By Bonnie Miller Rubin – Tribune staff reporter
Shawn Coleman bristles when an application poses the question “male or female?”–as if there are only two choices.
When it comes to sexual identity, the 23-year-old Shawn–born Patricia–sees a broad spectrum, a man-to-woman or a woman-to-man continuum with many stops along the way. Think gender without borders. He (the preferred pronoun) looks male but not completely. He is not a lesbian, a cross-dresser or contemplating a sex-change operation any time soon.
“I always knew I was different than other girls,” explained Coleman. “I was never a fan of Barbie but liked playing sports with my two older brothers. People were always telling me to act more feminine–that I should sit with my legs crossed–but I found that stuff incredibly difficult. It wasn’t the way I felt inside.”
A graduate student at Iowa State University, Coleman is a transgender young adult and at the forefront of a movement that some say represents a new edge of grass-roots activism. Frequently lumped together with gays and lesbians, who have not always been welcoming, transgender people are carving a separate profile and flexing new political clout from campuses to corporations.