Caught between two genders

News-Leader.com – Angie Fenton – The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

Men, women say they are born feeling like they are trapped in the wrong gender.

Monica Roberts gently circled a fingertip around the lip of her coffee cup, the perfect manicure a stark contrast to such large, strong hands.

“Gender is who you are,” says Roberts, 42. “Sex is what you do and who you do it with.”

For the past 16 years, Roberts, who was born male, has been living as a woman.

The transgendered are not only caught in a gender-identity gap but also with psychology that has yet to fully grapple with the issue.

As to whether she’s undergone sex reassignment surgery ? a procedure that alters a person’s physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics to that of the other sex ? Roberts considers that her personal business.