Eden Lane, the host of Colorado Public Television's In Focus with Eden Lane, wants to be known for her work, not her gender identity.

Lane's program, which covers local arts and culture, is now in its fifth season. She is credited as the only known openly transgender broadcaster in the United States.

But she has kept her personal life mostly private until recently.

In a profile in the Denver Post, she said that she had been a victim of violence and prejudice, and that her father, described as “a bull of a man,” had abandoned her at an early age.

“But I don't think of being transgender as any part of my identity, any more than I do that I am left-handed,” she said.

“Eden is also blonde and 6 feet tall, but she's not out there making a statement on who 6-foot blondes are,” friend and Denver-area producer Tom Biddle added.

“I'm a wife, suburban homemaker, neighborhood volunteer and mother of a high-school teenager,” Lane said of herself.

In a SiriusXM OutQ radio interview, Lane said she feels pressure from activists to be more outspoken.

“Once in a while, I may be asked to identify myself and make a statement in a certain way,” she told host Michelangelo Signorile. “I think that would undermine the meaning of my work, not just for my work's sake, but for the very reason they're wanting to identify me as a transgender broadcaster. If I were to make political statements, then that undermines my credibility as a journalist. And if that's the point, that I'm a journalist first, and that people are tuning in to watch my program not because I'm talking exclusively about LGBT issues, but all sorts of things, then for me to step up and try to be a political figure would undermine that work and really rob us all of a chance to have a different kind of example available.”

(An episode of In Focus is embedded on this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)