Jason Collins, the NBA free agent who came out last month, is being celebrated like a king, and it’s great.

Robbie Rogers, the Galaxy midfielder who will be the first openly gay athlete to compete in an American team sport, is being hailed as a hero, and it’s wonderful.

Fallon Fox, the male-to-female transgender fighting in the UFC, is being called “it” by fans while polarizing a sport. And it’s absolutely terrible.

First off, Collins and Rogers deserve every ounce of praise they’ve received. They made bold choices in an uncertain world and are personifications of courage.

But compared to Fox’s, their decisions were about as stressful as a Sunday snooze. Living as their true selves required an announcement — Fox required a sex change.

A few years ago, I interviewed golfer Lana Lawless, a post-op transgender who made headlines by winning a women’s long-drive tournament. As might be expected, a fairly substantial backlash ensued as folks cried “no fair.”

But after speaking with Lawless at length, the legitimacy of her title began to seem immaterial. Her 325-yard drives were impressive, but nothing compared to the fact that she was still alive.

Before her transformation, Lawless was a SWAT team member on the gang unit in rough-and-tumble Rialto. She described her duties as the “police stuff you see in movies.”

But when she wasn’t taking down thugs, she was contemplating suicide; feeling trapped in a man’s body with no idea how to escape.

Lawless told me that, for every 100 people who walk into a doctor’s office with the hopes of changing their sex, only one goes through with it. The operations, the hormones — the shock loved ones feel and the disassociation that may follow — it can make climbing K2 feel like a jog around the block.

Lawless said that none of her former coworkers or golf buddies talks to her anymore, but given how her body is finally compatible with her soul, she has never been happier.

It doesn’t always work out that well.

In 2007, longtime L.A. Times sportswriter Mike Penner wrote a rousing column about his decision to live as Christine Daniels. There was no surgery, but he did dress the part, and poignantly expressed the liberation he felt after decades of captivity.

A couple of years later, Christine’s byline disappeared and Penner’s returned. He killed himself shortly after.

Tolerance in America has gone from a crawl to a sprint over the past few decades. What was once universally scorned is often wholeheartedly embraced these days.

But despite the hell people have to go through to achieve them, sex changes still struggle to enter the club of acceptance.

Fox fought Saturday night, and while she improved to 3-0, didn’t win convincingly. What was more notable than her match, however, was the post-fight reaction, in which words like “freak show” dominated the comments section, where Fox was generally referred to as “he.”

Obviously, questioning the fairness of a former man competing against women is valid — especially when we’re talking about physical combat. If there were significant strength and speed advantages, Fox’s opponents could be risking serious injury.


