African American Transsexuality - in The Media

In The Media

See also: List of transgender characters in film and television

Transsexualism was discussed in the mass media as long ago as the 1930s. The American magazine Time in 1936 devoted an article to what it called "hermaphrodites", treating the subject with sensitivity and not sensationalism. It described the call by Avery Brundage, who led the American team to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, that a system be established to examine female athletes for "sex ambiguities"; two athletes changed sex after the Games.

Before transsexual people were depicted in popular movies and television shows, Aleshia Brevard — an actual transsexual whose surgery took place in 1962 — was actively working as an actress and model in Hollywood and New York throughout the 1960s and '70s. Aleshia never portrayed a transsexual person, though she appeared in eight Hollywood produced films, on most of the popular variety shows of the day including The Dean Martin Show, and was a regular on The Red Skelton Show and One Life to Live before returning to University to teach Drama and Acting.

Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs included a serial killer who considered himself a transsexual. After being turned down for sex reassignment surgery due to not meeting necessary psychological evaluations, he then harvested female bodies to make a feminine suit. In the novel, it is noted that the character is not actually a transsexual; this distinction is made only briefly in the film.

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