It turns out that one of the four winners in Obama's "Dinner For Five" contest is a transgender person. Palm Beach Post has the story:

Lasko, however, did not mention another radical change in her life when she wrote Obama - and now she's left to wonder whether the revelation that she was a man named John, not so long ago could hurt Obama's campaign.

"I asked to be excused from the dinner," Lasko said Saturday. "I never wanted undue attention. But I figured that this was a private thing, and I'm just a citizen who wants to discuss issues. I was foolish to think I could keep it under wraps. There are a lot of close-minded people who'll make an issue of this."

...

Obama's campaign, meanwhile, was mulling over Lasko's change of heart Saturday.

"We selected Jennifer to be a part of this dinner because of her commitment to her community," Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "Barack Obama hopes that she'll decide to attend after all. If she doesn't, he hopes to meet her in the future."

When asked whether the campaign had vetted Lasko to prevent embarrassment to her or anyone else, Psaki said: "What we would have found wouldn't have mattered. She still would have been invited."

Kudos to Obama for doing the right thing, and not caving in to the bigots. Imagine if this happened to a Republican candidate...

As Melquiades says in his/her diary on dkos there is no chance in hell that Obama's campaign did not know this. They must have done some basic background research on the candidates before the invitation and a name change is easy to discover.

Hopefully Jennifer will reconsider her decision. She deserves to have a seat at that table, for her community service and her courage to stand up against societal prejudice.