The New Adventures of Newer Christine?

Now this is one you don't see everyday...

It seems that Mike Penner, a staff writer for the L.A. Times, is undergoing gender reassignment next week. He's in his 40's, he's very excited about the change, and his new name when he returns to his post will be Christine.

Well, best of luck but no big deal, right? Well, it sort of is when the post in question happens to be the Sports desk. Yes, Christine-to-be is a transsexual sports writer who has written for the sports section for 23 years, and has come out publicly -- in the pages of the paper for which he writes -- as such.

Penner notes:

For more years than I care to count, I was scared to death over the prospect of writing a story such as this one. It was the most frightening of all the towering mountains of fear I somehow had to confront and struggle to scale.

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 façade?

To a world whose knowledge of transsexuals usually begins and ends with Jerry Springer's exploitation circus?

Painfully and reluctantly, I began the coming-out process a few months ago. To my everlasting amazement, friends and colleagues almost universally have been supportive and encouraging, often breaking the tension with good-natured doses of humor.

When I told my boss Randy Harvey, he leaned back in his chair, looked through his office window to scan the newsroom and mused, "Well, no one can ever say we don't have diversity on this staff."

I don't know with whom I'm more impressed -- with Penner for working up the courage to take this step and to share it with the paper's readers, or with the bosses at the sports desk for welcoming Penner's personal thoughts and feelings into the pages of their paper.

Either way, it's absolutely fantastic. We ran an article last month asking whether the recent controversies in the sporting world indicate that the industry is becoming a more tolerant and welcoming place, and this is certainly encouraging news -- we'll have to wait and see how the readers respond to new Christine, although the comments on the article's page are overwhelmingly positive thus far.