mystery that will probably never be solved.
About 5% of transsexuals regret changing their gender and change back (as far as they're able to after genital surgery). The rest say they are happy to have made the change.
Mike lived as a woman for around 18 months, but it seems that he had not yet had any surgery.
Regrets can set in for a number of reasons. Aspiring women are daunted by the time and effort required to maintain a perfect female appearance. Or they get disheartened by constant discrimination and harassment. Or they never quite feel like a real woman even if they're accepted as one.
It's known that Mike went through a "very painful" divorce from his wife, and he may have wondered whether it was worth that trauma to become Christine. He may have decided he could never really shed almost 50 years of masculine history. Who knows?
But it's tragic when someone who has taken the dramatic step of changing his gender and all that goes with it then decides he has made a big mistake and wants to turn the clock back. And even when he tries to do that, he's still unhappy and confused.
Certainly the process of turning yourself into a convincing and confident woman without the intensive conditioning that girls normally go through must be incredibly difficult.
It seems that Mike found it impossible and from then on he could no longer make sense of his life. So he ended it.
Pic: Mike's female self, Christine Daniels
