In a longform story in the January issue of Los Angeles magazine, Ed Leibowitz reports veteran KCBS news helicopter pilot Bob Tur, who came out as transgender in 2013, has successfully undergone sex change surgery in Thailand. Zoey Tur returned to L.A. after the surgery last summer–the decision to go forward with the surgery coming after Tur contemplated suicide. “I was purging myself of friends and family in preparation for dying,” Zoey remembered. “I had been thinking about suicide for a very long time.”
Leibowitz reports Tur, who covered the beating of Rodney King and O. J. Simpson‘s Bronco chase in the chopper for KCBS, has considered a return to TV news. “She knew how risk-averse TV news directors could be. But there was a convincing case to be made that in today’s trans-friendly media landscape, putting a transgender newswoman on the air—especially one who formerly was America’s greatest helicopter newsman—could be a ratings coup.”