it was a few days til my nerves settled from almost getting caught – and i went from constantly on edge wondering if doom was just around the corner… to fixated on what i had hidden under my bed.
i started noticing that thinking about those clothes werent the only “feminine” thing i experienced. i started to become aware that some feelings i had would normally be associated with girls… maybe it was subconscious (what i told myself) but i just kept living life and suddenly realizing “oh… a boy wouldnt do this. crap. i need to stop.” – “a boy wouldnt call those bluebonnets pretty – i should be quiet”. it just seemed that the things i was doing on a daily basis that i normally would not even pay attention to… were now glaringly obvious that it was me pretending to be what others thought i should be. when i acted naturally… it raised eyebrows and i could feel the anger in my mom start to bubble up. likely because me and my parents were not acutely aware and sensitive to the fact that there was something happening.
it started to become what i thought about almost every waking minute. my mom would come into my room and see me listening to music and dancing around… but what she didnt see was my imagination running wild – seeing myself as one of those women on bandstand that would just be in the crowd and dance and dance and wondering what it would be like to be her. or eventually see me playing with my little sister when she was old enough… and think it innocent enough.
i remember getting publicly scolded one time at the mall. we were shopping for school clothes, and i was about the age where my parents started letting me pick out things to wear. it was a generic mall spot… like pennys or bealls or the like… but i remember her telling me to go and get 3 shirts that i liked and bring them back to her to see. i ran out of the little girls section my mom and sister were shopping in… but immediately landed not in the boys section, but in the girls. an idea hit me – sneak something in the pile of clothes. i found a tee-shirt i liked which somehow i thought could be misconstrued as a boys shirt, then ran to the boys section and got 2 others. i sandwiched the girls tee in-between them, hoping that my mom wouldnt notice. she did… almost instantly. the sleeve had some hint of lace or something on it that she spotted… ripped it out of the neatly folded pile i put in the cart, and started screaming at me in a volume i hadnt heard before. every eye in the store turned to see this boy getting yelled at by his mom for ‘picking out a queer shirt’. i was mortified.
what became a recurring theme… my “draw” and “passion” for it would fade out a bit, then come flooding back in to a point it was all i thought about 24 hours per day. it never fully went away… but it would shift from a drive and desire, to a shame. after getting almost caught the previous time… i was more in the shame part of the cycle, but that was slowly replaced by the desire again over the week.
eventually, that desire reached a crescendo and my days were consumed with thinking about how i could get time alone to be who i wanted to be. one night, as i lay in bed thinking about it… it occured to me – they never come into my room at night… now is the perfect time. its risky, but im willing to take that risk.
so i crawled out of bed in the middle of the night when i was sure everyone else was asleep and dug under my mattress where i had stashed those pantyhose with the run in them. i stripped off my boring underwear and slid the nylons up my leg and crawled back into bed. it felt amazing…. my skin tingled with delight. every ounce of me was consumed with how i looked and felt right then. i would spend time rubbing my legs together… having conversations in my head about them… indulging in the feeling from them. this quickly became a nightly occurrence. i wished i could wear them freely… and that it wasnt something that would get me in trouble.
that literally become my nightly ritual. dinner. homework. bath. bed… closing my eyes til everyone else was asleep, then getting my “alone time” where i just felt free and happy. i did that almost daily for months to years.
i remember it was during this time that i started to question seriously what i was… or what was happening to me. i knew i couldnt ask, as that would be an admission that it was still continuing, and would result in rage and fury aimed at me. but the thoughts started coming up…. “why do i like this? am i a girl? is there something wrong with me? do other boys do this or is it just me?”
around this time is when things started to make a bit more sense to me…. the puzzle pieces of who i was, and what was happening to me started to become a bit more clear. i was still unsure about a lot of things, but could tell that something was not right with me. but that was also a double edged sword – it also meant i was aware of just how much i didnt match.
i was mostly disgusted by my body. everything about it… from my privates, to the shape, to what was then starting to become tiny amounts of leg hair. i remember that i started noticing the lines of my body. i would see these elegant women on tv or out in the world, and remember just looking at myself in the mirror… a flat plank. no shape. no size. no features. their curves… the grace in their movements… the way they would walk and talk – i just found it mesmerizing and became so jealous of all these women i didnt know. i would sit there and practice the movements of the lady on dallas (the night time drama) the night before, or some elegant woman i had seen on tv.
i remember asking what i thought, out of context, would be an innocent enough question that i generally thought might have been the answer i was looking for. i had asked one of my health teachers ‘could i maybe had a penis and not supposed to? if im not supposed to, is it something that will go away?’ she looked confused and mortified at the same time. i asked again – ‘can i do anything to make it happen sooner?’ – that resulted in a trip to the counselors office… i explained myself, thinking i would be safe – but wasnt. that was repeated to my mom… who lashed out more than i had experienced in that point of my life. physically beaten, and then my dad was told, and i got the paddle again. i grew to hate that thing.
i remember starting to become aware of my daydreams around this age. i am sure most people do the same… play out these wild fantasy scenarios in their head like “what would i do first if i won the lottery” or “what would life be like if i met the person of my dreams?”. most adults have those thoughts and daydreams. what i thought as completely normal for me at the time, i can now look back and see was totally abnormal – but i would have the same daydream all day, every day. “what would life be like if i could be who i want to be”. i remember honestly contemplating running away from home… i even made plans in my head, realized the issues i would need to overcome, and would keep thinking of ways to overcome them. “i wonder if grandmom would let me move in with her? probably not, but maybe she would help me…. how do i ask her for help?” – a child should not even be processing those thoughts.
i saw that paddle again a few weeks later when i decided i would borrow a razer from my parents bathroom and try to shave off all my faint leg hair. lots and lots of blood…. then lots of screaming and cursing, and once again – the yard stick.. then later the frat paddle…. then an increase in the number of times per week i was being shuttled to therapy or church.