THE FORMER LARRY WACHOWSKI, CO-DIRECTOR OF ‘THE MATRIX,’ DEBUTED THIS WEEK AS ‘LANA.’

First came Richard Raskind, an ophthalmologist who in 1975 underwent “sex reassignment” surgery. He emerged as Renee Richards and decided to pursue a professional tennis career as a woman – four years after reaching the finals of the men’s 35-and-over tennis championship.

More recently, there was Chastity Bono, daughter of famed pop duo Sonny and Cher, who in 2010 became Chaz Bono after undergoing a sex-change operation. A documentary on her/his “gender transition,” imaginatively titled “Becoming Chaz,” was well-received at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

And now there’s Larry Wachowski, co-director of the “Matrix” series, who debuted this week as Lana. Wearing a gray dress and pink dreadlocks, the latest member of the transgender community appears in a promo for a new movie he/she made with his/her bro Andy.

There was a time, not so long ago – before Chaz Bono appeared on “Dancing With The Stars,” before Barack Obama climbed in bed with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community – when transgenders kept their sex change on the down low.

Now, they’re out and they’re proud. Transgenders are the new “it” minority.

Not on Main Street USA, mind you, where most of us reside.

But on the main drag in West Hollywood. And on Castro Street in San Francisco, the nation’s capital of LGBT activism.

And on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., where LGBT guests of Obama recently took turns flipping off a White House portrait of the late great President Ronald Reagan.

Now that the LGBs have all but succeeded in mainstreaming their ungodly lifestyle, the Ts are next in line. They are determined to win legal recognition as a “protected” minority.

Indeed, transgenders are fighting to overturn the still-in-place Army regulation which declares those who’ve undergone a sex change unfit to serve.

They are challenging rules requiring athletes competing in women’s sports to actually have been born female.

They are demanding the “right” to continued employment when “transitioning” from one gender to another.

The transgender community represents that it’s no different than any other minority group in this country and, therefore, should be accorded “equal” treatment under the law.

But transgenders like Richards and Bono and Wachowski are clinically ill, according to the American Psychiatric Association. In fact, the APA has long held that men who want to be women, and women who want to be men, suffer from “gender identity disorder.”

So transgenders don’t need special legal protections. What they really need is psychiatric help.