SILive.com – By Andrea Boyarsky – Staten Island Advance
Not comfortable with the sex they were assigned at birth, transgender people struggle with their identities
With his short, spiked hair, baggy jeans and collared shirt, Jamie Gagne appears to be your typical, young 21st-century guy.
But, although he dresses, acts and lives his life as a male, physically the former Greenridge resident is a female. Born “Adrianne” 20 years ago, Gagne identifies as a straight male. He is transgendered — “trans” as he prefers to be called — one of thousands like him across the country who were born one sex, but mentally identifies with the other.
Gagne said he realized he was different around age 5, when a boy attempted to kiss him. Until then, he said, he didn’t recognize gender differences and didn’t realize he was being perceived as a girl.