Transgendered Twins

Bonnie and Brenda were picture-perfect identical twins; even family and close friends had trouble telling them apart.

But early on, there was one major difference—Brenda was "the lady" and Bonnie was "the tomboy." Bonnie hated wearing dresses. When playing house, she preferred to take the role of dad because she just didn't feel like a girl. With puberty, the twins had trouble relating at all. "I got as boy crazy as I think you could get," Brenda says. "I'd look at Bonnie and see her be so calm and levelheaded around these boys. [I'd think], 'How does she do that?'"

During college Bonnie realized that she was a lesbian. Right away she came out to her twin sister. "She told me she had an encounter with a woman and kissed her," Brenda says. "I got really upset about it because we're twins. We're supposed to be identical."

For the next 15 years, Bonnie lived as a lesbian, married a woman and even adopted a daughter. But once again she began to feel that things were still not right. When she met two men who had transitioned from female to male, Bonnie felt a connection. She made the most difficult choice of her life—she decided to become a man.