"Natalia Whitefeather Flores, as she calls herself, is getting her hormones.

But the Idaho Department of Corrections waited until she filed a $5.5 million lawsuit against the state, got a visit from the American Civil Liberties Union and contacted BW to provide Flores, whose given name is William Ray Flores, with her estrogen pills and a testosterone blocker.

"France does the best sex changes, I hear, and that's where I want to go," Flores said in a call from the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

But she's not going anywhere until at least September 2009 when she may be up for parole. Flores was born a woman in a man's body on the Rocky Boy Reservation near Havre, Mont. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and has spoken Cheyenne, Spanish and English from an early age.

At 5 years old, Flores, who then called herself Susie, was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, a psychiatric disorder that the Idaho Department of Corrections defines as dissatisfaction with one's biological sex. The department has recognized GID since 2003, after an earlier lawsuit forced officials to develop a policy.

Flores is transgender in that she desires to become a woman. But she also considers herself two-spirited, a condition recognized in Native American society long before 2003.

"We are considered more spiritual than most people because we've got the spirit of a woman and the spirit of a man," Flores said.

Flores' two-spiritedness has not been dulled by a life in foster care, juvenile hall and, for the last two years, state prison. She chats about life in prison, how she can't get access to makeup through the men's commissary, how they took away her hair ties, how she was raped eight times by six different men and then how she was moved into the maximum security prison.

"I tried to stay away from the people but they always found a way to get me alone," Flores said."

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Gender Barred (Boise Weekly 8/6)