Sex Is Between the Legs, Gender Is Between the Ears
By Michael Abernethy 15 December 2011
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tools/full/152098Nonetheless, despite the increase of LGB persons on TV, mass media has yet to embrace trans persons, at least in the US. Bono is not the first trans celebrity, although none before has elicited so much dialogue. For the sake of this discussion, we are referring to "trans" as persons who have assumed the opposite gender than their birth gender as a full-time lifestyle and have altered their appearance accordingly, either surgically or medicinally. Well-known figures such as Renee Richards, tennis player, and Christine Jorgensen, erroneously credited as the first person to receive gender reassignment surgery, were famous because of their sexual reassignment, not because of their contributions to their respective professional fields, although Richards did get a couple of tennis trophies along the way.