A female graphic designer was to have a sex change operation in Guangzhou on Tuesday, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region woman, 31, has always grappled with her sexuality from an early age and said she felt her psyche and body did not match.

She liked to play with boys, dressed and spoke like a boy and enjoyed drinking and smoking.

She often found it difficult to live in the world because of her sex orientation. Once a bathroom attendant, judging from her outfit, mistook her to be a man and stopped her from going into the ladies room. She had to use the men's room instead.

Gengzi, as the Daily called her, treated boys as buddies and was attracted to girls. She said she was not a lesbian and was eager to become a man.

Her first love was one of her female classmates. The girl, already married to another man, sent a mobile short message to her after learning she would have a sex change operation and regretted she did not have the operation earlier.

Gengzi fell in love with several other girls later.

The hospital that was to perform the operation said the sex change from female to male was not easy. She has already had her breasts, womb, ovaries and vagina removed in Fujian Province.

(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2005)