Gender identity crisis

By DONNA NEBENZAHL, Special to The Gazette March 12, 2011 11:56 AM

http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Gender+identity+crisis+remembers+demanding+short+haircut+when+lady/4428412/story.html

MONTREAL - At age 5, Shamai was a boy in a little girl's body. He remembers demanding a short haircut and when a lady on the street "mistook" him for a boy, turning to his mother and saying: "This lady knows better than you! She knows I'm a boy."

In her first recollection that something was wrong, Samantha had this vague sense it didn't feel right to be in this boy's body. "I didn't know what it was. I prayed for a while for things to work out." She was 4 years old.

James was 3 years old - and a girl on the outside - when he blurted out to his family: "I was a boy before. What happened?" For years it was a family joke.