Being true to themselves

Courier-Journal.com – By Angie Fenton

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,” said Roberts, 42, an organizer of a conference this week in Louisville for transgender people. “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 female, since finding the ability to accept herself, with the help of a therapist, and receiving hormone therapy.

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