Growing up as a child in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I always knew that there was something different about me. I never quite felt right. I didn’t do things that little boys did. No playing in dirt or running toy trucks up and down the carpeted halls. I didn’t want to wrestle with the other little boys at recess or shoot water guns. I wasn’t even into kissing little girls. I knew at a young age that I was “not normal.” I wasn’t gay. No, not at all. I felt as if I was supposed to be born a girl. I tried to tell my parents how I felt, but they didn’t understand. My father wanted to beat the “faggotness,” as he called it out of me every time he looked at me. My mother thought that I was gay, but I tried to explain the difference to her, but sadly she didn’t get it. No one understood the turmoil that I was going through. I was in this thing all by myself.
People always commented on how pretty I was for a little boy. I had beautiful long eyelashes that women would kill to have. My hair was long, brown, and wavy due to my mother being half Indian and me refusing to cut it, so I wore it in a ponytail. My eyes were light hazel, and I had the cutest button nose and bow shaped lips. I was pretty, and I knew it. I was soft spoken and had a lot of feminine mannerisms. I liked to jump rope and play with dolls with all the other little girls in our neighborhood. I was attracted to boys, but I was not gay. It was hard for me growing up because of how I felt. I felt as if no one understood me at all and what I was going through. No one could understand that I wasn’t gay. I was just born in the wrong body. God must have made a mistake when he was creating me because I was all mixed up.
When people would mistake me for a girl, I would never correct them. I wanted them to see me for who I was meant to be. This irritated my mother when we were out in public, and she would quickly correct the person. She would always scold me for allowing myself to be called a girl.
“Michael, stop doing that,” she would outburst.
“Doing what mommy?” I would ask even though I knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Stop letting people believe that you are a girl. You are a little boy.”
“But mommy I am a girl.” I would argue.
“No, you’re not. Just because you are gay doesn’t mean you’re a girl.”
“I’m not gay!”
“It’s ok to be gay Michael.”
With tears glistening in my eyes, I would respond, “Mommy I have told you and daddy that I am not gay. I am a girl. Why can’t you understand that?”
Even though I was young, I knew what being gay meant. My mother had explained to me that being gay meant that I liked boys. I did liked boys, but I knew that things weren’t so black and white. There was a lot more to my situation than even my six-year-old mind could understand.
“Michael, no matter what you feel, you are a boy. You have boy parts, so that makes you a boy.” she would try explaining to me.
Hitting my knee in aggravation, I would say, “But I don’t feel like a boy. I don’t even look like a boy. Why couldn’t I have been born a girl?”
“I don’t know Michael. I have no answers for you.” she would reply and change the subject.
Discussing me and my gender issues continuously made her uncomfortable, so she would stop talking about it or found a different topic to talk about. No matter how she tried to avoid it though, it always came back up. We would have that same conversation every time someone had mistaken me for a little girl. Nobody could ever explain to me why I felt the way I did. All they would say was that it was wrong. How could something be so wrong but feel so right to me? It seemed as if I would never get the answers I sought. Was I going to have to flounder in uncertainty for the rest of my life? The older I got though, the worse things became for me. Kids at school didn’t understand why I sounded and looked like a little girl, so I was made fun of.
“Michael, why is your hair so long?” Justin, a boy in my class asked, flicking my hair into my face.
“Because I want it to be,” I answered, rolling my eyes.
“Only girls have long hair. Are you a girl?” asked Justin.
“Shut up stupid,” I shouted.
Justin reached over and grabbed my hair and tugged at it roughly.
“Stop! Leave me alone.” I whined, swatting his hands away from me and jerking my head out of his reach.
“My daddy said only sissies have long hair like that. Are you a sissy?”
“No. I’m not a sissy.” I answered as my eyes burned with unshed tears.
I didn’t like the way he was making me feel. I wanted him to go away and leave me alone. Why did he have to bother me all the time the way he did? I never did anything to anyone, so I couldn’t understand why he and others made it their business to bother me. If anything, I tried to avoid people because I didn’t want to be laughed at and made fun of.
“Awwww! He’s about to cry.” Kevin, another boy said laughing.
“He’s such a cry-baby.” said Maria, another classmate.
“Yeah, he is. He’s always crying all the time. Girls don’t even cry as much as he does.” Kevin said, walking in front of me staring in my face.
“Why are you such a cry-baby?” asked Maria, putting a hand on one of her narrow hips and pointing her finger in my face.
The tears that I had been trying to hold back slowly trickled down my face as I cried out, “Stop bothering me. I’m going to tell Mrs. Lacy if y’all don’t get away from me.”
They quickly scattered at the threat of me telling our teacher. Mrs. Lacy was strict. If I told her that they were picking on me, she would punish them harshly. She would make them write sentences and take away their playground privileges. I did that every time they cornered me and started harassing me the way they did. I knew they didn’t want to get in trouble, so Mrs. Lacy was my trump card.
At school, none of the boys wanted to be my friend, and the girls thought I was weird because I liked to do the same things they did. I spent a lot of my days at school by myself. Nobody wanted to play with the “boy girl.” That’s what they called me. They would ask me things like, are you a boy or girl? Do you have a girl part or boy part, or do you have both? When they would ask these questions, they would burst into laughter, and most of the time I would run off somewhere and cry my eyes out. I was so confused, but I knew how I felt. I was a girl.
******
Things at home weren’t any better for me. My father always had a problem with me, and he beat me any chance he got to “Straighten” me out. When I was about eight, I invited one of my friends from the neighborhood over to our house to play. She was one of the only girls who wasn’t grossed out at the fact that I liked the same things she did. Tabitha, my friend and I were sitting on the floor playing with her dolls that she had brought over with her. I was playing with a white Barbie doll, and Tabitha was playing with the black doll. We were getting the dolls ready to go out to pretend dinner, so we were trying to decide which outfits and hair styles would look good on our dolls.
“I think this pretty red dress will look good on Marsha,” said Tabitha, pointing at a sparkly red dress lying in the pile of clothing.
“Yeah, that’s pretty,” I commented, plucking the dress from the pile and examining it closer.
“Which dress is your doll going to wear?”
“I like this black one,” I replied, picking up a black strapless dress from the floor.
“Ooh! That’s so pretty.” Tabitha gushed.
“I know,” I responded with a smile. “Brandy is going to look so pretty in this.”
“You’re so much fun,” said Tabitha, undressing her Barbie.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you play dolls with me.”
“I like dolls. They’re lots of fun.”
“I know, and that makes you fun. Boys think playing with dolls is only for girls.”
“Well, I don’t think so. I like making my dolls pretty.”
“I do too,” she responded.
“I like to jump rope and play house too.”
“Oh! I do too!” Tabitha shouted excitedly. “Maybe one day you can come over to my house, and we can play house and stuff.”
“I would like that. I don’t have any stuff of my own though.”
“That’s ok. I have lots for us to play with.”
Looking down sadly at the array of stuff we had spread on the floor, I said, “I wish I could have some dolls of my own, but my daddy would never let me.”
“You damn right I won’t,” yelled my father, barging into my bedroom, snatching the doll out of my hand, and throwing it roughly to the floor.
I instantly started to tremble from fear at the look on his face. I could see steam coming from out of his ears. My heart galloped in my chest as I stared in wide-eyed shock at my father’s angry face. Tabitha sat on the floor with her mouth wide open, and a look of fear etched across her face.
“What have I told your ass about this sissy shit?” he shouted in my face.
“D-daddy I’m s-sorry.” I stammered as he glared at me with hatred.
“Tabitha, I think it’s time for you to go. This will be your last time coming over here. I will not have you influencing my son with this sissy shit.”
Tabitha quickly gathered up all the items as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry Mr. Andres,” she whispered in a low, depressing voice.
“But daddy, Tabitha’s my friend.”
“Don’t you but daddy me.” he roared as his hand connected with my face in a hard slap.
I fell to the floor with the force of his blow. I held my face where he had slapped me as I started to cry.
“Don’t start that fucking crying shit, or I will really give your ass something to cry about,” he demanded, glaring down at me. “I will not stand for this shit. You better straighten up right now, or I will make you wish you were never born.”
He snatched me up from the floor by my shirt as he turned me to face him. My body quivered in his grasp as he continued to yell in my face. Spittle flew from his lips every time he uttered his hateful words my way. I could see veins popping out from the side of his head, showing me exactly how angry he was with me. Tabitha had gathered all her dolls and accessories and put them back into the Barbie suitcase she had brought along with her.
“Bye Michael,” she mumbled, leaving my bedroom with her head down and tears still falling from her eyes.
That was the last day that I ever got to play with my friend Tabitha. She was never allowed to come over again after that. My father went out that day and went on a shopping spree. He came back home with bags and bags of what he called “Toys suitable for little boys.” He bought action figures, a basketball hoop with a ball, remote control cars, and whatever else he thought a boy of my age would play with. He made me play with those toys every single day. I didn’t want to play with them, but I knew what would happen if I didn’t, so I played and pretended as if I enjoyed the toys. He would watch me, and if I didn’t react the way he wanted me to, he would beat me. I didn’t understand why I was the way I was. I just knew that I was different from the average boy, but nobody understood me.