The Truth Finally Comes Out

I have written several times about the Mike Penner/Christine Daniels case, usually in response to some drivel from "Autumn Sandeen."  And Sandeen has usually written in response to an article about Penner.  But a new article in the L.A. Weekly has come out that sheds new light on what led Penner to take his life.  And yet, Sandeen is oddly quiet.  Why, all of a sudden, are we not subjected to another round of hand wringing by Sandeen.  Why is he not telling us what wonderful friend Christine Daniel was, and how sad he is over the loss of this dear friend?


Perhaps because the truth is out, and it turns out that we now know some new facts about what drove Penner to suicide.


The primary factor was one that I can understand.  Penner de-transitioned because he missed his wife.  He could not deal with the end of his marriage.  Years ago, I went through a similar time.  There were two differences.  In my case, my ex-spouse and I stayed together and I had time to work through my issues and realize that being true to myself was more important.  In the end, we remain friends.  Penner's marriage was beyond repair, and even after he returned to being "Mike" his marriage could not survive.


But the secondary factors are why I am not surprised that Sandeen has ignored this new insight into what happened.  There are some interesting quotes from Penner, made at the time he was still living as Christine.  For example, there is this one, sent to Susan Stanton who had complained about Christine's comments in a blog:

"I think what I'm doing is correct. If you've got a problem with it, it's your problem. ... I'm a real woman who loves makeup and clothes, shoes. A woman, not a trans-anything who needs to quote-unquote represent some undefined community. For the first time in my life, I'm being true to myself, and my true self loves makeup, clothes, shoes."

That is a very telling comment.  Especially in light of another comment where she said that she was:

"overwhelmed by everything and everyone. I feel as if I am being used as a pawn by the trans community (and maybe theTimes as well). I have been close to tears many times. ... I am flat-out exhausted."

This confirms what I long suspected.  Penner was used, and to a large extent abused, by the transgender crowd.  But Penner was not remotely transgender.  Penner was a late transitioning true transsexual.  He had fought his feelings as long as he could, but when he finally gave in, he had to face the loss of his wife.  That was too much for him to deal with.


In this article, we also learn, for I believe the first time anywhere, that Penner had scheduled surgery with Marcie Bowers.  In fact, the event that triggered his decline was when Bower's office contacted him about delaying his surgery for a week.  


I found Bower's comment that having surgery would have saved Penner's life to be highly questionable.  Penner needed to work things out with his ex-wife.  He needed to reach closure over the loss, or he needed to decide that his marriage was more important.  If he had reached the first, he would have moved on to surgery.  If he had decided the second, then it would indicate he was not a transsexual after all.  But until this was worked out surgery should have been out of the question.