“You know, there also is this strange rumor that you’re part man and part woman.”

Lady Gaga, born in New York City in 1986 as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, experienced a fast-paced rise to the top of the music industry. Back in 2008 few had heard of her, but by 2009 she had become the first artist to have four #1 Mainstream Top 40 airplay chart hits off a debut album and in 2010 garnered two Grammy awards: Best Dance Recording (“Pokerface”), Best Electronic/Dance Album (“The Fame”), plus had been nominated in three other categories: Record of the Year (“Pokerface”), Song of the Year (“Pokerface”), and Album of the Year (“The Fame”).

Her unique costuming and makeup, strong performance skills, and outrageous persona easily set her up as the target for rumor. In a reprise of the canard that has long dogged actress Jamie Lee Curtis, in 2009 whispers grew in the online world that Lady Gaga was an hermaphrodite, a person possessed of both male and female sex organs.

The tipping point appears to be a frame taken from live footage of Lady Gaga during a performance in August 2009 in which she appeared wearing a red dress and leaning against a blue motorcycle. In that photo, reclined as she was against the bike, her underthings can, and have been (at least by some), mistaken for a vestigial pepe.

In August 2009, Lady Gaga’s manager responded to rumors of the singer’s purported hermaphroditism with the brusque statement “This is completely ridiculous.” The following month, Lady Gaga said of the rumor on Australia’s Fox FM radio station that “It’s too low-brow for me to even discuss”.