Missing Childhood

REPOSTED FROM THE TRANS-SCEND BLOG 2015

I was talking to my Uncle a few months ago. My mom had just died and we were having a very lengthy discussion about that and my relationship with her and other things and then we started talking about my transition. At some point he said “I would think you would be most upset about missing out on childhood as a boy.” I was a little stunned, not by the statement itself it is very valid but my reaction to it. I wasn’t at all upset about my childhood or at least not parts of it. I’ve heard others stories and understand that for some people childhood is a time they feel that they missed out on but for whatever reason I didn’t and I began to question why. 

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I really had to sit with this question for a long time to figure it out and then I started remembering things I hadn’t before. For me most of my childhood was awesome. After I knew I was supposed to be a boy I went from there and nothing stopped me for a while. It was the 70’s, I had a single mom that really wanted to be her own woman and Grandparents that wanted to have as much fun with me as they could. So for the most part I was able to be who I wanted to be.

While I have many a picture of me in a dress I don’t remember actually having any issues with it. In fact I remember climbing trees in them. They never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. For non-holiday occasions I was in pants and t-shirts. I climbed trees, played with bugs and snakes, I had my own fake bouncy horse for being a cowboy I had a six shooter, race cars, comic books, bikes and anything else I wanted.  When we played house I was the dad, when we played star wars I was Han Solo when my great grandmother got me a doll for Christmas I ran it over with my remote control car I had also gotten at Christmas. All in all I played and had fun exactly how I wanted to.

The only thing that ever confused me was when other people would tell me something about my body that they identified as female. Or a girl shouldn’t do this or that. I don’t know how I reacted on the outside but I remember being very confused when they would say stuff. It is actually how I first started developing a dislike of my body at a young age, puberty took care of the rest but that is a different story. But for the most part I played and had fun exactly how I wanted and I never looked at any of it as this was something I shouldn’t do because I am a… I was who I was and played that way.

In many ways I expected my answer to be different, that my early years should have been a horrible experience and that is why, years after, I developed a hate for myself and my body so strong that I dissociated from it totally. That it should have been the reason for my dysphoria and lack of connection sexually with others but it wasn’t. I enjoyed being a kid, I had fun, I got to be exactly what I wanted and who I wanted to be with very little to no negativity from others, at least up until around 4th grade when we moved and my world began to change.