Walter/Wendy

During my time as a piano major at CCM, one of the most well-known figure of the 20th century musician is Wendy Carlos. However, I'm sure to the chagrin of Ms. Carlos, whenever her name is mentioned, the Wendy/Walter joke that induces muffled chuckles and giggles down the practice room hall comes up so often that even the composition professors feel obliged to take part. However, after some readings on the matter, I feel that people should just leave her alone and appreciate all the wonderful recordings she has offered to us.

During the time when she was 'Walter Carlos' (Yes everyone, if you need me to spell it out for you: She had gender reassignment surgery. Big deal, move along.) she worked with Robert Moog in developing the Moog synthesizer, an analog contraption that is customizable but took hours just to set up a new configuration. Nevertheless, it was one of the most widely-used musical instrument and a ground-breaking feat for the electronic-music genre. Wendy is a terrific keyboardist and an avid fan of J.S. Bach, but she is also an intelligent engineer. She attended Brown University where she studied Music and Physics...something that I wanted to do, but my limited brain cells prevented me from achieving my glory.

I found these pictures on the web of Wendy when she was Walter.


I have to admit, though she was handsome as a guy, she had shown traces that she should've been a women. In an article regarding sex assignment, about 1 in 5000 infants is born sexually ambiguous. It is possible that the physician at the time assigned Wendy the incorrect gender, giving her a very feminine appearance even when she was officially a male.

Now, Wendy Carlos is a handsome woman, and I think people need to understand that she probably should have been a woman all along.