SALMON, Idaho -- A transgender woman whose use of a women's restroom in an Idaho grocery store reportedly upset other customers has been cited for trespassing and banned from the store for a year, police said on Friday.

A Rosauers supermarket in Lewiston asked police to charge 25-year-old Ally Robledo, who was born male but identifies as female, with the misdemeanor trespass charge on Monday, Lewiston Police Captain Roger Lanier said.

"The store security officer said he had been dealing with a problem over a couple days with the person going into the women's restroom and urinating while standing up," Lanier said.

He added that the store had reported that Robledo's use of the restroom made other female customers "very uncomfortable."

Robledo said she was being discriminated against.

"I'm a female trapped in a man's body. It's natural for me to go to the ladies' room. Getting the no trespassing order for a public restroom was really painful," she said.

The incident follows several cases that have stoked public debate about the boundaries of gender identity and the rights of transgender people to use accommodations such as restrooms in government buildings and businesses open to the public.

In February the parents of a 6-year-old transgender girl in Colorado filed a complaint with the state's civil rights agency challenging a decision by education officials to deny their child access to the girls' restrooms in her school. The case is being closely watched by civil libertarians.

Then last month in Arizona, a judge declined to grant a divorce to a transgender man, ruling he could not prove he was a male when he wed his wife in Hawaii. Same-sex marriages are not recognized in Arizona. The man has said he would appeal.

Colorado and a dozen other states have laws explicitly barring discrimination against transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations, but Idaho does not, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Robledo said she was being unfairly treated by the store and by authorities in a rural area where questions about gender identity and the rights of transgender people rarely arise.

"I'm struggling here in this rural community as a transgender. Now I feel even more vulnerable," she said.

Ilona Turner, legal director of Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, said it was discriminatory to prevent transgender people from using the same facilities as everyone else.

"Transgender people have the same needs and deserve the same access to public stores and facilities as others without discrimination based on who they are. They just need to go to the bathroom like everyone else," she told Reuters by email.

An executive with Rosauers, a regional supermarket chain based in Spokane, Washington, did not respond to a request for comment.

Under Idaho law, anyone who owns or controls a property can deny access to it. Lanier said police responded to a trespassing matter involving Robledo and were not in a position to address the transgender issue.

"Society has yet to define exactly what makes a transgender. Far be it from a police department in Idaho to try to define that," he said.

An Arizona House panel late Wednesday approved a measure targeting transgendered people who want to use bathrooms of the gender they identify with, voting along party lines to advance a bill that protects business owners who bar the practice. 

The 7-4 vote concluded an hours-long parade of transgendered and straight people who tried to persuade the panel to oppose Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. John Kavanagh's bill. The crowd broke out in chants of "shame, shame, shame" as the vote on the bill sponsored by the conservative Republican passed. 

Kavanagh had radically altered the bill after being faced with an outcry from advocacy groups, but that wasn't enough to keep about 200 opponents from attending a nearly 7-hour long hearing that concluded with several hours of testimony on the bill. 

The original bill would have made it a crime for a transgendered person to use a bathroom other than his or her birth sex. The new bill instead seeks to shield businesses from civil or criminal liability if they ban people from restrooms that don't match their birth sex. 

It was prompted by the recent passage of a Phoenix anti-discrimination ordinance that social conservatives said prevented businesses from keeping transgendered people out of locker rooms, showers and bathrooms. Kavanagh said it would subject businesses to criminal charges and expose little children to "naked men in women's locker rooms and showers."

But the parade of witnesses Wednesday, many transgendered, said that was not only fear-based but just flat-out wrong. 

"Search as you might there is not enough evidence that there is any risk in allowing a person with gender identity to use a restroom of their choice," said Claire Swinford, a Tucson resident who was born a man but identifies and dresses as a woman. 

In fact, she said, being dressed as a woman actually puts her at physical risk from being attacked by a man while trying to use a men's restroom. "What your bill attempts to do is sacrifice my personal safety for somebody else's sense of discomfort." 

Patty Medway, a transgendered woman who was born a man, said she's been using female bathrooms for years without a problem. She called on Kavanagh to back away from his effort. 

"I've been using washrooms for 15 years and I don't want to be discriminated against, and I'm scared to go to a male washroom," she said. 

Maureen Robinson, a Tucson woman, called barring transgendered people from using bathrooms silly. 

"It has been a non-issue, it will continue to be a non-issue, unless this bill becomes law," she said. 

But Kavanagh, backed by the six other Republicans on the bill, quickly advanced the bill anyway. It now goes to the full House for consideration after a routine review. 

Only one person testified in favor of the bill. He said the Phoenix ordinance trampled on the rights the business community. 

"I don't believe that the opposing side should be able to impose their views on others," said Nohl Rosen, a Phoenix small business owner. "The way I feel, this is just the liberal left forcing their views on the rest of us" 

Democrats on the panel all voted against advancing the bill, which one called "over the top." 

"Frankly. I think this is an embarrassment to our state,' said Rep. Stefanie Mach of Tucson. 

Kavanagh began the hearing by telling the crowd his original bill went too far, and that he had completely re-written it after hearing criticism, including some from his own caucus in the House. 

"What I'm doing is pre-empting these cities from prosecuting businesses that say they want separate (facilities)," he said. "I'm basically resetting the clock to before Phoenix passed the law."

A fraternity at Emerson College in Boston, Mass., has raised thousands of dollars for a transgender member's sex change surgery after the procedure was denied by his student health insurance plan.

The brothers of Phi Alpha Tau have received more than $16,000 in donations for Donnie Collins, 20, a sophomore pledge seeking female-to-male gender transition surgery to remove his breasts.

"It's been an amazing experience, these last few weeks," Collins said in a video (above) uploaded to YouTube on Monday. "My life has been absolutely changed by pledging this fraternity."

After his insurance company reportedly denied his claim for gender transition surgery, Collins' fraternity brothers banded together to help. They launched a pledge campaign Feb. 9 on IndieGoGo, a crowd-funding website, setting an initial goal of $4,800 -- later boosted to $8,000 -- to cover Collins' chest reconstruction.

"We care deeply about each and everyone, and rely on the entire active brotherhood to stand behind any one individual when they are in need," the participating brothers wrote on the IndieGoGo campaign page.

The Phi Alpha Tau brothers took in $2,000 in online donations in just over a week, Collins said in his YouTube video. By Tuesday, they were at $12,000, and the campaign crossed $16,000 Wednesday.

The campaign's managers announced Wednesday morning that they plan to donate all the excess cash to the Jim Collins Foundation, a group that "raises money to fund gender-confirming surgeries for those transgender people who need surgery to live a healthy life," according to the organization's website.

Collins came out as transgender while a student at a Windsor, Conn., boarding school, he told WHDH, an NBC affiliate in Boston.

"Coming out was a huge relief to me," Collins said.

"I knew right away that I wanted a name change, hormone replacement treatment" and gender reassignment surgery, he said.

Collins told WHDH that the procedure, which is scheduled for May, marks an important step in his gender transition.

"You're the one that puts your head down on the pillow at night," Collins said. "You have to be able to look in the mirror at yourself every day for the rest of your life. So, make choices for you first and then other people second."

A Dallas transgender woman was issued a ticket for using the women's restroom at an area hospital.

Parkland police cited Paula Witherspoon, whose legal name is Paul Witherspoon, for disorderly conduct on April 25.

"It was definitely humiliating, degrading," she said. "I felt like I was being discriminated against."

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A Parkland Hospital representative said the hospital received a complaint from a concerned female patient about a man in the women's restroom.

"This is 2012, and I've been transitioning since 2006, and I've never had a problem until I went to Parkland Hospital," Witherspoon said.

Witherspoon said she doesn't even remember seeing anyone else in the restroom until she walked out.

"There was a lady there that said, 'That's a man.' I just ignored her and kept going," Witherspoon said.

Minutes later, a Parkland officer came over and cited her, she said. Witherspoon said she offered to show the officer a transition letter from her doctor that states, "She is expected to use facilities consistent with her external presentation, which is female."

But Parkland police told her they have to go by what is on her license, Witherspoon said.

Under Texas law, Witherspoon must have acted "intentionally or knowingly for a lewd or unlawful purpose" to be cited with disorderly conduct.

"I went to the bathroom, took care of my business, washed my hands and left," Witherspoon said. "I didn't even see anyone."

Parkland Hospital released the following statement: "Because of the complexity of the issue, the incident is currently under review. Parkland strives to treat patients, visitors and staff with dignity and respect, as well as provide a safe environment at all times."

Anti-discrimination laws in 16 states and the District of Columbia provide protections for transgender and gender non-conforming people, but Texas is not one of them, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is calling for lawmakers in New York to pass legislation that will offer such protections.

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Aidan Key, left, was born a girl named Bonnie.

When Aidan Key was a little girl, he didn't realize he had gender identity issues. He simply knew something was off.

"I didn't necessarily become aware that I was trapped in the wrong body," says the 49-year-old Bellingham, Wash., native who had gender reassignment surgery at the age of 33. "I became aware that people didn't perceive me as I felt myself to be. It was just odd to me to have to wear a dress the first day of kindergarten. It didn't make sense."

Today, Key might have received counseling -- and perhaps even puberty blocking drugs -- at one of a handful of U.S. clinics designed to help adolescents with what’s now called gender identity disorder or GID. The psychological diagnosis is used to describe a male or female who feels a strong identification with the opposite sex and experiences considerable distress because of their actual sex (the word "disorder" refers to the distress the person feels, not the fact that they identify with another gender). 

According to reports published Monday in the medical journal Pediatrics, a small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are now getting support from parents and from doctors who give them treatments that could eventually help them change their sex.

Some estimates say about 1 in 10,000 children may have GID, Dr. Norman Spack, author of one of three reports published Monday and director of one of the nation's first gender identity medical clinics, at Children's Hospital Boston told the Associated Press. And that number does appear to be on the rise, experts say.

The number of people treated at Spack's Gender Management Service clinic, also known as GeMS, which was the focus of a study, increased fourfold between January 1998 and February 2010.  The clinic now averages about 19 patients each year, compared with about four per year treated for gender issues at the hospital in the late 1990s.

While many children can take part in nonconforming gender activities without issue -- little boys playing princess, for instance -- those with GID can experience a host of psychological problems, especially with the onset of puberty.

"It's devastating to them," says Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at GeMS clinic in Boston.

Those who don’t get support in the form of counseling or medical treatment can be at high risk for behavior and emotional problems, the study found. Of the 97 patients younger than 21 years old in the study who met the criteria for GID, 44.3 percent had a history of significant psychiatric problems, including 20.6 percent who reported self-mutilation and 9.3 percent who attempted suicide. The youngest in the study was age 4.

Laura Edwards-Leeper, a psychologist specializing in youth gender issues at Seattle's Children's Hospital and co-author of the Pediatrics study, says at her hospital, “more and more people are banging down the doors to get in. I'm guessing in part this is due to media attention and people becoming a bit more accepting about it. Parents are becoming more open to the possibility and willing to get help for their kids."

Unfortunately, some parents who seek help for their child through traditional channels - such as the family pediatrician - can come away feeling judged.

"I've heard many, many stories of adults and families being turned away with a stern lecture about their parenting or their choices," says Key, director of Gender Diversity, an education, support and training organization committed to increasing awareness about gender variations. "It can often be viewed as a moral issue."

Support from parents doesn't always exist either, says Key.

"The response varies so much," he says. "Some parents will tell the kids 'No, you're really a boy. No, those are girl toys. You don't want that.' They try to get the child not to engage in these activities because they know it's not accepted by society, they know the child will be teased. I try to think they have the best intentions."

Sometimes, the response of parents -- or others -- can be quite damaging. A related study of childhood abuse in the current issue of Pediatrics found gender nonconformity before age 11 was a risk indicator for physical, sexual, and psychological abuse in childhood as well as probable PTSD.

Chromosomal variations?
Key says there are many theories about why some people have GID but research seems to point to chromosomal variations, i.e., "intersex conditions," such as a female with XY chromosomes instead of XX chromosomes. Another theory has to do with the way a particular person's brain is mapped.

"A person may have a brain that is more oriented towards male and their body is female," he says. "There's been some preliminary research that supports that. But the verdict is still out. They need to do more research on it."

As for what parents should do if their child starts acting in a gender nonconforming way, Key advises ongoing communication and conversations.

"Ask them, 'Do you just want to wear dresses or do you feel like you're a girl?'" he says. "Sometimes a boy who just wants to wear dresses is just a boy who wants to wear dresses."

When little kids speak up and tell their parents "I have the body of a boy but the heart and mind of a girl," though, parents should take note and decide how they want to handle it, he says.

At the GeMS clinic in Boston, a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, endocrinologists, and pediatricians provide tools to help adolescents navigate the choppy social and psychological waters of gender identity.

"As non-transgender individuals, we take for granted how easy life is when our mind and our body are congruent with each other," says Leibowitz. "Clinicians and pediatricians need to understand what gender nonconformity and gender dysphoria mean for a specific individuals and to know there are options out there that will profoundly improve their quality of life."

But even kids who have emotional support can become extremely distressed when puberty hits and their body begins to change into that of a stranger, says Leibowitz.

Learning to fit in
Key says as a child, he had questions that grew sharper as he got older about where he fit in.

Courtesy of Aidan Key

Aidan Key, as a young girl named Bonnie, left, shown with his identical twin sister, Brenda.

"I remember once when I was 9 observing all the families in the lobby at church and realizing that I was supposed to grow up and get married and have a family," he says. "I remember thinking 'I don't mind getting married and having a family, but I don't want to be the wife. I want to be the husband.'"

Key says he received a lot of support from his mother, step-father and identical twin sister, Brenda.

"My family was very encouraging of nontraditional female activities," he says. "I was aware that society expected something different from me but since my family said 'We don't care about that,' I accepted that and said 'It's society's problem, not my problem.'"

Key says he had a couple of boyfriends in high school but by age 19, realized he was attracted to women and began to identify as a lesbian. Over the years, though, he came to realize that that wasn't quite right, either.

"It was challenging," he says. "I was getting all this support to be whatever type of woman I wanted to be, but no one asked what if being a woman wasn't the right part. That was a fixed situation. There was nothing to be done about it."

Today, at the GeMS clinic in Boston, young children and their families get psychological counseling and are monitored until the first signs of puberty emerge, usually around age 11 or 12. Then children are given puberty-blocking drugs, in monthly $1,000 injections or implants imbedded in the arm.

Being able to temporarily push the pause button on puberty (the drug's effect are completely reversible) is extremely helpful, says Edwards-Leeper. The idea is to give these children time to mature emotionally and make sure they want to proceed with a permanent sex change.

"By stopping puberty early on, a boy won't grow as tall, his facial hair won't come in, his Adam's apple won't develop," she says. "All the things that make it difficult for adult transgender people to pass are eliminated. The quality of life for transgender people who have been fortunate enough to receive puberty blocking medication is so much better."

Kids will more easily pass as the opposite gender, and require less drastic treatment later, if drug treatment starts early, Spack said. For example, boys switching to girls will develop breasts and girls transitioning to boys will be flat-chested if puberty is blocked and sex-hormones started soon enough, Spack said.

While many of the patients at the GeMS clinic included in the study were too old for puberty blocking medications, two-thirds did go on to receive cross-sex hormone therapy (i.e., testosterone for women and estrogen for men), which can be a precursor to sexual reassignment surgery. Only one of the 97 in the study opted out of permanent treatment, Spack says.

Not all adolescents with GID opt for the surgery when they reach the age of consent, though, says Leibowitz. "It's very individualized and it's really a private issue. It also isn't covered by insurance and can cost $20,000," he says. "For some people, that might not be a necessary thing."

Key, now married, says his surgery was not only necessary, but a "no brainer."

"Once I had a conscious acknowledgment that I was transgender, it was simply a matter of logistics," he says. "I started saving money. One of the most amazing feelings I ever had was being on a beach without my shirt on and being male and feeling like 'Finally, this is what I'm supposed to feel like.' Normal, natural and right. And about time."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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