KoreaTimes.co.kr – By Lee Hyo-won – Staff Reporter
At the turn of the new millennium, Harisu created a sensation as Korea’s first transgender-transsexual entertainer. People were shocked to notice her Adams apple – though it was actually digitally rendered – in a makeup campaign, but mostly accepted the model-singer-actress as a “woman more beautiful than a woman.”
First there is a need to clarify two often interchangeably used terms. A transgender is not necessarily transsexual, since gender refers to self-identification and social roles while sex denotes anatomical differences. The former refers to someone whose sexual identity can be best described as ambiguous since it does not conform to widely accepted gender roles and sexual norms, while the latter is someone who identifies him or herself as a member of the opposite sex.