Tur's 23-year marriage to Marika Gerrard came to an end in 2003. The couple had two children:
Katy, now a television news reporter and anchor, and James, who is a physician. In June 2013, Tur publicly
came out as
transgender, and in 2014 revealed that she was undergoing
hormone replacement therapy. In August 2014, following
gender reassignment surgery, she applied to a court to change her name and gender marker from male to female. Reflecting on her transition in a 2017 interview, Tur stated, "What I have is not political. It's a medical condition that was treated. I'm cured. I'm done. It's not a mental illness. There are differences in the brain." In 2017, Tur said in an interview that her daughter Katy had become estranged from her because of the transition. Katy said in response that they "were not on speaking terms for a little while" but that it was not because of the transition. Tur is a principal subject of Katy Tur's 2022 memoir
Rough Draft. It depicts life for the younger Tur in her childhood that saw the highs of adventure with her parents but also lows that related to violence that made for a shaky childhood upbringing that she equated to "living on the edge of a knife," specifically from her father. The 2013 call involving the elder Tur's transition was part of the estrangement, with Katy stating, "My dad, in going through the transition wanted to bury Bob Tur … have that personality be erased. But Bob Tur was so much a part of my life that I felt if we wanted to move on and become something new, we’d have to confront it.”
Views on transgender rights During a
TMZ video chat in the summer of 2013, Tur described her understanding of one practical impact of the changes in her brain over the course of her hormone replacement therapy in piloting terms. Tur stated, "...you start thinking with
white matter as opposed to men thinking with
gray matter, so, where I was able to make split decisions flying and being in really rough conditions, weather conditions, I don't know if I'd be as good a pilot, because now I'm using white matter, and I'm becoming, really... That bridges the left and right brains, and you become [a] consensus builder, you start becoming more analytical, not as impulsive as you are when you're a guy." In their editorial comments, TMZ interpreted her words as meaning that she "doesn't believe women can make the same quick, decisive decisions like men when piloting an aircraft." In July 2015, while on
Dr. Drew On Call talking about
Caitlyn Jenner accepting the
Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the
ESPY Awards ceremony, political commentator
Ben Shapiro questioned her genetics and called Tur "sir", to which Tur responded by grabbing the back of Shapiro's neck and telling him to stop or he would "be going home in an ambulance." Shapiro filed a police report charging Tur with
battery regarding the incident and said that he intended to press charges. Shapiro said he did so to teach the
left a lesson. Tur said the report was Shapiro's attempt to keep the story in the news. ==References==