I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that tween/teenage me would have been ‘transed’. I totally rejected anything feminine, was routinely mistaken for a boy child, and if the option to be a boy was available I would have jumped at it.
I think this is why I’m so invested in this.
I think this is why I’m so invested in this.
Because now, at 38, I’m a proud feminist, a mother of three, still gender non conforming. But a WOMAN. The thought that teenage me would have chosen puberty blockers and surgery is horrifying. I know I would have done.
I mean, ffs, I have a Mitsubishi symbol tattooed on my arm because when I was 18 my life was all about the pills. You think I wouldn’t have sterilised myself because I thought it would make me happy? Of course I would have.
As a teenage girl who didn’t ‘fit in’, I would have grabbed the chance to identify out of girlhood with both hands. Instead I muddled through and grew into an adult woman. I pick up and put down femininity as and when, but I’m no more or less a woman for it.
