Might not bemy business, but I am sure interested regardless.
So is “Wendy” Carlos , the composer of Swtiched on Bach, A Clockwork Orange Sountrack, etc… Really a woman? ( meaning born a woman?) Back in Clockwork orange days, this person was referred to as “WALTER” Carlos and was a guy. I know, I have the album. Now if you go to Carlos’s web page he is a she?
About 5 years ago, I checked the page and it said something like “PLEASE PLEASE for the love of GOD, stop asking me about my sexual orientation on my webpage!” But, now the FAQ section says something like “Back in the 60s it was looked down for a woman to compose classical music, so I used the name Walter.”
So what is the deal? Either way, I have some pitty. If He is a she and had to lie to get her work published and everyone now thinks she is a sex change operation person, that sucks. And, if She “was” a He and has to live a life in the closet but is somewhat famous too sucks too. I think you can all see why I am so interested to know the truth now. :smack:
Wendy Carlos is a woman (a real woman, she’s not a robot or something) who has had sexual reassignment surgery. She doesn’t publicize this fact much, for reasons that should be pretty clear.
Since people like Continuity_Error seem to be trying their hardest to confuse the issue further rather than answer your question -
Walter Carlos was a man. He arranged music for the modular Moog synthesizer, most famously Switched-on Bach, The well-tempered Synthesizer, and the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange.
He had his genitals hacked off, underwent hormone therapy and became “Wendy,” a woman. Since then, he’s tried his hardest to confuse and obscure the fact that he used to be a man, going as far as to use vague language saying he was “always Wendy” and other silly stories. What’s worse, he sued obscure songwriter Momus over Momus’ loving parody “Walter Carlos.”
Freejooky, while I agree that Wendy Carlos is being naive and somewhat ingenuous, your choice of language is offensive. Please choose your words more carefully, there are ladies and gentlemen present.
Freejooky: *Since people like Continuity_Error seem to be trying their hardest to confuse the issue further *
Huh? continuity error’s description of Wendy Carlos as “a woman who has had sexual reassignment surgery” is AFAIK the standard way of describing such a situation, and isn’t confusing at all.
I also don’t see anything “silly” or confusing in Wendy Carlos’s claiming that she was “always” female. AFAICT, that’s why people get sexual reassignment surgery, after all: because they’ve always identified so strongly with the other gender that the bodies they were born with seem absolutely wrong for them. Sexual reassignment isn’t “changing into” the other gender as far as they’re concerned; it’s just revealing more accurately the gender they really are, and have always been.
However, it’s true that expecting the general public to forget or ignore the fact that they once had a public persona identified with a different gender is, as Eve said, naive and ingenuous. People are beginning to get more savvy about transgender issues, but many of them, like Freejooky, still find the whole thing very confusing.