Growing up a BoyGirl™

As a child, I was the literal definition of tomboy, if not even more. I was a natural gender bender. If it wasn’t for my long hair in pig tails and the occasional pink cargo trousers you’d have mistaken me for a young boy. I can actually recall at approximately 7 or 8 years old telling a boy a few years older that I was in fact ”half girl and half boy.” I have always been aware that I was not conventionally feminine.

Another time, in my fourth year at primary school, my best friend was off sick and naturally I was left at a table with all the “normal” girls. I hardly said much, I didn’t really have anything to say to them, until one of them turned to me and said “So janine, do you want to be a boy?” I was so put on the spot, I had no response other than no. That was the truth. But with that reply came a flood of questions, most importantly “why?” I didn’t actually know why, and at the time I just blurted out “I don’t want to have a dick!”

At 8 years old, I didn’t have the information or the articulation to fully explain to them who or what exactly I was. I was, however, still old enough to have a gender identity crisis apparently. I felt terrible and confused, and I think it was then I decided once I got to secondary school I was going to try and be a girly girl. I would have to wear a skirt after all. Spoiler Alert! — it didn’t work.

All this in mind, it’s important for me to tell you: I am not transgender. I don’t care what pronouns you use to refer to me because it has never been an oppressive issue for me. But it has for so many.

12 years from then, my dad still calls me”blokey” and honestly, I am fine with it. I’m fine with who I am. Growing up as me, I’ve learnt a lesson first hand the other girls in my class never will. Gender is fluid, binary is ridiculous, and no amount of suppression of your character will hold up if suppressing it is unjust. Because of this, I know that who I was as a child is such an important part of who I am now.

Basically what I wanted to contribute here was to add to the conversation about gender fluidity. I still identify as a girl. My pronoun is still she. It’s just that the connotations to those things aren’t just inaccurate, they’re damaging.

So many people today, young and old, are suffering under gender norms. Big up and eternal respect to all of you.