Career
From 2000 to 2005, Kahrl was employed as an acquisitions editor at Brassey's Sports, a mid-list publisher that focused on sports history and analysis. [6]
After the launch of BaseballProspectus.com in 1996, of which she was a founding member, she contributed a regular column entitled "Transaction Analysis," listing and analyzing the transactions (player trades, contract signings, promotions and demotions) by all Major League Baseball teams for the site. In 2011, she kicked off a new standalone opinion and argument column for the site entitled "Purpose Pitches." [7] She was a co-editor of nine of the Baseball Prospectus annual volumes of baseball statistics and analysis. [8]
Kahrl has also written for SportsIllustrated.com, ESPN.com, the New York Sun , Salon.com, Slate , Playboy , and the Washington Blade , and was an associate editor of The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia.
In 2008, Kahrl was accepted as a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America and thus became eligible to vote on Major League Baseball post-season awards and nominees for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. She voted for the American League Rookie of the Year in 2009 [9] and for the National League Manager of the Year in 2010. [10] Reflecting on the meaning of her election, Kahrl wrote, "While I expect to still write about transactions, I really want to try and breathe new life back into the game story as an art form, and perhaps in my conceit try to take pages from Runyon and Lardner and Pete Palmer and Keith Woolner to provide something old and something new, all at once." [11]
In April 2011, [12] Kahrl announced that she would be joining ESPN.com to write and edit, teaming up with David Schoenfield in penning the "SweetSpot" blog, which provides a sabermetrics-driven analysis on the goings-on in baseball.
On November 10, 2016, Kahrl announced she has been promoted to MLB Senior Editor at ESPN and will be relocating to ESPN Headquarters in Connecticut.
Kahrl became sports editor of The San Francisco Chronicle in March 2021. [13]
In 2014 Kahrl was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. [14]
Activism
Since 2007, Kahrl has been active in the LGBT community, helping out with transgender programming at the Center on Halsted, [15] running the support group and adding a seminar series and an open mic night to its programming, as well as speaking about activist efforts in the area. [16] She has spoken to local student groups and on college campuses about acceptance of transgender people in society and in sports, and on transgender issues. She is a member of the board of Illinois Gender Advocates (IGA), and co-chair of IGA's action committee.
As an activist and board member for Equality Illinois, [17] Kahrl has been actively involved in an effort to curb police harassment of transgender Chicagoans, and has helped launch the Trans-Friendly Bathroom Initiative [18] with fellow activists from Genderqueer Chicago. [19] She has also helped organize the public observation of Transgender Day of Remembrance in Chicago. She has also discussed the nature of transgenderism at the Chicago History Museum, stating, "You have to explain to people that, no, this (being transgender) does not mean that you are supergay, although it's sweet of you to say so. Forging acceptance in the face of inevitable confusion and concern is the diplomatic mission of a lifetime, for each and every transsexual." [20] On November 8, 2013 it was announced that she had been named to GLAAD's Board of Directors. [21]
Kahrl, who identifies as bisexual, married Charley Wanamaker in 2014. [22]
GLAAD, an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization. Originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals in the media and entertainment industries, it has since included bisexual and transgender people.
Lakeview, also spelled Lake View, is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois. Lakeview is located in the city's North Side. It is bordered by West Diversey Parkway on the south, West Irving Park Road on the north, North Ravenswood Avenue on the west, and the shore of Lake Michigan on the east. The Uptown community area is to Lakeview's north, Lincoln Square to its northwest, North Center to its west, and Lincoln Park to its south. The 2020 population of Lakeview was 103,050 residents, making it the second largest Chicago community area by population.
The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908, and is known for its annual awards and voting on membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Baseball Prospectus (BP) is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well as player and team performance projections on the site. Since 1996 the BP staff has also published a Baseball Prospectus annual as well as several other books devoted to baseball analysis and history.
Joel Alberto Piñeiro is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He officially retired after appearing on the 2017 World Baseball Classic roster for Puerto Rico.
Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, teacher, and singer. Billings is the second openly transgender woman to have played a transgender character on television, which she did in the 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. She is also known for portraying the recurring character Davina in the Amazon series Transparent and has played transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy and The Conners.
Nathaniel Read Silver is an American statistician, writer, and poker player who analyzes baseball, basketball, and elections. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight and a special correspondent for ABC News.
Kevin Michael McGlinchy is an American former professional baseball player who pitched in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1999 to 2000 with the Atlanta Braves.
Keith Law is an American baseball writer for The Athletic. He previously wrote for ESPN.com and ESPN Scouts, Inc from 2006 – 2019. He was formerly a writer for Baseball Prospectus and worked in the front office for the Toronto Blue Jays. He is a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care. A major goal of transgender activism is to allow changes to identification documents to conform with a person's current gender identity without the need for gender-affirming surgery or any medical requirements, which is known as gender self-identification. It is part of the broader LGBT rights movements.
Laura Marie Ricketts is an American political activist and former attorney who is co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. Ricketts is also a board member of Lambda Legal and the Housing Opportunities for Women organization. Ricketts' ownership stake in the Cubs makes her the first openly gay owner of a major-league sports franchise.
Christina Tobin is an American activist and leader in the election reform and voters' rights movements. She is the founder and chair of The Free & Equal Elections Foundation, and president and chief executive officer of Free and Equal, Inc.
Rick Hahn is an American baseball executive who serves as the Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball.
Illinois is seen as one of the most progressive states in the United States in regard to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights and often viewed as one of the most liberal states in the Midwestern United States. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 1962, after Illinois became the first U.S. state to repeal its sodomy laws. Same-sex marriage was banned by statute in 1996, but has since been legalized after a law allowing such marriages was signed by Governor Pat Quinn on November 20, 2013 and went into effect on June 1, 2014. Civil unions have been recognized since 2011, and same-sex couples are also allowed to adopt. Additionally, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is banned in employment, housing, credit and public accommodations, and conversion therapy on minors has been outlawed since 2016.
Grantland was a sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. The blog was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons, who remained as editor-in-chief until May 2015. Grantland was named after famed early-20th-century sportswriter Grantland Rice (1880–1954).
Geena Rocero is a Filipino-born American model, TED speaker, and transgender advocate based in New York City. Rocero is the founder of Gender Proud, a media production company that tells stories of the transgender community worldwide to elevate justice and equality. Rocero has spoken about transgender rights at the United Nations Headquarters, the World Economic Forum, and the White House.
Parker Molloy is an American writer and blogger. Molloy was an editorial and news contributor to Advocate.com, focusing on transgender issues. She has also written for other publications, such as Media Matters for America.
Tiq Milan is an American writer, public speaker, activist, and strategic media consultant. He is currently a national spokesperson for GLAAD and the former senior media strategist of national news at GLAAD. Prior to his current roles, he was a mentor and teacher at the Hetrick-Martin Institute, an LGBTQ youth nonprofit organization in NYC. His advocacy, LGBTQ activism, and journalism has been recognized nationally.
Nicole Amber Maines is an American actress and transgender rights activist. Prior to her acting career, she was the anonymous plaintiff in the Maine Supreme Judicial Court case Doe v. Regional School Unit 26, in which she argued her school district could not deny her access to the female bathroom for being transgender. The court ruled in 2014 that barring transgender students from the school bathroom consistent with their gender identity is unlawful, the first such ruling by a state court.
Dr. Kim Fountain is Chief Operating Officer of the Center on Halsted, the Midwest's largest LGBTQ+ community center, located in Chicago, Illinois. She was previously Executive Director of the Pride Center of Vermont and Associate Director of Education & Public Advocacy for the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. Fountain has served on the New York State Crime Victims Board and is a trainer for the Office of Victims of Crime and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs' Reports Committee. She serves on the board of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
