All physical media require care in handling.
This picture is only conceptual. Most of the connections have many more pins than just these two for transmit and receive. If the connector at the other end of the cable has the same pin arrangement, then in order for the transmit at one end to connect to the receive at the other, and vice versa, the cable that connects them must have transmit and receive crossed. Some devices provide a switch that selects one arrangement or the other for the pins of a particular connector. It is common for an ethernet hub to have a bank of ports for twisted pair, one of which has a selectable polarity.