RockyMountainNews.com – By Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News
On the first day of eighth grade, Melaina Marquez wore a polo shirt, wedge shoes and denim skirt with ruffles.
The year before, that outfit would have been out of the question. At that point, Melaina was a boy known as Manuel.
Melaina, now 15, is considered to be transgender: a person who does not identify with the sex based on his or her genitalia. She decided to tell her story after news reports last month about a 7-year-old Douglas County girl who attended school last year as a boy.