Jack Brennan worked forty-four years in sports. As a journalist for multiple papers in Cincinnati, including the Cincinnati Enquirer, he was beat writer for both a Reds World Series winner and a Bengals Super Bowl qualifier. As public relations director for the NFL Bengals, he and his staff won the 2006 Pete Rozelle Award, conferred by pro football journalists to the league's top PR staff. Brennan grew up in Dallas, where he played low-level high school football and held his own Cowboys season tickets. He is a 1973 graduate of the University of Texas and has been married fifty-one years to his wife, Valerie, with three adult children and two grandchildren.

"Throughout his memoir, Brennan writes with spirited honesty and deadpan humor about his penchant for cross-dressing not as something that brought him shame or regret but existed as part of his identity as much as his career and family did. Brennan, who worked for decades as a sportswriter before shifting to the Cincinnati Bengals PR office, lived his cross-dressing fantasies largely in secret, fearing his colleagues would not understand his queerness. Yet, as seen throughout his story, those closest to Brennan, including his wife and children, accepted his identity as part of the gregarious package...Brennan's unique point of view is bolstered by his journalistic ability to find the kernels of truth that will resonate with readers across all experiences."--Booklist (Starred Review)

"Brennan offers an illuminating front-row seat to his journey toward authenticity and self-realization."--Library Journal

"The book is a striking piece of work. In many ways it's an historical document because Brennan gives you an inside look at a man who had a secret passion for wearing dresses while working for an extremely conservative league."--USA Today

"...brutally honest, sometimes funny, often vulnerable."--Dayton Daily News

"It's easy to see why he wasn't quick to share this side of himself. Cross-dressing and football rarely share the same sentence, let alone the same person, at least publicly. But Brennan is ready to talk about living both identities -- spending his public life in the macho world of the NFL and his private life in heels."--City Beat

"This is fearlessly honest stuff from a great human who went through things I never knew about. I admire him all the more for telling this story." --Phil Simms, Super Bowl XXI MVP

"Back in his football days, Jack Brennan was perpetually the most delightful person in the room. None of us knew that he had a secret that he was deathly afraid to share. Now, in his own inimitable, hilarious and courageous style, he's sharing that secret and letting us inside his world and the world of professional football." --Joe Posnanski, author of New York Times bestseller The Baseball 100

"Football Sissy traces a fascinating path through two lives--one public, one intensely private. I hope Jack telling his story helps five, ten, twenty-five people in the macho orbit of professional sports to think, 'It's okay to be different--and I'm not going to live in the shadows anymore.'" --Peter King, author and Monday Morning Quarterback columnis