I tried telling Dad that I was not gay and that If I was at a Gay Pride parade, then people would think that I was. My Dad explained that I was too young to fancy girls or boys and people would know this. The Gay Pride Parade was not only for gay people, it was for transgenders and non-binary people as well as people that thought freedom to express themselves was very important. Dad went on to tell me that as a transgender child myself, I could be a good role model for many boys that feel the same as me. I could give them the courage to change just as my family were role models on how a family should accept a child that was transgender. I did not know what to say. One thing is that I was now known as a transgender child, I experienced so much confusion and even being bullied. Now I would influence others to go through the same.
As before, I did what Dad wanted and I agreed to do the Gay Pride Parade. My Dad said he would do a costume. We had to make it ourselves as mom wanted nothing to do with it. The costume would be a pink leotard with a long rainbow tutu. I would be wearing beads and bracelets as well as my earrings. My hair would be dyed pink with a sort of hairspray. When I looked in the mirror, I did not know if I looked like a clown or a girl. One could definitely see that I was a drag kid. I did not complain. My sister did enough of that for me. She asked me why I let our Dad dress me up as a doll. At times, I thought my sister was jealous that she did not get so much attention. I did not tell her this. I just defended myself by saying that this is what people wore to the parade.
One thing I will say about the parade. It was very colourful. There was every colour of the rainbow. I was nervous at the start. I was afraid of what people would think about me. I did not want any negative comments. This did not happen. Everyone was in such a good mood and there was a great atmosphere. There were other children there that were dressed in rainbow colours, although they were not dressed as drag kids. I never experienced such a friendly atmosphere. People accepted each other and did not mind how they were dressed or if they were gay or not. People smiled and were giving each other hugs. I even started to dance as I walked, doing my version of vogue dancing.
I was happy that my dad suggested the gay pride parade. I did not understand the political side of it and did not care about LGBT rights. It was just nice and everyone was so friendly. My dad put a video of me dancing as I walked on social media. Like every other video, it got mixed comments. I did not expect that the media would have taken pictures of me. I was even on the news on TV. Soon people were making videos about me on social media telling what they thought of a 10-year-old dressed in drag. The majority of comments were extremely negative. I was called a victim and my parents were accused of using me as a pawn in their political beliefs. People thought I was too young to dress as a girl or to decide I was transgender. They thought it was child abuse.
The negative reaction was hard to cope with. There were so many people that had an opinion of me. They thought that I was a victim. They did not know me or my family and it confused me how they could judge so harshly. My Mom was frustrated as she said she now had a son that was now famous for being a drag kid. She thought that this was nothing to be proud of. My Dad was also mad about the negative comments. He was right when he said he was puzzled how this was on the news on TV, and why newspapers and radio discussed me so much. He was mad that some people on social media talked about how ethical it was that boys should be dressed in drag or were transgendered. To me, it seemed as if the love, friendship and good spirit I experienced at the gay pride parade disappeared.
Things became so bad at school after all this attention. If the others thought that I was weird before, now they thought that now I was famous for being weird. The whole world thought I was a sissy and the bullies at school thought that this gave them a right to be mean to me. Our teacher noticed this day and decided that she would talk about me.
“Chrissy was born as a boy,” she told the class, “We all know that Chrissy had shown signs that he thought that being a boy was wrong. Chrissy has always acted like a girl. This must be hard for Chrissy and it has taken years for him to accept that he was a girl. To make things worse, Chrissy is well known on social media for his singing talents and now after he was in a parade, he has received a lot of attention. Let's all forget what the media and social media commenters are saying. What matters is what we say and how we treat Chrissy. The fact is there are many children that feel they were born in the wrong body, and should have been born the opposite gender. There are many boys that are feminine and girls that are tomboys. This should not matter. What should matter is if a person has a good heart and makes the world a better place to be in. Being transgender does not mean that Chrissy is gay. Chrissy deserves everyone's acceptance and respect, as well as friendship.”
I slumped down in my chair as she was talking about me. I thought it was nice what she said but could not help not notice she called me “he”. This was so strange, as I was now so used to my family calling me “she”. I could not believe that she also talked about being gay.
The teacher's speech did not make the others think any better of me. They still called me weird and a sissy. I was now also being called gay a lot more. They would call me all the rude names associated with being gay and rude things that they thought gay people did. I was shocked at the things that they said. I knew that I did not want to fancy anyone. I was not gay. I did not want any type of romance. I figured that would come as I got older. I denied that I was gay. This only made the teasing and bullying worse. I had absolutely no friends. The other boys were afraid to be seen with me. All this meant that I was an outsider at school and I held my head low and tried to hide when I was at school. I did not speak with anyone and tried not to let the bullying and teasing destroy my spirit.
Things were much better at home. Dad was proud of me and my parents no longer fought. It seemed as if mom decided that her protests ended nowhere. My sister still loved me and would at times worry if being transgender was something I wanted. Despite that she could be annoying, I loved my sister. She just wanted me to be happy. At home, I was a daughter and a sister and to be honest, it was not a big thing for me. As time went by, I did not think if I was wearing a dress or not. I did not think about if I now looked and lived as a girl. It helped that I accepted that I was different. I even liked when people thought that I was pretty. One of the things that I loved is when my sister and I would play dress-up and use make-up. I especially liked eye shadow. It was so fun experimenting with colours and how my eyes should look.
The thing was that despite the hell I experienced at school or negative comments from people I did not even know, I did my best to be happy and I did consider myself happy. I was lucky to have the family that I had. It was a shame that so many that did not know me did not understand me.
The mobbing and bullying became much worse as it was now online as well. The worse experience was when my family went swimming. I was wearing a nice one-piece swimming suit that was light yellow and had a fish with a tiara on it. My Dad posted a video of us swimming on social media. The comments were hateful. Many could see that I had a boy's body. This was embarrassing that so many were talking about my body. It was not just me that was being mobbed on social media. It was also my parents. Once again they were criticised for not being good parents and allowing me to be something I was not. This was especially hard on my mother. She did not like that she was accused of child abuse and screwing with my mind. This made it hard for me, It was hard to see my mother so sad and at times nearly in tears. It made me think that it was all my fault that I was different. I did not know how to solve it.
Dad was more positive about things. He told us not to take the negativity seriously. This was hard to do. I do not think that he did this himself. Dad started making videos of me being transgender. He would tell me what I should say in these videos. Usually, I admitted that I was born as a boy but thought I was a girl. I would tell that it was my own choice and that I was grateful that my family supported me. The videos also had me saying that my parents were great and it was not child abuse that they were allowing me to be the gender that I wanted to be. Once I told them that there was nothing sexual about being a trans child or a drag kid. I did not really understand what I meant by this, but Dad suggested that I said it. One thing I did enjoy saying was that it was wrong for anyone to bully a child.
These videos were watched by many and shared. They did not stop the negative comments, but Dad said at least we had our say. Besides the videos where I sang songs, these transgender videos made me famous. It meant that my identity was now being a transgender child. This gave me a lot of responsibility Dad said. As I was probably the most known transgendered child in the world, I was told that I was a role model and an unofficial spokesperson for other transgender children. I had an opportunity to inspire other children to be the gender they felt that they were. This was something that I did not want. Why would I want anyone my age to go through many things that I went through? I did not want people to think of me as transgendered as the first thing when they thought of me. Why could they not see me as a child that wanted to have a good heart and live a normal life?
My Dad could see the confusion and how this fame affected me. He told me that I would be going on a playdate. So we drove to the other side of the city where I would meet a girl my age. I was asking Dad a lot of questions. Why were we visiting a girl I did not know? How did Dad know her? Was she a fan? Did she know I was transgendered?
As we drove, Dad smiled and answered that I was not alone.
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