Christine
The Importance of a Support Network
Saying that name in the transgender community usually leads people to one place: Christine Jorgensen. And that’s for good reason: Christine Jorgensen was a pioneer for transgender people as the most publicly recognized person to transition.
But I always thought of another name: Christine Daniels. And unfortunately, though she named herself for Christine Jorgensen, her story is far less uplifting. Christine Daniels was a sportswriter at the Los Angeles Times, who officially came out as transgender in 2007 after two full decades of writing under her deadname.
Fifteen years ago today, Christine Daniels took her own life, just two years into her transition.
And though I didn’t know it yet, it stuck with me. And it would partially shape my next 15 years.
For all my life, I wanted to be part of the sports media. Initially, I wanted to be a broadcaster. When I realized I was better with the pen than the microphone, I switched to writing. Given that I have been writing in some form for all of my adult life, I think that was the right choice.
And in 2009 — 15 years ago — I got that chance. If you’ve compared the timelines, you can probably see where this is going. Christine Daniels’ suicide was just a matter of months into my career. And seeing that, my subconscious response was to take all of my own feminine feelings and bury them as deep as I possibly could.
I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t know that I had them. But my subconscious was terrified of her story becoming my own, and I had wrapped everything in my life into becoming a sportswriter. So I buried them inside that prison of my own making.
And over the next 15 years, she served as a cautionary tale that kept my prison locked and secure. But the walls began to crumble over the past couple of years for a couple of reasons. First, I achieved some of my biggest dreams in sportswriting. I won’t say what they were to avoid outing myself, but I’d wanted them for years and finally say them become reality. With those achieved, I had nothing left to prove and lost that stress.
Second, I got to know the transgender community. I have been incredibly blessed to have found my community through social media, and to have come across some of the most genuine, wonderful people you would ever hope to meet. The fact that they are trans is part of their story, but the fact that they are kind-hearted, loving people is so much more to it. There’s a reason that when people meet a trans person, they are far more likely to support equality. And that’s because so many in our community are a joy to have in your life.
And that is the biggest difference between myself and Christine Daniels.
She didn’t have the support of her friends and family. She lost her marriage, and because her ex-wife was a writer at the same newspaper, everyone took sides and almost everyone chose her ex-wife as an innocent victim. Of course, they were both innocent victims, as Christine never asked for any of this, but the world wasn’t very enlightened on trans people in 2007. (Given what just happened three weeks ago, the world still isn’t very enlightened on trans people in 2024, but I digress.)
I do have that support. And since writing this poem, I’ve thought a lot about the road that led me to my egg cracking.1 I’ve realized that over the past couple years, the universe had slowly been preparing me to have the support I would need to accept myself and move forward.
That’s important, because when you are any form of trans, it’s not a choice. The only choice you have as a trans person is whether to accept yourself or not. Christine Daniels put it similarly when she came out in 2007: “A transgender friend provided the best and simplest explanation I have heard: We are born with this, we fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins.”
Had she not taken her life, maybe I would have gotten my egg cracked years before and not spent 20+ years hating myself. But I wouldn’t have had my support network. I wouldn’t have gotten to know each of my trans friends, who came into my life one by one, learned to trust me as someone who wasn’t there to hurt them and then became supporters of me when my egg did crack and I needed them to help me. I wouldn’t have had as deep of a support network of friends and family ready to accept me as all of me. Given how I grew up, I might not have even been ready to accept me myself.
And that might well have destroyed me.
Living with self-hatred for over 20 years wasn’t fun. But if it means that I get to live as me, all of me, for the next 40-50 years, then I make that trade every time.
Christine, thank you for your bravery, and I’m sorry the world wasn’t ready to hear your truth back then. But in the end, to borrow part of a line from fellow trans sportswriter Dawn Ennis, while it was a sad chapter in LGBTQ+ sports history, at least some good came out of it.2
Christine
The scribe takes her notes At the end of the night Heads up to the press box And she starts to write The details, the highlights Appear the next morn Boiled down to as simple As the game’s final score In the City of Angels Where she spent so long The whole world assuming Her foundation was strong It’s what she projected And she did it well But churning inside her Unknowable hell For she couldn’t speak out Two worlds, never whole A world wasn’t ready And didn’t want to know Don’t become the story Our familiar creed Known deeply by all those Who swear to the deed We bury our feelings To swear to the truth An irony greater Than anyone knew She held things together As best as she could But the day always coming She’d be silenced for good A thousand words written But none that felt right To pull her from darkness And back to the light Her colleagues, they watched her The best of the best And some cruelly called her A man in a dress Her work life in tatters Her home a divide What else could she do then But run off and hide? But that’s not an option For those on this path The need for self-loving Runs into the math We give to this demon Until there’s nothing left Because we serve it daily And it demands our best And too many of us We lose our true selves We put what we’re feeling Up high on the shelf The pressures upon her Forced her early grave An industry knowing She could have been saved And miles away from this A young writer learns To bury all feelings Where inside they burn For that’s the day’s lesson To keep things inside Don’t talk of your feelings No, you have to hide The scribes slowly realize That they did her wrong When she needed saving They pushed her along The words they had chosen Cut her like a knife But they should have known that For writing’s their life For years since her ending Her name still remains A tragic, sad tale Of what hatred brings But here’s where the story Takes another turn For years since it happened More lessons were learned You shaped my beginnings But you’re not my end For this is my story Now I’ve got the pen I have the support now What you sorely lacked Build on what you started Respect for the past I’ll write a new ending One that makes you proud Where being your true self Is fully allowed The world wasn’t ready To hear of your truth But through our shared writings We can help save our youth For all lives have value And all lives have worth All lives are worth saving On this often cruel earth The rainbow’s true promise Must never be lost Look out for each other No matter the cost Don’t put away feelings Don’t hide anymore A legacy deeper Than a simple box score
(Editor’s note: In the trans community, when a person refers to their egg cracking or getting their egg cracked, it’s a reference to when they realized they were trans and could not go back to who they were before.)
If you or a loved one is LGBTQ+ and considering self-harm or suicide, help is available. The Trevor Project is an excellent resource. You are loved and you are valuable.