City manager in Largo, FL to have sex change

The St. Petersburg Times has the scoop on the city manager of Largo, FL, Steve Stanton, who has decided to have a sex change to become a woman. The mayor, and boss, is standing by Stanton's decision. But that's not preventing the St. Petersburg Times from writing, in so many words, that he might want to be a woman, but he's no flamer!

Around Largo, Stanton is known for his forceful management style, a willingness to take on controversy and a zest for participating in masculine activities. (emphasis mine)

In recent years, for example, he has donned a bulletproof vest to go along on a police raid of a nightclub and broke his nose participating in SWAT training. Within the last week, he rappelled inside the dome at Tropicana Field during a fire department training exercise and dug up a median near a fire station as part of a public works project.

The 'zest' makes me blush. Shouldn't the qualification for city manager be how well you do the job? Not whether you broke your nose in SWAT training? I wonder if publicizing these hyper-masculine stories was part of his/her press strategy for staying in office. Hillsborough county did go for Bush in 2004, 53-46.