Mrs. Brown's School of Dance and Etiquette

Note: The characters are fiction to protect the innocent and guilty alike from untold embarrassment, save where I mention myself. . Anyone however who grew up in Tyler, Texas knows they were there. Mrs. Brown was a real person.

Tyler was a small town that never really realized it was small. As cities go, it was quite prosperous in the fifties and sixties when this author was growing up there. Between oil money, the rose growers and a bulging middle class, it really seemed idyllic if a bit provincial. But even in a smaller place like Tyler, with a population at the time hovering around 50,000, drama could still be found.

There is no greater drama in a growing boy or girl’s life than facing those insane years we call puberty. For Jimmy, it meant the early peach fuzz that would later be called a beard to be shaved off. His voice changing, he stumbled over his own growing feet. He was attracted to girls but had no clue what to say or do. For gay kids like me, the daily torture of showering in the locker rooms after P.E. deathly afraid my body would give away my little secret. On top of it all there was a ferocious pecking order and if you were not at the top in that game of scratching and clawing, then life pretty much sucked anyway.

For Barb, her body was changing too. She was beginning to learn to use makeup. Not only had she grown taller, but her breasts were beginning to bud too. That wasn’t all though. She began to her horror to experience her period. She whispered into the teacher’s ear that first time. Quietly she smiled, and was prepared for such eventualities. What would it have been if she had Mr. Peter’s class that hour? She shuttered at the thought. Every moment was high drama and emotional overload relieved by periodic nervous giggling the occasional shrill scream. During these years, dislike became hate, sorta cute meant OMG GORGEOUS, and there was no superlative too extreme. She and her friends whispered feverishly about this or that boy either in a little huddle nervously looking about just in case, or in long extended telephone conversations. For Janet, it was a bit different as she kept looking at Barb’s face and body and she wanted but, no, that would be wrong. So she just sat quietly as all the others went on about their boyfriends real or imagined.

Amidst all this bedlam of rampant hormones and extreme drama, Tyler Junior High students had one more hurdle to pass. That of course was Mrs. Brown’s School of Dance and Etiquette. The very name still sends shivers through my body in an involuntary flashback to those grim days. This was a fate as demonic and cruel as anyone could face anywhere in the world. Forget Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay and water boarding is over pretty quick anyway. But those classes? They lasted all three years of Junior High.

Here’s how it worked. The class was in a large hall, or it seemed large to us. There were chairs on each side of the wall. The girls all sat on the East Wall, the boys on the West. Each girl was dressed in an appropriately frilly dress, much to the chagrin of Barb who would rather be in jeans given her choice. They were all made up, little ladies preparing for their day to be introduced to the larger society. They whispered nervously to each other. The boys were all dressed up in Sunday finest. Their shiny shoes, perfectly tied ties (Mom had to make sure it was just right) crisp white shirts with starched collars, and suits were in contrast to their nervous scratching and coughing and the look of terror on their faces screaming help me get out of here!

A slim, stern appearing woman immaculately dressed rose, tapping a pointer against the table to get everyone’s attention. I wondered if the pointer was used to keep us in line since clearly there was nothing to point at. I had a vision of her slamming that across somebody’s knuckles. Had she been a nun before coming here?

“My name is Mrs. Brown. We are here to learn basic etiquette and how to dance. Please stand up everyone. She pointed to one of the boys in the class. “Come here. Now how would you ask a lady to dance?”

He stumbled a bit then said, “wanna dance?”

“Nice try, but a gentleman makes a lady feel needed. Approach her,” pointing at the blonde headed girl near the end.

He did. “Now, bend from the waist to a half bow. Everybody watch!” He did so and several of the boys started giggling. “Shut up and pay attention! Now what do you say?”

“Wanna dance?”

“No try this. May I have this dance?”

“May I have this dance?” He stammered.

The girl responded, “Sure!”

Mrs. Brown said, “Complete sentences please. ‘I would love to.’” Okay, no object to the preposition but we didn’t notice. Well I did because I also had Mrs. Lowe's Class of Grammar also and could be a bit of a smart ass from time to time, if only to myself.

She went on. “We’re going to learn several dances in this class. We start with the Foxtrot. Later we will do the jitterbug, the waltz and the cha cha cha.”

The entire class snapped their heads towards her at once. One of the bolder students spoke up. “What about the bop? Or the slow dance? That is what kids are doing now.”

Those dances are vulgar. I am here to teach you proper dances for young ladies and gentlemen.” Instantly she jumped into her first lesson with the fox trot.

Thus began three years of clearly defined hell. Awkward nervous boys dancing with girls they were afraid to even approach outside the class. The stench of nervous perspiration filled the room regardless of deodorant anyone used. Still the classes went on for what seemed forever. The final gathering was a dance at the Rose Gardens. In the hall there was a small pond with goldfish in the center. The boys had to do something to make the event memorable. That was when Jimmy spoke up. “Um, Bill?” Bill was the football hero with enough nerve to fill a hall this size. “I’ve got ten dollars here. You want it?”

“Yeah sure.”

“Well you gotta do something for me first.” Jim whispered in his ear.

A smile crossed his face. After a few dances, the teacher played a waltz. To the music of Strauss, Bill rose and danced with an imaginary partner around the room, circling around the room with this invisible woman. He circled around, closer and closer, then dancing right He through the middle of the goldfish pond. Water splashed everywhere to the beat of one two three one two three! The entire place broke out in laughter and applause. Mrs. Brown was apoplectic, screaming for him to get out of the pond assuring him she would be telling his parents. The dance came to an end, as did Mrs. Brown’s Class of Dance and Etiquette.

It Wasn't Funny Then: Transgender and the Puberty Years

If life is not complicated enough, try being transgender when you hit puberty. Even better, transgender and gay. It can be a real hoot in retrospect, though it sure was not all that funny back then. I've been blest to be gay as a male, and now gay as a female. Nature really is quite the merry prankster it seems. Let's go back a bit. At the age of three, I had told my mom I was a girl. Nothing like a bit of panic in your mom's eyes to send a child into a deep retreat. At least it was that way for me. All along, behavior I wanted to engage in was consciously replaced with a sort of faux masculinity. Heck to get respect this child learned to speak East Texas (which I still do to this day) and I even artificially deepened my voice. No wonder the other kids thought I was pretty weird.

Invariably however, hormones do what they do. For me it was in the seventh grade and my voice started changing with those sudden shrill sounds that came from nowhere and whiskers began to pop out. I would shave over and over trying to get rid of them. My face today is uber sensitive and constantly breaks out. I blame that on my efforts back in the day.

Then there was the matter of that thing between my legs. It had to go somewhere. I wore tight underwear, tucking it back between my legs after shoving the "jewels" inside the body cavity. I even went to sleep that way.

Now a bit more background here. My parents were not big on talking about sex. Daddy finally tried when I was a senior in high school. What I knew I got from encyclopedias and medical texts. In the seventh grade I really was ignorant about what was going on inside my body.

Now I was an avid reader. One book I read was a Pearl Buck novel about the Dowager Empress. It was an amazing book, speaking of castratos and concubines and elaborate palaces and handsome princes. Reading into the night, I fell asleep, book in hand.

Fading into a dream world, I'm walking in a meadow of beautiful flowers for as far as the eye can see. I'm wearing a cute little white dress with petticoats which was the style of the time. Over the hill was the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life. He rode towards me, smiled and asked if I needed a lift. His hand stretched out and in a smooth seamless move he pulls me up onto the horse behind him. I reach around his waist holding tight, my face pressed against his smooth shirt. I can smell his scent through the fabric. I hold on even tighter, and it feels so right. My heart is beating fast and breaths are shorter! I rise up a bit, gently kissing his neck and I need him to stop so badly now so I can kiss him properly. My hand wanders down his body lower and ...

I wake up suddenly. Something is filling my pajamas and it is warm and wet. I've just had my first wet dream, but I had no clue what it was! Horrified, I wonder if I've damaged my insides, but am too afraid to go talk to my parents who would surely have a major fit if they knew. How could I tell them anyway? That dream... Why I had tucked my genitals...

The warmth became cold, and quietly I snuck into the bathroom frightened to death. I cleaned up the mess as best I could and washed out the underwear that served as barrier from my pj's. Then after hiding the underwear in the closet to dry, I crawled back into bed. Clearly I had not died. It really did feel kind of good.

Whether a child is transgender or not, my story shows the importance of teaching children the basics of sex education. Wet dreams and masturbation are normal occurrences, but for the person who does not understand what is happening, it can be traumatic. The story is also how important it is for an honest relationship to exist between parent and child. Parents, you may not want your child to be gay or transgender. But regardless of what you do, they are what they are. How much better to be able to be open and honest. In my case I was both, but had to be delayed because of secrets. Sometimes the guilt and secrets are too much. What if they had told me, you can be exactly who you are and we will love you for it? I grew up in a different time, but it still happens today. Happy is the child who is true to self. My story is funny now. It was not funny then.