Lynn Conway is a pioneering computer chip researcher and inventor who has been a leading expert in her field for more than 40 years. She is also a woman who transitioned from male to female in the late 1960s.
Growing up in Texas, Phyllis Frye was the all-American boy – an Eagle Scout and commander of her high school ROTC class. But when she came out as transgender in 1972, Frye lost her military career and her first marriage ended.
Jazz pianist Billy Tipton was born in Okalahoma as Dorothy Tipton. But from the age of 19, Tipton lived as a man, marrying five women and adopting and raising three boys.
Diagnostic criteria for GID include strong and persistent cross-gender identification that extends beyond a desire for a perceived cultural advantage. People with GID act and present themselves as members of the opposite sex.
Initially, a child with significant cross-gender expression or a transgender person may be thought to be gay or lesbian — partly because of the general public’s lack of education on the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation.