Community Conversation > Transsexual talk

Did you play with girls or boys as a child?

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Sephirah:
Hoo boy, that's a lot to think about right there. But I'll give it a go. :)


--- Quote ---Were you bullied as a kid? In general? For your gender expression? For the way you played?
--- End quote ---

Yes, but not for either of those things. I was bullied because I was an easy target. Because I came from a family who had nothing. Who people chose to look down on for having nothing. I lived with my mum, and after my dad left because he found someone he preferred over his wife and kids... we struggled. A lot. Sometimes we couldn't afford the cool things that were in fashion for all the cool kids. And because of that... people thought it was awesome to make an issue out of that. Because that's what kids do, I guess.

Also because I didn't fight back. I was the soft spoken, quiet kid at the back of the room. I didn't have it in me to be aggressive. I still don't. It isn't who I am. And people took advantage. Insecure people always take their insecurity out on people they perceive to be weaker than they are. And I was one of those people. I never fought back. I never said anything. Until one time. And as a result I was isolated for two years. But that is what it is.


--- Quote ---Were you accepted in either group?
--- End quote ---

No, not really. And at the time I didn't really want to be. I just wanted to be alone. See... a good 60-70% of the hassle I got when I was a kid, was by the girls I knew. Girls in my class, and in wider life. I learned something back then. Boys are very up front most of the time. If they hate you, they just go out of their way to punch your teeth in. It's all about a show of force. A show of them being the "alpha male". Girls are different. Girls are psychological. They use words, and emotion to hurt you. The more subtle art of making you feel like <not allowed>. Although there were a couple of girls when I was a kid who used the whole physical angle, too. Because they could. Because I never believed in two wrongs making a right. But as a whole... yeah, that's how it was.


--- Quote ---Did you feel you didn't fit in as a kid?
--- End quote ---

Yes. Permanently. But mostly because I didn't want to fit in. I didn't want to be the kind of person who could do to someone else what people had done to me. I didn't feel it was worth sacrificing my integrity to be someone like that. My childhood was basically full of the belief that other people were horrible, and nasty. And I did not want to be like that.


--- Quote ---Were you uncomfortable in either group? Or in both? In which ways?
--- End quote ---

Both. Mostly because of the reasons outlined above.


--- Quote ---Did you play 'typical' games or with 'typical' toys for either gender? Were you a tomboy? Or a total 'femboy'  ;D?
--- End quote ---

Neither. I mostly lost myself in books. I had hundreds of them, from my grandmother. And would spend hours and hours lost in worlds which weren't the one I lived in.


--- Quote ---Did you socially isolate from other children? Were you a loner? If so, why did you prefer it this way? Are you an introvert by character or was this just bcos of social seclusion...?
--- End quote ---

I guess both. Although towards the end of my childhood it was something forced on me because I dared to speak out about the issues I was dealing with. Rather than something I chose. But the result was the same. I learned to watch people. To see how they work. I've been a loner most of my life. I have a lot of trust issues, and letting people get close.


--- Quote ---How would you describe yourself as a child? Boisterous? Rowdy? Quiet? Sensitive?
--- End quote ---

The last two. Always the last two. That would probably be the two words to describe my whole life. My brothers were the boisterous, loudmouth, annoying ones. I was the one in my room with my nose in a book, lol.


--- Quote ---How did your dysphoria show through play and interaction with other children? Did you want to emulate certain behavior? Or repress something? Were you angry? Or just shut-down?
--- End quote ---

It didn't. Not really. I shut myself off from everything to the point I didn't allow myself to feel. Looking back I'm sure I could pinpoint a hundred different times I could say "Yeah, this is how." But at the time it didn't feel that way. I was very guarded as a kid. Very scared of being hurt.


--- Quote ---Were you allowed to express gender non-conforming behavior as a child? By your parents and relatives? Teachers? Other children or adults...?

Or did you grow up sort of gender neutrally? Was gender not really inforced on you?
--- End quote ---

Was I allowed? That's kinda hard to answer. I grew up with my mum. And she basically acted like a mum and a dad. She was the most amazing person in the world. And because of that, she never really held with the notion of "Women should do this and men should do that." Because she did what she needed to do to keep her kids fed and gave them whatever she could. She did the job of both parents.

But. Having two brothers and a limited income. And me being the oldest of them. No... I wasn't really ever in a position to do anything that wouldn't benefit them. There were no toys, games... anything really feminine in the house. Which is why mostly I just retreated to my books. I was never discouraged. Just never in a position to really do anything about it.


--- Quote ---Did having siblings play a part in the types of toys you had access to or the games you played?
--- End quote ---

See above :)


--- Quote ---If you could change one thing about your childhood, what would that be?
--- End quote ---

I don't think I would. It's part of who I am. Everything I've been through has gone towards the kind of person I am now. It would be so easy to try and make something better. Or different. But then it wouldn't be mine. I believe in changing the future. The past kind of defines us. Shapes who we are.

Lady Sarah:
Before school started for me, I played with the girls in the neighborhood. Starting kindergarten back in 1970 was a disappointment. As soon as I tried to play with the girls, I got scolded by the teacher. So, I refused to play at all.
Bullies were a constant nitemare. I got beat up every single day. I became reclusive and antosocial, and stayed that way until I broke out of my shell during transition. Back then, all I could pray for was either being female, or being the only person alive.
Prior to transitioning, the only thing I could get away with was growing out my nails. When it came to dealing with bullies, at least I could kick and claw. Some of the girls probably learned to fight from watching me try to defend myself.
No adults were on my side. None of the teachers, or my adoptive parents could care less about me getting beaten up. As a matter of fact, my adoptive mother took advantage of my bruises by adding a few more here and there, taking her frustrations out on me. Why not? I was the whipping post for anyone with any grievance about anything. The constant beatings never stopped until I had my growth spurt at the age of 14, and then I was kicked out of the house.

Paul Muad-Dib:
I had both male and female friends as a kid. In nursery, there were a couple of female friends I used to hang with which continued all the way up through junior school, and one of them up through high school. Outside of school I was friends with a girl from across the street who spent a lot of time at my place and a boy from two doors away who also did. At 16 I attended a boys-only school in the sixth form that had allowed a limited number of girls to attend the sixth, and my group of friends there comprised about two girls and nine lads. From that point on, and into my university years, I would have a roughly even split of male friends and acquaintances, maybe slightly more male friends, but I roomed most of the time with my male friends, or male co-workers. 

Wouldn't have said I was bullied in school much at all. Which is interesting because I went to a notorious inner city state high school well-known for producing delinquents. I had more issues feuding with local kids near my house, and not for any reason other than that I challenged their leader.

I didn't have much to say to any kid that wasn't one of my close friends, and the rest of them accepted that arrangement very quickly. Definitely I was an outsider in any class that did not contain one of my close friends. It was a strange situation really - to have a tutor group that basically blanked me, unless I happened to be with one of my friends.

Did I fit in as a kid? Not at all. Was it uncomfortable? Yes and no. One gets comfortable with discomfort in the end, as a kid.

I played with anything I wanted to. But interestingly my favorite toys were cardboard boxes, plasticine, lego and such. Toys that are not only neutral but have more than one function and you can do lots of things with. Toys that were specific with a single use were the most boring to me. Such as dolls, and soldier type toys. I found those boring. Anything I could actually role play with myself however, I found very interesting. Toy swords, toy guns, masks, capes, face paint, etc.

I was referred to as a tomboy by others, yes.

I didn't isolate myself from other children as such, but as a rule I had a small number of trusted friends. I didn't make friends easily, or want to make "lots" of them, but I was capable of it. But I had them, and spent a lot of time around them outside of school. But I also spent a lot of time alone too. I liked time with my friends but time by myself was something I needed more. I would probably describe myself as a loner at heart, but with a requirement for socialization every so often.

How would I describe myself as a child...? Quiet on the outside, utter chaos and destruction on the inside, and somewhere in the middle when with my friends.

I guess dysphoria registered when playing with other kids as a rejection of typical roles. We did a lot of things your average teenaged boy would do, and that just came rather naturally. Since most of my friends came to play at my place and I had a very large house/garden compared to them, it was usually my games and ideas we played with. If anyone wanted to stay over the arrangement was usually that they stayed over at my place. This was because of my friends, my parents were the most lax and theirs had strict rules and nicer houses. We wouldn't have been able to have as much fun at theirs. Often that "fun" was actually mischief. I don't think I repressed anything except when some of the kids asked me to date them. I had probably as much interest in sex as your average boy, but obviously this condition suppresses a person's desire to want to be someone's "girlfriend", so I could never bother with any of that. I never had or wanted a childhood girlfriend or boyfriend in that respect. I was quite allergic to the prospect.

My parents never cared much about what gender I might have been expressing and didn't mind that I had a liking for robots and technical toys. My grandmother was different, but my grandfather knew I liked reading comics and playing chess and making things, and I don't know what she thought of all of that (probably disappointment that I didn't really enjoy being a human mannequin for new dresses). My uncles were professional game programmers so I spent quite a bit of time around them playing early 80s computer games. No, I don't think gender was enforced on me. It was almost never commented on. (My grandmother was an exception, she tried to prevent me learning to whistle).

My siblings didn't really influence toy choice - in fact I influenced theirs since they often played with my stuff. 

LizK:
My very first friend was a girl and to this day I don't understand what happened to her. We were good friends (as "good" a friend as 5 years olds can be LOL) and suddenly it seemed that one day she was gone. I had vague recollections of playing with her and getting into some kind of trouble with her. My Mum was really vague and seemed disintersted when I tried to ask her about it, maybe she just forgot, but she said she didn't remember.

As a kid growing up I was constantly getting in trouble from adults for "being with the girls" which everyone thought was just "typical boy stuff" of "chasing the girls" to which, as you can imagine, I got a great amount of positive reinforcement about. They had no idea that what I really wanted from them was to be part of their group, to be one of them, to secrectly be like them so it worked out pretty good for short period of time until someone realised that my interest was not as they expected it should be... But then like all good catholic boys I was segregated from the girls at age 10 and didn't get to socialise with them for the next 5 years with the exception of the yearly dances.

After leaving school I applied to and was accepted for nursing school and ended up with 90% of my friends being women.

Liz

Danielle Kristina:
I mostly played with boys, but I played with a few girls too.  I didn’t mind playing with the girls.  I actually enjoyed playing “House” and other girlie games, not that I did that often.  Now I know why I liked it.

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