After years of searching, Toby Hemker understands who he truly is in life
The State News (MSU)
By Josh Mansour
http://www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2011/11/making_a_transitionAs Toby Hemker sat in his MSU psychology class in 2004, flipping through his textbook, he stumbled across an excerpt on gender identity disorder that changed his life. He sat in the classroom for 10 minutes after his class had ended staring at the book, overwhelmed by what he had read.
"I (was) like, 'Oh, my God. That's me. There are people like me,'" the 26-year-old said.
Toby, currently a Japanese senior, is one of a small number of transgender students at MSU, a number that MSU's LBGT Resource Center Interim Director Deanna Hurlbert said she thinks likely is proportional to the 1 percent of transgender people in the global population.
Growing up in a small, conservative, Michigan town, Toby said he had never heard the word "transgender" until he was 22 years old and already was in the process of transitioning from female to male.
