Transgendered Youth

Benowitz said that two years ago -- at a Broward high school she declined to name -- she was called in after a group of boys beat up another student, whom they believed to be an effeminate boy. In fact, the victim was transgendered -- a biological female who looked, dressed and behaved like a male. Benowitz was brought in to counsel the administrators, the students and the victim.

''People have an understanding of what it means to be gay or lesbian -- but when they hear that a person is genetically one gender but lives as another gender, that threatens a number of people because they don't understand what that means,'' Benowitz said. ``And that misunderstanding can make lives very difficult for transgendered children and their parents.''

''In addition to behaving like the opposite sex, a person with gender dysphoria naturally relates to the opposite sex,'' Volker said. ``They also have a persistent and recurring discomfort with their own external body parts and genitalia because it does not match their internal gender identity. Simply said, they were born into the wrong body.''

Broward County schools' progressive policy on transgendered children will be tested by the admission to kindergarten this fall of a boy who believes that he's a girl