You were the kind of kid that ruled the seventh grade. You played pickup basketball at the park and wore your jeans low to show off the top of your underwear. You flirted with the public-school girls at Suburban Square on Friday afternoons, harassed the baristas at Starbucks for free drinks, competed with your friends to see who could steal the most from Urban Outfitters. You loved to scream, “Faggot!” when I got on the bus. I knew everyone expected me to turn red, so I acted coquettish and offended, which made you squeal with laughter. But there was something in that word from you that felt comforting. Like you saw me and were saying hello.
I remember picking daisies in the backyard, four years old, with only a throw blanket draped across my torso like a sarong. My brother was across the street kicking a soccer ball with the rest of the neighborhood kids. I turned toward the back patio to find my dad in his Eagles jersey, beer in hand, watching me, his head cocked and eyes narrowed. Like I was a question he couldn’t answer.
Later that night, I walked into my parents’ room and set my bouquet on my mom’s bedside table.
The next morning I found the flowers scattered in the kitchen sink.
From an early age, I could tell the way I moved in my body made other people uncomfortable. How I folded my wrists over one another when I sat on the sofa, one leg crossed, foot dangling at forty-five degrees. How I let my hips lead when I walked down the hallway. Puckered my lips when I was confused. Held my neck out like a crane when I wanted attention.
I spoke so softly that there were times people couldn’t tell if I was speaking or just breathing.
The whole bus ride home one afternoon you shoved your fingers under every boy’s nose but mine, boasting about what you’d done with Charlotte Lewis. When you got to my seat, you whispered in my ear that I didn’t deserve to smell the inside of a woman. It was the closest you’d ever gotten to me. I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled. You smiled too.
I sat the rest of the ride with my hands between my legs and my head resting romantically against the cool, rattling window, praying you’d notice the hairs coiled at the nape of my neck.
When I got home, I threw my clothes at my bedroom door and grabbed the bag I hid under my bed with loose pieces of fabric, a wig, and some high heels I’d stolen from our school’s theater department. I played Britney Spears on my iPod and stared in the mirror until I made myself cry. I shoved my fingers into myself and whispered your name over and over again into my comforter.
The last time I was home, I asked my mom to take down from the walls all the photos of me as a boy.
She said, “But then there won’t be any photos of you left.”
By high school I’d thrown the fabric under my bed into a plastic bag and put it in the corner of the basement where no one would find it. I’d realized that people would stop calling me “fag” if I joined the soccer team. I’d started working out and wearing my jeans low enough to show the top of my underwear. I hosted parties when my parents were out of town. You came and brought your public-school friends.
In ninth grade, buzzed off a Mike’s Hard Lemonade, you whispered that we were the two hottest guys in our grade and could have any girl in the room. We spent the next fifteen minutes going back and forth, considering who we wanted. I watched your mouth as you described in detail the things you wanted to do to Hailey Rosenfield’s body. You grabbed your crotch as you said them.
When you left me to find her, I locked myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror until my eyes and mouth and ears started floating into one another. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. It seemed like that was a good thing.
When I was eight, I stole my sister’s Barbie. Then her turquoise nail polish. And then her candy-colored journal. I consumed its pages, the wisdom and wonder of a thirteen-year-old’s thoughts: The boys she had crushes on, the boys who had crushes on her. How afraid she was of her developing body, how every morning she woke up with something new to fixate on—a new hair, new bump, new curve. I longed to feel what she was describing. How wonderful it would be to be as beautiful as that. To be something that blossomed.
When I was fifteen, I stole my sister’s vibrator her boyfriend had gifted her for Valentine’s Day, and every night between tenth and eleventh grade I pretended I was her, that my body was soft and curved and craveable.
You liked to come over after soccer practice to do your homework. I was smarter than you and liked having to explain things. You liked to pretend you were too tired to drive home, even though you lived three blocks away. We slept in my bed together, your body curled around mine, my ass touching the hard outline beneath your underwear. Every morning, we woke up sweating and never said a thing about it.
Senior year I stole a pair of my sister’s underwear and wore them to hook up with a guy I’d met on Grindr. When he pulled down my pants, he asked what I was wearing.
I told him I wanted him to fuck me like a girl.
He turned away, obviously repulsed.
I pulled up my pants.
If I had said that to you, what would you have done?
An influencer I follow said on a podcast that she used to be in love with her best friend in high school, but he was straight, and it was before she transitioned. She wonders if he would want her now.
She’ll never know. He died of a drug overdose a year before she started taking estrogen.
You’re not dead, you just live in Florida. You have a girlfriend and work in investment banking.
If I went to the women’s bathroom in Florida, I could be arrested. But if I went to the men’s, I’d be worried I’d get raped. So I’d probably end up pissing myself in public.
I’ve only been successfully catfished once, in high school. He picked me up at the entrance to the cul-de-sac at 3:30 AM. He looked nothing like his photo and didn’t speak a lick of English even though we had been texting for over a week by the time we met. I’d sent him nudes I’d taken in the gender-neutral bathroom during lunch. I thought we’d drive to his house, or maybe a hotel room if he had a family, but he just pulled over down the street and put the car in park. I kept thinking, You can do it, you can just say, “Can you open the door?” and you can run. But he knew where I lived. He was so much bigger than me. He leaned over and reclined my seat, then gestured for me to climb into the back.
We didn’t say a word. I just stared out the window, wondering if I could see the lights on in your house. You would’ve been so embarrassed if you saw me. Just that same old faggot who doesn’t know when to stop.
He dropped me off at 5:30 AM, and I sat on my bed for two hours before I left for school. I went to the bathroom second period and saw blood in my underwear. I skipped soccer practice, and you texted me to ask what was wrong. I said my dog was sick.
I sent my mom a photo I like of myself in case I’m murdered and they need something to show on the news. A photo that’ll make people think, She was a pretty one.
I’ve gone from worrying I’ll kill myself to thinking a man like you will do it for me. Because I have big boobs and long hair and lip filler, and I’ll fool him, and he’ll want to hurt me for it.
Sometimes I imagine the men that come up to me in bars, with their collared shirts and thick forearms and grandiose chuckles, were in your college fraternity. They’re the kind of men that make my throat start to close. I worry they’ll hear it in the tone of my voice, or look down at my shoe size, or ask a question about my height. I’m worried their cheeks will turn maroon mid-conversation. That they’ll decide it’s my fault.
When they hit on me, I crane my neck and throw my shoulders as far back as they can go, pushing my cleavage into the air. I pitch up my voice and pray. I think I can disappear into femininity. The kind of femininity that can hide all the faggotry. I’ve let her conquer me. I look like a doll I would’ve loved to play with.
I should get a tattoo: So fuckable it’s dangerous. But then I’d have to explain it to my cis friends, because they wouldn’t understand.
Can I tell you a secret? I feel like a phony. I’m tricking people into believing I am a woman, but I used to talk crassly about women’s bodies in basements for your attention. I turned my back on who I really was for a chance of being accepted by you. I get uncomfortable around middle-school boys because something in their budding sexuality makes me want to die. They remind me of what I gave up in my own youth, chasing empty promises, until I finally recognized who I was always going to become.
I called my mom and asked her to look in the basement for that bag of fabric. I wanted to prove to myself that I’d actually existed back then. She said she couldn’t find it.
Do you ever go on Instagram and look at the shape of my body? Do you imagine what my pussy looks like? Do I scare you because I’m proof that your body is also capable of this? Do I make you want to fuck yourself?
Do you think I’m a real woman?
I’m sorry I wasn’t a woman for you in high school. I’m sorry I wasn’t a woman for me too.
Sometimes I make myself cry so I can practice keeping the tone high. All I think about is what life would’ve been like if I had transitioned earlier. I know I have a lot left to live for, but I feel like so much is already gone.
Can you do something for me? Can you scream, “Faggot!” in my face one more time? I’ll turn red and coquettish. You’ll squeal with laughter.
It’ll be like catching up.
