Henceforth it’s just “the Wachowskis” — no more “brothers” — because the former Larry Wachowski is definitely, fully and biologically “Lana” these days. That took a while, no? His/her intention to do a “gender reassignment” was announced four years ago, but it actually took more like three years. According to this 7.21.06 report on a site called Rated-M.com, Larry’s intention to opt for womanhood in the summer of ’03 (the news broke just before the debut of The Matrix Reloaded) was substantially complete as of last summer.

Lana and Andy Wachowski

A more recent report that ran on 8.28.07 said Lana “will actually speak to the press” — possibly an exclusive chat with Dateline NBC — about the sex-change thing down the road, but not until Speed Racer (Warner Bros., 5.8.08) has opened. No junket appearances for Lana, the report says, because “the current feeling is that his sex change could hurt the family image that Speed Racer film is going for.”

I can understand the motive in Warner Bros. wanting to play Lana down for the sake of Speed Racer box-office, if a junket duck-out has in fact been planned. (It’s many months off so I doubt it.) But shouldn’t we all be trying to relax about this and accept things as they are and not pretend there’s something askew?

Hiding from the press doesn’t feel like an enlightened move on Lana’s part. She’s obviously a talented director and something of a visionary (although the Wachowskis’ work on the re-shoots of The Invasion have called this notion into question), and in a perfect world she would sit down, look people in the eye and talk about the work.