Mike Penner, a long time news/sports journalist with the Los Angeles Times, committed suicide. Mr. Penner gained notoriety when he publicly announced his gender transition in that newspaper. His attempt at transitioning failed and a year or so later he resumed writing for the LA Times using Mike Penner as his pen name.
I would hope that no one holds anything but sympathy, compassion, and condolences for Mr. Penner, his family, and friends.
Suicide is simply tragic. My very best friends lost their daughter when, after a seemingly wonderful weekend with her family, she kissed them goodbye – smiling and waving – before what was to have been the twenty three mile trip back to college in her car, a routine that had happened countless times on countless weekends before. But…instead, immediately after climbing into her car, she drove nine straight hours and six hundred miles to Oklahoma, got a Taco Bell dinner to go, checked into a seedy motel, and ate most of the fast food…before then downing three quarters of a fifth of cheap vodka and then putting her father’s .44 magnum pistol squarely under her chin and pulling the trigger.
