10 Men Who were Born Female

Sex and gender are highly complex themes. Though in majority of humans, the sex at birth determines the gender a person grows up as, sometimes there is a mismatch so that Transgender people who were born male feel they should be female, and transgender people who were born female feel they should be male. While many transgender people go through life coping with conflicting identities, some take matters in their own hands and change their gender. Here are then ten individuals whom the world knows as men even though they were actually born female.

1. Balian Buschbaum
   
   A former German pole vaulter, Balian was born in 1980 as Yvonne Buschbaum. Though he was the second best female pole vaulter in Germany, in 2007 Buschbaum announced his retirement due to a persistent injury. He also expressed his desire to begin gender reassignment therapy. In 2008 he officially changed his name and underwent gender reassignment surgery to become a man.
    
2. Andreas Krieger
   
   Another German sportsperson to have changed gender identity from female to male is shot putter Andreas Krieger. Born Heidi Krieger, he competed as a woman on the East German athletics team. From his early teens he was given anabolic steroids without his knowledge, which lead him to become more and more masculine in appearance and attitude. Krieger retired from the sport in 1990 and underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1997. Krieger has publicly said that he wishes he hadn't been drugged so that he could have chosen his own gender preference instead of acquiring it as a chemical side-effect¹.
    
3. Buck Angel
   
   A well known name in the LGBT showbiz today, Buck Angel was actually born Susan Lee in 1972. Buck was the 2007 winner of the Adult Video News Award "Transsexual Performer of the Year". He currently works as an advocate, educator, lecturer and writer, and runs his own production company Buck Angel Entertainment, as a vehicle to produce media projects.
    
4. Loren Cameron
   
   Loren Rex Cameron is a famous name in the American LGBT community as a transsexual photographer, activist and author. From the age of 16, Cameron was sexually and socially identifying as a lesbian. It was in 1987 that Cameron began his transition from female to male. He began his photography career in 1993 as he documented his process of becoming a man. As Cameron began to take pictures of his own transformation, he began to photograph other transsexuals. His work includes portraiture and self-portraiture which consist of lesbian and transsexual bodies. Heralded as groundbreaking and stunning, his book Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits has been regarded as a seminal contribution. It has been critically acclaimed worldwide and in 1996 received numerous certificates of recognition, including two Lambda Literary awards.
    
5. Ian Harvie
   
   American stand-up comedian Ian Harvie is another trans-man who was born as a woman. Growing up on Beaver Pond in rural mountain town, Bridgton, Maine, Harvie knew early on that he was not destined to be a woman but didn't have a language for his gender identity at the time. Ian came out as queer at nineteen and later as transgender at age thirty-two. Harvie is known for using his trans-sexuality as material in his act. He has performed with Margaret Cho and many other notable celebrities and is a well-known fixture in the LGBT pop culture community.
   
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6. Lucas Silveira
   
   One of the most famous of trans-men in entertainment business, Lucas Silveira is famous as the first openly-transgendered member of a rock band to be signed by a major record label. Silveira is a vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter for The Cliks and recently he has also released a solo album. Born in Canada in 1979, to a musical Portuguese-Canadian family, Lucas knew he wasn’t meant to be a woman but suppressed his feelings about his identity. The first time he heard about transgender people was on Geraldo Rivera when he was about 14 or 15. He subsequently decided to come out and live as a lesbian. In 2010 he began hormone replacement therapy and eventually cemented his identity as a man.
    
7. Katastrophe
   
   Better known by his stage name Katastrophe, Rocco Kayiatos is an American hip-hop rapper and producer. Kayiatos is widely credited as the first openly transgender singer in the hip-hop genre. He raps about lives lived outside the mainstreams of education, gender, and culture. He uses his struggle as a trans-man and his contested place in contemporary queer and hip hop culture to discuss larger issues of community, space, privilege, sexuality and self-worth. among his most famous acts are winning the 1998 Youth Speaks poetry slam, tour with Sister Spit's Rambling Road Show tour, the title song with Mark Schaffer for the feature film Sugar High Glitter City, albums like Fault, Lies and Faultlines, The Worst Amazing and multimedia show, HomeMade SuperHer.
    
8. Thomas Beatie
   
   Thomas Beatie shot into news as the world's first pregnant man. Born female, Beatie lived his life as a woman until his mid-twenties. He then began taking male hormone therapy but decided to retain his female sex organs so that he and his wife Nancy, who could not conceive herself, could have children together using donor sperm. After having three children with Nancy, Beatie went back on his male hormones. however in 2012, Beatie broke up with Nancy who had allegedly started to drink heavily and he was granted sole custody of their three children Austin, Jensen and Susan. In September 2012, it was reported in the media² that Beatie had found love again with day care worker Amber Nicholas. The couple apparently want children and according to Beatie if Amber struggles to conceive then he would be happy to step in. however despite Beatie’s hopes for the future, his divorce from his wife Nancy seems to have got stuck in the courts. An Arizona judge is blocking the action by refusing to recognize that the couple were ever actually legitimately wed – since both Beatie and his wife have female sex organs their union could equate to a same sex marriage which is not legal in Arizona which is why the judge has argued that he cannot find any legal authority that defines a man as someone who is able to give birth.
    
9. Ryan Sallans
   
   Ryan Sallans is an LGBT rights advocate and public speaker who travels the U.S. to educate people about transgender issues and changes to the health care system. He was born as Kimberly Ann Sallans and grew up in Nebraska. He underwent the transformation from female to male over the course of several years and completed his transition in 2005. Sallans has been featured on "Larry King Live!" and the LOGO channel, as well as countless magazines and other publications.
    
10. Chaz Bono
    
    Chaz Bono is no stranger to public attention. born Chastity Bono as the daughter of famous American performers Sonny and Cher, she came out as a lesbian when she was 25 but later went on to discover her transgendered identity. Chaz underwent a sex change operation over the course of two years and is now living his life as a man. Recently Chaz was in news as a contestant on the hit television show, Dancing With The Stars.

Reference:

1. The New York Times - East German Steroids’ Toll: ’They Killed Heidi’
    
2. Mail Online - World's first pregnant man Thomas Beatie finds love again and is prepared to conceive a FOURTH time if new lover can't