Wendy Carlos is the most famous trans person I know of who is famous for doing something other than transitioning. Working with Robert Moog, she was one of the first people to record with his synthesizer, making her the pioneer of electronic musicians. She wrote scores for several films, one of which, A Clockwork Orange is considered a landmark. Though, I'm fond the the stuff she wrote for The Shining. The record Sonic Seasonings is considered by some the first 'ambient' record.
Everything after 72 was done as Wendy, and reissues were done under Wendy and not her prior name. Switched on Bach was the first classical album to sell 500,000 copies, and the first to ever go platinum. Wendy's early work with recording and realizing music on a computer is responsible for many of the improvements that made things like ProTools possible.
From her web site:
"In April of 2005, Wendy was presented with the SEAMUS 2005 Life Achievement Award, in recognition of her groundbreaking work in the electro acoustic world since the '60s. She has delivered papers at New York University, the Audio Engineering Society's Digital Audio Conference, Dolby's NYC Surround Sound demonstration and panel, and other music/audio conferences. Carlos is a member of the Audio Engineering Society, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Carlos consults for several Macintosh developers including Mark of the Unicorn, Opcode, and Coda, has designed PostScript music fonts for Casady & Greene, and has developed libraries and tunings for Kurzweil/Young Chang. Other interests include solar eclipse chasing, surround sound, astronomy, color vision, photography and other visual arts, map making, reading, gourmet food, film, and a love of animals."
Her discogrphy is far greater then most bands ever achive.
* Switched-On Bach (1968)
* The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969)
* Sonic Seasonings (1972)
* A Clockwork Orange (soundtrack) (1972)
* Wendy Carlos's Clockwork Orange, (1972), all the music composed or realized for the film.
* Switched-on Bach II (1974)
* By Request (1975)
* Switched-On Brandenburgs (1979)
* The Shining: Score Selections (soundtrack) (1980)
* Tron (soundtrack) (1982)
* Digital Moonscapes (1984)
* Beauty In the Beast (1986)
* Land of the Midnight Sun (1986 composition, released on the 1998 Sonic Seasonings reissue)
* Secrets of Synthesis (1987)
* Peter and The Wolf (1988) (with "Weird Al" Yankovic)
* Switched-On Bach 2000 (1992)
* Tales of Heaven and Hell (1998)
* Switched-On Boxed Set (1999)
* Rediscovering Lost Scores, Volume 1 (2005) (The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, UNICEF)
* Rediscovering Lost Scores, Volume 2 (2005) (The Shining, Tron, Split Second, Woundings)
The reason she is not some big trans idol, is because she is not interested in sharing any of it. She is private and wants to stay that way. But famous, a pioneer, important. Yeah, she is all that.
