I don’t think it was one single incident that brought out the girl in me when I was young. My mom was a career waitress and when my sister and I were young, we never seemed to have as much money as other people. There was no male role model around except a few of mom’s boyfriends occasionally. My sister and I had to share a bedroom until she started into puberty, and with two females in the apartment, I regularly saw both of them in their undies, and even bathed with sis until I was about 6 or 7.
I was more or less my sister’s shadow, but she didn’t mind. Her friends were the ones that insisted I had to be dressed like a girl to play Barbie’s with them. That was really no big deal to me, so I was soon wearing a sundress, panties and sandals, and even had a blue daisy barrette in my hair. When sis had me look in the mirror, something just clicked. I knew right then, even at 5 yrs old, that the little girl in the mirror was how I was supposed to look. I took absolutely every opportunity to wear that dress whenever I could, even if I wasn’t playing with my sister and her friends. We even shared her first bike, a pink Stingray with the low bar and handle bar streamers.
I always watched when her or mom got dressed or undressed, not gawkingly, but as sneaky as I could make it, to learn everything I could about being a girl. It took time and patience to learn the best I could, and it was so frustrating not being able to just shout it out loud what I knew in my heart. But I have pretty much made it, for better or worse at times, but I would never trade it, except to have been born a girl, I think.
PaulaF
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