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.

My memories of Illinois

Okay, the photo is when I was 6 years old in Tyler, in this case pushing a stroller with my brother in it, but the memories are three years earlier in Olney, Illinois. See that was my earliest recollection about my "difference."

We lived in an apartment, a two story house in Olney, Illinois. Our landlady took a room upstairs, and shared our kitchen, but mostly the bottom floor was ours. I'm always a bit surprised at how much I actually do recall from those days. The landlady had her own toys that had belonged to her children. She often brought them down for me to play with. Occasionally I would wander up to her room, only to be met with by a scolding, first by her and then later by Momma. "My room is off limits child. Go downstairs to play!" She would tell momma and so came the second scolding. If she remembered to tell Daddy when he came home from work on the weekends, then a third one was in order as well.

Two vivid memories of this house were both about animals. One was the white squirrels, a genetic diversification causing the squirrels in Olney to be white rather than the usual grey or black. Not to be confused with albino squirrels either. There was a ladder built up the tree outside that the squirrels ran up and down. They were so tame and were protected by law. Those squirrels would eat out of my hand much to my delight. I'd try to pet them, but Momma warned me they might bite. Once I climbed up that tree only to be stranded there. Mom noticed I was missing and ran out and gulped down a scream lest I be frightened and fall. Daddy came home about that time, and his assistant climbed up the board ladder and rescued me. Momma was yelling and hugging me all at the same time.

The other memory was the rats. We had coal heating, the old fashioned kind where the coal was actually shoveled into a steamer in the basement. One winter it got dreadfully cold, and large sewer rats made their way into the house via the space around heating ducts. Well one night I walked into the kitchen and was reaching for some food on the table, suddenly I saw the rat sitting there eyeing me up and down as a possible meal. Goodness I screamed bloody murder. To this day, I am imprinted with the memory so vivid and am deathly afraid of rats. When the conscious mind can catch up, then I can deal with them, but don't let one surprise me.

Still another time, Momma had the screen door latched and was in the kitchen working away. She loved to sing quietly as she worked back then. Funny thing is, I'm the same way, though I am no way as quiet. So I survey the situation, and push a small chair over to the door, climb up on the chair, unlatch the door, then headed across the very busy street in front of our house to the gasoline station down the street. They saw me coming across their drive and ran out and snatched me up. One of the guys there always teased and played with me which is why I wanted to go visit in the first place. He sat their entertaining me while asking where my Momma was. Meanwhile the other picked up the phone and called Momma. Back then it was not uncommon for the service station folks to know their customers, and indeed in Tyler our service station owner was also best friends with my parents. "So where is your child Mrs. Wicks?"

"In the living room, why?"

"Here, say hello to your Mommy."

"Mommy?"

No response. Half a minute later, she was coming through the front door. She thanked them profusely, then scolded me promising if I ever pulled such a stunt again she'd wear my butt out good.

One other memory before I get to the main event. Momma had raked the yard and was burning the leaves at the curb. I was wandering around on the grass nearby and put the basket over my head. Yeah, I know, stupid move. I wandered towards the curb and stumbled and fell into the fire. So my shirt is on fire, and I'm running full force screaming. Behind me Momma is running trying to catch me. She throws me to the ground and puts out the fire with her coat. Well the hospital was right across the street and the burns were minor. But sheesh you don't forget being on fire.

But here is what I recalled when I began this blog entry today. I used to play next door with a girl named Mary Jane. We always had fun, whether making mud pies or doing tea with her dolls. On one particular day, I announce I am the Momma and she agrees to be the Daddy. So I slip into her best Sunday dress and we are sitting having tea. Here comes Momma up the stairs and she is talking to Mary Jane's mom. "Get ready, time to come home!" She rounds the turn and sees me all dressed up in Sunday's finest! Her face and demeanor change. "Get OUT of that dress and c'mon." I see a look in her eyes. It is one of fear, something Momma rarely ever displayed. Of course I was too young to know that then.

So a couple of days later, she is tucking me in. "That's my little boy."

"Momma. I'm a girl." There is that same look of fear which confused me completely.

"No you are not! You are a boy and that's that! I'll have no more of this foolishness!

That was the day all of us began trying to butch me up. They gave me Christmas presents of cowboy stuff, footballs, anything he-man. I played with it out of a certain obligation. Still the notion that I was a girl never ever went away, though I sure tried hard enough over many years. I butched up and talked deep even before my voice changed and really tried to be that manly man everyone wanted. In East Texas I adopted the accent, partly out of self defense because I was "different" and the kids were brutal. As puberty neared, I realized I was gay too. By then I really knew I was in deep doo, living where we did. So the act continued for many years longer. Best starring role in a gender she does not fit...

Telling all this, I simply must bring some fairness to my parents. I was 3 years old in 1950. That was before most Americans even had heard of gender identity issues. It simply was another time, and the possibility that their child might be one of those homosexual deviants must have been truly horrifying. This was before gay liberation. I truly believe today they were just looking out for me, no matter how frustrating it all was for me back then.

Before Skip died, he looked through my old photos, and was struck by the sadness in my childhood eyes. That was true of course, though not the whole truth. It's easy to portray the negative parts of our lives as if they all were that tragic. But I still had a childhood, played with my friends. I think the really oppressive sadness did not show up until around the third grade. Even then, I could resort to the world of imagination and find some joy. We humans really are very adaptive I think.

Still when I am in a retrospective mood, I wonder out loud, what would it have been if they understood transsexuality (and being gay) and I could have lived honestly and without fear in those days? How would it have been different? I suspect quite a bit so. But that is for another person to learn, in a different time.