Smevy

1

The first time I was a girl, I was five.

It seemed so innocent to me- clumping around in my mom's shoes, smiling widely as my family pointed and laughed. But, after a moment, the joke faded, and I said (and it hurts to remember), "I'm going to be a mommy someday!"

My mom smiled and picked me up, her warm, sweet scent thick in my young nose. "No, you're going to be a daddy, Joseph." I giggled uproariously, wriggled out of her arms, and ran down the hall, past my door and to my parent's room. My dad was sprawled on the bed, wide awake, and sat up when I entered, looking at me curiously with his tired, grayish blue eyes, but I didn't pay him any attention, instead charging straight to my mom's jewelry box. My tiny little fists seized a string of bright blue beads, pulling them loosely around my reddish brown neck, just in time for her to walk in.

"See," I exclaimed, tugging at the necklace- it was a miracle I didn't break it or strangle myself. "Just like you!"

"That's not quite how it works, honey," she said, gently pulling the necklace out of my hands.

"Why not?"

"Because...because it's not. We're all made to be a boy or a girl, and that's all there is to it."

"But that's not fair!" It ended in a shriek that made my mom wince and my dad frown. "What if I want to be a girl!?"

"Tough luck," my dad snapped. "And stop it. No son of mine is going to be thinking about this...this nonsense!"

Mom picked me up again. "You heard your father, that's enough talk about being a girl when you're not. Now, how about we go play with your blocks?"

That night, as I lay in my little bed, slowly nodding off to sleep, I heard mom and dad talking outside my room. Immediately awake, I stood up, ran to the door, and was about to open it when I heard my name.

"I don't want to hear any more of this 'being a girl' talk from Joseph," said dad. "It's absolute dog crap, and I don't want it in my house!"

"Of course, honey," said my mom, using her patronizing tone she used when I was getting overemotional. "But it couldn't hurt to let him explore himself, could it?"

"Explore- what in The Good's name are you talking about?"

"Something I wish my own father would have said to me," said mom softly. "And that's part of the reason I left home. I felt smothered there, and I don't want Joseph to feel like that here."

"It's not smothering if I just want to make sure he doesn't grow up confused," said dad, though he sounded a lot less angry.

"He's not, as long as we make sure he knows who he is," said my mom, a lot less condescendingly. "We could do a lot more damage if we just squish him whenever he tries to talk to us."

"I guess. Though I would appreciate it if you were on my side when..." Then their bedroom door closed, and I heard nothing more.

That conversation stuck with me for years. I tried to tell myself that, whenever I felt like a girl, it was just me "being confused," that it wasn't really how I felt. But, as time passed, the feelings didn't pass. I would get flashes of wishing I looked like my little sister, Mckayla, of wanting people to stop calling me "him" when that's not who I was. But of course I knew better than to bring it up. For the next year I had no one to talk to. Then, one day, mom brought someone home.

"This is Notch," she said, standing in the front door. A head poked out from behind her skirt, and I couldn't help but gasp, dropping the doll I had stolen from Mckayla. "He's going to be your new brother!"