When I read about Nick Rose's feelings and thoughts, I was speechless. He always felt as if he was different and like an outsider. Besides that he liked wearing pretty things and doing girly things, he felt as if he did not have the thoughts or emotions of a boy. He even hated being called a boy. I knew boys and girls dressed differently and liked to do different things. Still, I never considered that they thought differently. When I thought of it, girls seemed more compassionate at times. They were not ashamed if they cried at a sad film. Even the way girls had friendships was different than boys. While boys usually had a large group of friends, girls liked to have one or two friends. I never heard boys talk about BFF (best friends forever) while girls talk about it all the time.
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After reading about Nick Rose, I thought about how deep down, many of the things he said were things that I thought. I always liked bright colours and stuff like unicorns and kittens and ponies. My favourite T-shirt was a long one that went down to my knees as if it was a dress. Of course, I played soccer with my friends, but that was only because they played. I did not like the game and never looked at it on TV. In many ways, I thought differently than my friends. I never thought about this, as I just thought I was just more soft than most other boys. You should never be ashamed if you shed a tear during a film, but many think that boys should not cry. I cried over the smallest things.
Maybe all this means that I am transgender as well. A part of me thinks that this would explain a lot, and a part of me hopes it's not true. Can a boy be a girl while having a boy's body? Is it right that boys and girls think differently? I did not have the answer to all of this. It's hard to have the answers when I have problems describing how I feel. It's so hard to put in words. After all my life knowing that I was different from other boys, I accepted it was my problem, and it was my responsibility to be like others. This means I pushed many thoughts I had in the back of my head and would get mad at myself for thinking them. This raised a big question: What if I am transgender? What if ignoring this would affect me mentally and make me unhappy? Up to now, I did not think about being transgender and always considered myself happy. The result was that I wanted to know who I was, but if I was transgender, I did not want others to know.
So at school, I tried to push these thoughts to the back of my head and be the way I had always been. This did not work, as while I was hanging out with my three friends, I could not help observing how girls were and how boys were. I noticed how the girls were dressed and thought their clothes made my clothes look boring. I noticed how they talked together and what they did. When I eavesdropped, I even noticed what they talked about, which were some things I would love to talk about. All this confused me and made me pinch myself and tell myself that I already had three good friends. If I told them about the thoughts that were going through my head, they would never understand me and think I should be wearing a straight jacket in some mental institution.
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If I were transgender, no one would ever know. I already felt like an outsider and different. I did not want to publicise it so everyone knew how different I was.
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After school, Granny picked me up at school. She wanted to buy me new clothes as I was a growing boy. When she called me a growing boy, I realised that I was glaring at her. This made my heart beat harder as it meant that I did not want to be called a boy. Things did not get any better when we were buying clothes. Of course, she was looking at the boy's clothes, and despite being ancient, Granny did know what was in fashion and what was not in fashion. She was smiling as she looked at the boy's clothes while I was frowning. I found myself looking at girl's clothes nearby and thinking how pretty they were. While Granny was looking at clothes, I was daydreaming and imagining the girl's clothes on me. Granny noticed this and asked why I was looking at the girl's section. Blushing and stuttering, I lied by telling her that I thought I had seen a girl from school. This made her smile and joke by saying I am at that age when I am beginning to notice girls. If Granny only knew!
Once again, I was more quiet than I usually am at school the next day. Samuel told me that he wanted to speak with me alone. This made me panic at first, as could he read my thoughts, or was it obvious that I could be transgender? Samuel did ask me if I was ok, as I seemed to be unhappy since the last sleepover. I did not want Samuel to know what was really going on with me, so I said, “I am OK, and thanks for asking. I am also looking forward to the next sleepover, as it will be a blast”. Samuel must not have believed me, as he told me that he was always there for me and we could talk about anything.
Maybe I should stop thinking about my gender and just go back to the way I was. Some people say thinking can be dangerous, and I have not been any happier since I started thinking about what gender I am. Not thinking about it was just a dream as my brain was already working overtime. On my way home from school, I walked past the community centre. Don't ask me why I walked in, but I did, and I could see that there was a ballet class. I looked through the door window and was amazed. The girls were wearing leotards, tights, and ballet slippers. They looked like fairies when they danced, as they were so graceful and eloquent. The girls looked so free as if they were dancing on pink clouds. This looked like it was more fun than playing soccer. I imagined myself wearing pretty ballet clothes and dancing like an angel. My thoughts were broken as the ballet teacher noticed me looking through the door window. This meant that I ran out of the community building as fast as my legs could take me.
This is not all that happened to me today. When I went home, I had the daily cookies and milk that Granny gave me. After that, I decided to do something a boy would do, so I went up to the attic to explore. The attic was a place where Granny hid her old furniture and things that she did not have the heart to throw out. I already thought that her house was like a museum, but her attic would have been a museum in the time that Jesus lived. When I was exploring, I found some porcelain dolls that Granny must have played with when she was a little girl. I picked one of the dolls and sat in a corner of the attic playing with her. I fixed her hair and the dress she was wearing, told the doll some stories, and simply took care of the doll. I must have been in the attic for a long time because I heard Granny call me down from the attic, telling me it was time for bed. She asked me why I was in the attic so long, and once again I told her a white lie by saying I was Indiana Jones.
I could not sleep that night as I was certain that I was going crazy. Here I was, a boy who thought that ballet was more fun than soccer. When I went shopping with Granny, I secretly wanted her to buy girl clothes. This is not to mention that I spent hours playing with a doll. I even snuck the doll down to my bedroom, where it is now well hidden. All this was a sign that I was now crazy and mentally sick. This scared me, as the only thing that I wanted was to be normal. Why did I have to feel so different? The problem was that all these thoughts were in my head and I felt as if I could not tell anyone. Who would understand me? If I did tell people about what was happening to me, they would most likely not understand.
I finally did fall asleep, but halfway through the night, I woke up with a jolt. It was then that I realised that I was transgender. I was a girl in a boy's body. To be honest, I was calm and relieved when I realised this fact. It was like my brain was finally at peace and not a spaghetti bowl full of doubts, questions, and thoughts. Despite that I knew that I was transgender, I had to keep it to myself. I could not tell anyone as I was not ready for the world to know. I was not as brave as Nick Rose was, as I was afraid of people's reactions. This meant that I was alone and had to keep being transgender a secret. Up to now, I have managed to be a boy, and there should be no problem continuing this as I have been doing it all my life.
After I realised that I was transgender, I was excited, calm, and afraid at the same time. So I wrote a letter to Nick Rose. This was not a fan letter. I wrote everything that had happened and how I now realised that I was transgender. In the letter, I also wrote that I did not want others to know. I wrote the letter as it was a way of letting someone else know how I felt. This would mean that someone in the world would know that I was transgender. I also hoped that Nick Rose would write back to me with some advice and maybe even some encouragement. I doubted that this would happen, as he probably received millions of fan letters and could not read them all. This meant that Nick Rose would never respond to my letter, but this did not bother me as it helped put all my thoughts down on paper in words.
At school the next day, I did not tell anyone about my discovery about my identity. Being transgender was something that I wanted to keep to myself. When I was with others, I would put my “boy mask” on and pretend to be a boy. So I played soccer with my friends and hated every minute of it. It's not so much that soccer is considered a boys' sport, even though many girls play it, and they are often better than the boys. I simply did not like soccer. It was not fun. While I was playing soccer with my friends, images of the ballet class I eavesdropped on as well as the porcelain doll I hid were going through my mind. Still, my friends fanatically loved soccer, and this was one way that I could be with them.
After soccer, we sat down and just chatted casually with each other. Then we got to planning the next sleepover, which would be at Ethan's house. This gave us something to be excited about and look forward to. It reminded me that even though I knew I was certain of my gender identity, I was reminded that not everything changes, as I still had the best friends in the world. Of course, they did not know that I was transgender, but no one knew it, as I decided not to show this part of me in public. People do not need to know everything.
My plan of keeping my true identity a secret seemed like a good idea, but some people can see changes in a person, even small changes, and Granny was one of them. After we had eaten dinner, Granny said she wanted to have one of her serious talks with me. She explained clumsily that she noticed changes in me. She thought I was sad and seemed to have a lot on my mind, and then I got the speech that I could always confide in her if I ever needed to. I hugged Granny and told her that I was great and thanked her for being there for me.
I went up to my room and held the porcelain doll while I looked at the celebrity news. There was news about Nick Rose that he had delayed the release of his new album until the media storm about him being transgender calmed down. It seems that he had come under a lot of attack from religious and conservative groups as well as parent groups that thought that Nick would corrupt their children. It seems as if going public about being transgender has hurt his career, as this could be seen in the amount of people who no longer followed him on social media. You would think that in today's world, people would be more understanding. 27Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡewRO5QiqVz
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This just showed me one thing. I was wise in not letting the world know who I truly was
