Mike Penner

Most sportswriters are male, Gruff, overworked and--as bartenders sometimes put it--overserved. Michael Penner changed the category. As a Los Angeles Times sportswriter, Penner, who died Nov. 27 at 52, worked even harder than most of his colleagues. But he also harbored a secret deeper than a love of bourbon: from a very early age, Penner felt that his male genitalia had been misassigned--and that he was, in the most meaningful ways, a woman. In 2007, after 23 years in the business--a career that included covering the Olympics along with professional baseball and football--Penner shocked the sports world by revealing in a...

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