It was becoming clear as I got older, that the expectations attached to having a vagina were growing stronger. As a result I just became less and less attached to it. Having a vagina just wasn’t for me. I was raised in a Catholic family so had some sort of concept of a greater being that had the ability to control the life ahead of you.
I was so disenfranchised by my genitals and hopeful/confused about the role this God played in my life that at the age four I remember praying. There I was white knuckled by my bed, whispering to myself...
“Dear god, I think there has been some sort of mistake and you accidentally made me a girl when I was supposed to be a boy. Can you please fix me?”
I would wake up in the morning and check to see if there were any changes. I convinced myself for a while that the thing in the middle was growing and it would soon become a penis and all my worries would be over. I could play outside for as long as I like and never need to come in to go to the toilet. My family would start giving me presents I actually liked instead of stupid Barbie Dolls or My Little Pony. People would stop teasing me and telling me I liked my neighbour and that’s why I played with him and the other boys so much. I would be allowed to do all the things I liked doing without having to explain myself. Gosh I couldn’t wait until I was a boy. Any day now God...
Eventually I figured out that wasn’t going to happen. I was stuck with a cunt and I felt completely ripped off. How on earth did this happen? I couldn’t be a girl, I didn’t know how to be one! I liked punching things, building lego, and watching trains go round and round the track. That’s what boys did. Girls were frivolous and boring and stayed inside all day playing house with dolls. That just wasn’t me.
The schoolyard had just as much expectations as the adults did. On my first day of school I assumed I could just find my neighbour and play with him. He was my best friend and I knew all his mates. We were a gang and from time to time I was the leader of said gang. It was a rotating roster based on who was the biggest badass at the time. I pushed the largest boy in our gang over once for saying something mean about my friend so I was top dog for quite some time.
None of that mattered once we got to school. They were in year one, and when you are in prep that is pretty much a lifetime away, so I was on my own. I didn’t really fit in with the other kids in my grade. I remember mum asking me one time at the school gates if there was anyone I wanted to invite over to play. That’s what my sister did and all the other kids did. I was embarrassed. I didn’t have any friends to ask. She pointed to one little girl who I did like, but mainly because I thought she was pretty. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was supremely gay.
“What about her? Is that one of your friends, would you like to invite her?” mum inquired pointing at the adorable girl I was eyeballing.
Her name was Piper and everyone liked her because she was tiny with cute little freckles and red pigtails. Mum walked over and made a parent like gesture to a lady who was also little and cute with red her and looked like a bigger version of Piper.
“Hi I’m Cathy, Emmy here was wondering if Piper would like to come over and play sometime?”
I hovered behind mum thinking ‘Emmy!?! No one calls me “Emmy” but you mum this is so embarrassing!’
I cowered behind and lined myself up so I could see Piper between mum’s legs. She looked at me slightly shocked, probably because we had only had one or two conversations in class. I was no doubt dubbed by the other children as strange. But we were both pawns in our nervous young mother’s game, so arrangements were made with little consultation with us. I don’t ever remember actually having a play date with Piper, so I assume she told her mother I was a total weirdo and they just become ridiculously busy all of a sudden.
I only really remember making one friend in class and I chose her because she wore tracksuits instead of pinafores, so I figured we had something in common. At lunch I would try find my neighbour. Sometimes it would be ok to play with them but I could tell it was giving the guys a reputation hanging out with a prep kid, even worse a girl, so it got weird pretty quickly.
I was fine if the other kids wanted to run around and play in the playground but eventually I would get too rough for the girls. The boys didn’t want to play with a girl so I ended up a lone wolf in the sand pit. My one friend was away from school a lot so I was often left alone. I would sought out the other weirdos on those days and wander around the oval with them. My sister would come and find me from time to time and advise me that these kids were weirdos and to be careful. I assume she didn’t want to be caught being seen with them too often so visits were rather quick.
One day my one friend invited me over to play at her house. She had a big shed and it had lots of tools and things. Her dad showed us how to make stuff so it was pretty awesome. I was having such a good time that when it came time for me to go home I didn’t want to go. My friends mum rang my mum and said that it was ok for me to sleep over. We continued to play until we were all tired out and it was time for bed.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen once it came to this. I looked around and realised I didn’t have any pyjamas. My friends mum recognised my dilemma and went to the cupboard and pulled out a clean nightie. It was yellow with pink lace on the bottom and love hearts all over it. I panicked. I hadn’t had to wear “girl’s clothes” since I was four. Not since I refused to go to any of the children’s parties I was invited to from Kinder. The invite would go up on the fridge and I would appear excited leading up to it, but once it came to time to get ready I would suddenly decide I didn’t want to go. My mother was perplexed. She knew that I was a complex little character and wouldn’t give up information easily.
“I don’t want to wear a dress” I eventually confessed to my mother.
“Why not?” she protested claiming I looked so pretty.
"I don’t want to look pretty" I claimed, holding back tears.
Looking pretty meant giving up my freedom. When I went to the party I wanted to run around and climb trees and do all the things I liked doing. I couldn’t do in a dress because people would tease me and say they could see my underwear and I would be embarrassed. Showing your underwear is the most humiliating thing you can do next to pissing your pants as a child.
My mother could see how much it pained me. I could also see how important it was to her that I looked nice so we came to an agreement: I could wear whatever clothes I wanted from the “good clothes draw” so long as I wore them with white frilly socks and buckle-up shoes. I was not an unreasonable four year old, I understood what it meant to negotiate so we struck a deal and off I would go in my corded overalls with stupid looking shoes.
Suddenly I was back to square one having to negotiate my preferred clothing choices. I was too tired and embarrassed to explain myself to my friends mum so I cried instead. Both parents put it down to me being exhausted and homesick. Couldn’t possibly have been a crisis about my gender and how important it was to me to present in a way that made me feel comfortable. No, that kind of awareness was many, many years away for everyone.
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