I should have been a girl - Chapter 1

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I already know what I shall see before I put a foot on the stair. Robert will stand at the bottom of the stairs, his backpack slung over one shoulder, his usual way of carrying it though Mom has told him several times he will damage his spine that way. I also know, her warning may not be true. Parents continually tell kids lies and sometimes quite big ones, simply because a child’s way is not their way. I know that’s how it will be because although I can’t see him, that’s how it always is. I can hear every word because my room is nearest the stairwell.

Robert is stubborn and gets away with things because he’s a boy, whereas I don’t get away with things because I’m a boy who thinks I’m a girl, or at least if God had done a proper job, I would have been a girl, in the body as well as the soul. In my room with the door open, I can hear everything that happens in this household. Many of those words that drift upwards to fall softly upon my ears, are about me, mostly words of either condemnation or concern.

I am the misfit, the child that isn’t quite right, not so bad as to need medical intervention but not the child my parents would have prayed to give life to, not by a long chalk. The usual, daily, tiresome nonsense goes on below. The usual goes on in my room too. I cross-dress; I try things when it’s safe to do so, like makeup, the feel of lipstick upon my lips, and using eyeliner with my eyes blinking as the wand approaches. I keep all my girl stuff hidden under the base of my wardrobe.

I’ll go to bed early, shut my door and throw a coat at the base so light doesn’t show, and live in an unsatisfactory and painful world of make-believe and self-harm. ‘It’s uncool to carry it on my back. No one does that except some nerdy no-hoper, like a little brother. Besides I don’t wear it in the car do I so, what’s the point?’

‘I want you to carry it in your hand, is that too much to ask? ‘Aw Mom, don’t fuss.’ ‘Well, when your back plays up I shan’t let you forget that I warned you, all this being cool is actually being stupid. We weren’t like that in my day. We didn’t care a fig for cool.’ You’re right there Mom I think. ‘Craig,’ Robert shouts, ignoring his mother yet again. He can do that and get away with it. I can’t. I’m much greater worried. ‘Yes all right.’ I answer from my bedroom. I put the chest of drawers back against the wall and make sure everything’s ship-shaped.

I lock the top drawer of the chest and pocket the key. Finally, I look in the long mirror and check that I look OK, as tidy as my brother never is. Really, he never is. My shirt’s tucked and trousers pressed. My hair’s longer than average and swept over in a style the hairdresser called long with bangs, as near to a girl cut as I dare. I tread the stairs with a measured step, unlike my brother who usually takes the stairs up and down at a gallop. ‘Here it comes at last.’ Robert says and I take no notice. I’m frequently ‘it’, not even brother, except when that word is used to rile me. Brother, boy, Craig, his, and he, are all used deliberately and emphasized by Robert because he knows, much better than my parents, how all those male pronouns and nouns hurt.

He has practiced hurting nearly every day because as a brother, I disappoint him. Mother opens the door as I reach the ground and shushes us both out, before pulling the door closed behind her, making sure it’s caught on the lock. We pile into her old Golf, me in the back because I know my place and we’re off the two-and-a-half miles to school. ‘You’ve nothing on today have you?’ Mom asks.

‘Yes Mom, you know Monday, I always have a chess club.’ ‘Nerds and misfits club you mean,’ Robert says from where he slouches in the front seat. ‘Where the clever kids go,’ I say in retort. ‘You’re such a friggin’ girl.’ Rob snaps back. ‘Oh Robert, you’ve realized at last.’ ‘That’s enough,’ Mom intercedes trying to restore peace. ‘Why is it always the same on the way to school. I really can’t do with you two rowing.’ ‘I am a girl,’ I say, ignoring Mom. ‘Well last time I saw, you had a penis.

Never knew a girl had a penis, queer boy.’ Robert says ‘I’m not queer, I’m transgender.’ ‘Same thing.’ ‘Mom!’ I say, hoping for some sort of protection. ‘Mom, I can’t help how I am.’ I bite my lip and my eyes fill. ‘I’m not mad, I’m not queer, I’m transgendered Mom.

I should have been a girl.’ ‘Craig, will you get these ideas out of your head. I told you what would happen if you don’t.’ ‘Mom I told you, I have to have T blockers before puberty starts or I just don’t know what I’ll do. Being like him, Mom, a boy, it would be like death, like having a dread disease. I gave you that article to read telling you all about transgender.’ ‘We burned it. That’s what the Minister advised and we obeyed. If God had wanted you to be a girl, then you would have been. You’re a boy. Give up this nonsense.

You’re driving us all insane with it Craig. You will soon be a man and I’m sure you will come to terms with it as you go through puberty.’ ‘I’d rather kill myself!’ ‘Craig! That would be a sin against God, a waste of His creation, and a rejection of His Almighty power. Don’t ever let me hear that from you again. ‘If I can’t be a girl, I would rather be dead.’ ‘Friggin’ hell,’ Robert says, turning and looking at me through the gap in the front seats. ‘Go on, boo baby. What a sissy I have for a brother.’ ‘Don’t swear Robert.’ ‘I didn’t.’ ‘You did, we all know what that word you keep using stands for.

I don’t know how I gave birth to two such Godless creatures.’ ‘I don’t believe in all that Mom, you know I don’t. I don’t care what God thinks. He’s not here, and He’s not in my body. He doesn’t feel like I feel because as far as I’m concerned, the God at Meeting is not my idea of God. My God is one of love, not fire, brimstone, and punishment.’ Robert looks at me again with a great smirk on his face. ‘Sinner, you’ll end in hell,’ he mocks, for he doesn’t believe either, that God at Meeting is real, all-seeing and taking an interest in each and every one of the World’s inhabitants.

He disclosed that in a rare moment of peace between us when he wasn’t teasing. I think he had fallen out with Pa at the time and for once, we shared a common enemy. Our family belongs to the Kingdom of Deliverance, a little-known church that accepts much of modern life with a fundamentalist belief in the Bible. It takes all scripture as the truth but is curiously democratic in form. Thus, the congregation elects Elders, and the elders, always twelve in any Meeting House, elect in turn, the Minister.

The Kingdom still believes in the devil and the casting out of demons or devils and presumably, so I believe, demons are the Devil’s little helpers. I don’t believe, not in their ideas of God. I would not say I’m an atheist, no that’s a step far too far for me. I tend to be an agnostic and I know people sneer at agnostics as sitting on the fence, but large as we now know this Universe is and small in comparison as is this planet we despoil so readily, something or someone had to have created its vastness.

Our church sees all in black or white, good or bad, that to be praised or that to be condemned. I’m nearly fourteen, but even I know, there has to be grey, there have to be different opinions. There is not one truth and while humanity exists, people will always have different beliefs and opinions. Some opinions will be ridiculous and amoral, like Nazism, and some will just be harmless, like belief in fairies or elves. Others will be scientifically proven and some will be unproven but still correct.

I know how my brother feels about our Kingdom and Meeting House because he’s told me, but when it comes to a family row over religion, he just likes to stir the cauldron of wrath that spills from my God-fearing parents’ lips all over me and yet I’m the good child. I work on my studies and I’m clean and punctual. I help around the house too. I vacuum and I help cook. Dear brother does nothing around the house, ever. He studies as little as possible and plays sports.

He’s a jock, in the gang, a boy among boys, big, handsome, with a charming smile and a wicked temper. He’s also a bully. I do help in the house and I don’t mind helping Mom and I really like cooking. Some of my earliest memories are of being with her in the kitchen, peeling apples, or making pastry that she always said was better than hers. I have a light touch.

I don’t know when I first realized I was unhappy. Perhaps it began with not having any toys. Well, that’s not true, I had toys like all kids have toys of some sort. I saw on TV these raggedy poor kids in Africa who had made cars out of bits of wire, even the little wheels that worked. One could even be steered with a long wire.

The girls in the film were near as raggedy but they played games, pat-a-cake and they had crude wooden dolls and skipping ropes of what looked like plaited baler twine. I’m privileged in comparison and yes I had toys, but none that I wanted, except for my first bicycle. It was pink and it had a basket on the front and it was actually a little girl's bike but Pa not realizing then my true character, said that didn’t matter, it was the first bike, one without stabilizers, good enough for a kid age six. It mattered to me. I loved that bike above everything because it was my first girl possession.

When that disappeared two years later, replaced by a dark red proper boy bike, I howled in dismay. It was not the reaction my parents expected and I was labeled ungrateful and silly. Silly? Yes, of course, men always think girls are silly, and can’t understand female emotions and attachments to things as well as people. Men don’t understand the effect a pretty dress has on the girl that wears it. Oh yes, men compliment a girl and play up, but that’s more about their Johnson.

The boys in the neighborhood shunned me, for they realized I was not one of them and not interested in their games. Some were bullying, but my brother curiously, although he bullied, discouraged others with a fist to their belly. Others were indifferent and as they gave up on me, I gave up on them. I played with the girls in our street.

That was good, until like around ten years and they all sort of joined the mystery of being young ladies, as they went into puberty, it was like they all had secrets that I was not ever going to know and I became an outsider with them too. After that, I just became a loaner. I stayed in a lot and studied. I also did things with Mom, like cooking and helping make curtains. That didn’t last either because Pa, my fucking Dad, said I should be doing boy stuff. It was after that when I was helping Mom that I first said, ‘Mom I should have been a girl.’ ‘Why on earth?’ ‘I have a girl brain Mom and a boy body.’

Mom didn’t even reply. I tried again. ‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said, ‘you were born a boy and that’s all there is to it’. ‘But Mom, I know I’m a girl inside. I’m trans-Mom, transgendered. I need drugs, they’re called blockers to stop male puberty and then, estrogen so I have girl puberty, Mom. Then later, at eighteen I would have surgery so I have a vagina. I’ve read all about it.’ ‘Craig you’re a boy.

Be content with what God gave you, a perfect boy’s body.’ ‘It’s not perfect for me Mom, it’s, it’s,’ I search for a word in the substantial glossary of a lonely nerd that describes how I feel about it, ‘it’s abhorrent. I’d rather be dead than become a man.’ ‘How dare you say that.’ Mom is more furious than I have ever seen her. I shut up. That evening I get a talking to from Dad, lots of God stuff, treating God’s gift of a beautiful body with disdain and how there are people in the World who would give their all for a body like mine. Huh. I cried.

I went to bed and felt like I wanted to die rather than lurch forward into male puberty and eventual manhood. That’s when I started self-harming. I found I could drive a needle through my flesh. Once I even dragged a thread through and tied it in a bow until I became frightened of infection. Removed it in tears and poured iodine on the wounds. More pain, but then, that’s what I deserved, didn’t I? Since then I think I have dropped hints at least once a week and when alone with Mom, I have pleaded, for the last three horrible years. My horrible life.

However, for Jenny, I think I would have done something dreadful. She’s my one friend. I go to her house and as her parents are out a lot in the day, particularly Saturday when her father works at his car lot and her Mom plays golf with her girl chums, we are free to do as we, please. They trust Jenn and they are right to do so, because Jenn, in every way, is a sensible and responsible girl. I’m not sure how we got together but yes, I think it was when I was being taunted by some boys at school. Jenn just went to them and gave them a mouthful, nothing bad but they moved off with ruthful smirks.

Jenn lends me stuff, her girl clothes, and we play with her makeup. It’s brilliant. Then I go home to grim reality and oppression. I go to my room and prick down my arm with a needle and then I make tracks with the needles that actually cut my skin in places. If I actually draw blood, I have to stem it and make sure I don’t get blood all over my clothes or the sheets for I know Pa will give me a beating if he found out. Mom pulls into the sidewalk and I’m out quickly with a ‘bye Mom, love you,’ my usual parting, although I think, I don’t love her anymore. I don’t love my family anymore. I’m a stranger in their midst. I no longer believe in my parents’ God and I hate my bullying, shit-stirring brother.

I hate the whole of my God-fearing sanctimonious family, uncles and aunts and cousins who taunt, who have all heard of my sinful behavior, except that is for Uncle Jem, Mom’s brother and almost her only living relation, who lives way upstate in New Hampshire with a woman we don’t mention, in the forest where he’s a ranger. Another day, another week has started badly. It’s just another chapter in a life that’s blighted.

My brother gallops past to catch up with a couple of his mates, giving me a punch on the arm as he goes. I hardly notice the pain. My mind is filled with the horror of what may be around the corner of my life, the inevitable male puberty, facial hair, muscle tone, bad skin, and a voice that sounds as though it has a shovel full of gravel. ‘Not speaking to me?’

I turn and find Jenny beside me, one of the few kids that actually speak to me, also one of the few that I want to know intimately. She’s my bestie and knows all about me and still seeks me out. I owe her so much, for she understands way beyond her age and teaches me girl stuff. ‘Hi,’ I manage the one-syllable answer. ‘I was calling you to wait up but you took no notice. Having a bad day?’ I bite my lip. I can’t hold back my emotions when anyone is nice to me.

I nod because that’s all I can do. If I speak, I will howl. She takes me by the hand and leads me aside onto the lawn behind the oak tree. ‘What’s up, Alyssa?’ She uses that name for me when we’re alone, ever since I told her I should have been a girl. Jenny looks at me through her rose-pink spectacle frames, a concerned frown on her sweet features. ‘Just my family, Rob and his teases, Mom and her preaching. I’ve had it. I can’t do it anymore.’ ‘What can you do? What can I do?’ ‘Nothing, no one can do anything. I need medication or I’m going to become a man and that just horrifies me.’ ‘Then there must be something we can do.

We have talked about this so much Alyssa. Isn’t it time for drastic action? Whatever you decide, I’ll help.’ ‘Even if I decide to run away?’ ‘Would you do that? That sounds so dangerous. Where would you go? If you have to do that, I would miss you so much.’

‘Not half as much as I would miss you. I really think but for you, I would be dead.’ ‘Don’t say that. I’ve told you before.’ ‘Look at me, Jenn. I’m going to change into a brute like my brother and I would rather be dead.’ She looks at me hard as we start our homeroom. She grips my hand. ‘No, stop it. Anything would be better than dead. If you ran away from home, where could you go?’ ‘Uncle Jem, up in New Hampshire, that’s the only place I can think of going.

He’s the only one who has ever stood up for me. The last time when the Brethren prayed over me, he was visiting my Aunt Madeline’s wedding and when he heard, he came around and there was a row with Mom and Dad. I’d go to him. He said if I was ever desperate, he would do his best for me.’ ‘Then perhaps that’s the way to go. I’ll hate it if you disappear, but you need to look after yourself.’ ‘I’ll have one last go at Mom and Dad, tonight.

Try to convince them I’m serious and hurting. If they are still the same, then I’ll run.’ ‘You’ll be at chess club?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll see you there, Jenny. Thanks for being my friend.’ ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I love you whatever, sister or brother. Whatever, you are the same person Alyssa and I think you’ll make a super girl. See you later.’