Does Any of This Ever Make “Sense?”

I remember vividly the day in kindergarten, (1971?) I looked up a classmate’s dress. We were all sitting “Indian style” on the big carpet in the corner of our classroom, in a circle for show and tell.

Patty stood just above and in front of me, her short dress revealing a large hole in her underwear, giving a clear view of her vagina. I’d never seen one up close, and I’m sure I stared out of curiosity and fascination. It was right there. It never occurred to 5 or 6 year-old me to avert my eyes. I remember I was sad for her that she had to wear torn underwear to school, as much as I was curious at seeing her bits on display like that. This was the era of “school clothes” and “play clothes” and either way, I never had to wear underwear that wasn’t clean, bright white, and without holes. Hers had little flowers in pink or yellow, but the fabric was tinged that gray-yellow white becomes.

I don’t remember the teacher making an immediate fuss, but she certainly kept me after class for a stern chastisement, and did either send a note home, or called (worse) my babysitter, before releasing me to my short -now very long — walk home. It was made clear to me that what I had “done” was horrific and unacceptable behavior.

From the age of 2 months until roughly the age of 10, I went to the babysitter, Mommy Edna, who lived kitty corner across the street from us, out our back door. Evidently, I’d taken to calling her “Mom” because her foster son Johnny, 7 years my senior, called her Mom. I was confused, in terms of titles, as to who my mother was, since I spent every day, all day, with the sitter, and barely saw my own mother who worked full time, 7–3:30, in the factory. She pulled into our driveway religiously at “a quarter till 4” every weekday. My mother (Toots) I called “MommyTootsieHon” -an amalgamation of the things I’d heard her called, and she allowed “Mommy Edna” for the sitter. And so it went.

I wouldn’t fully understand for many more years why I didn’t just get to stay home with my beloved grandmother, Nanny, who lived with us. But Nanny slept until 1pm most days, prepared the family dinner, and retired to her room around 7. She’d get back up to read me bedtime stories every night, then back to her room she went. Such was the cadence of my early childhood. Mental problems were whispered about but never explained.

When I got home to Mommy Edna the day of the Great Underwear Caper, I know she had “the paddle” in her hand. It was an old paddle from a paddle ball set, natural wood with green painted lettering, now sans the elastic and rubber ball. It was thicker than the toy I had, and it stung when applied to my rear end.

When I tell you every adult in my life -and there were many — was allowed to beat me, I don’t exaggerate. I don’t honestly remember if she used the paddle that day or not. What I do remember are the words she seared into my head. “What’s the matter with you?! WHY CAN’T YOU BE MORE LIKE JOHNNY?!?!?” I know I sobbed, and I know I had no answer for her, save my unspoken list of deficiencies, of which we were both well aware. Now we had added “pervert” to the list.

Once my mother got home from the factory, there was yet another reckoning. Another stern talking-to. They probably both hit me that day, someone was always giving me a smack or five for something, but I remember the harsh words, the angry disappointment, and feeling very small.

I’d expressed nothing but curiosity that day. I didn’t lift her dress, I just noticed what was, well, staring me in the face.

It was kindergarten that first sorted me from the rest. It was there that the hard lines between girl toys and boy toys was introduced. Boy play and girl play. Two different lines to stand in. Two different bathrooms. Two very different sets of rules. And I was never properly sorted.

I guess I wanted to see what all the fuss was really about and I truly still don’t know. I’d satisfied my curiosity and learned that, like belly buttons, some of us had innies, and some of us had outties. So what? And of course, I wanted to wear dresses to school. I wanted to play dress up and kitchen and dolls. But that wasn’t how they sorted me.

Patty was the youngest of a large family of mostly boys, and I’d quickly learn that family was deemed trouble. My parents called them white trash, and at least one of them noted there might be further inconvenience from all this, which there never was. Patty was my friend. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, and she told me I didn’t. She hadn’t even noticed the entire event.

I often wish I could find those elementary school teachers again, though I suspect my kindergarten teacher is long dead. She retired shortly after I was in her class. But any of the others who might still be living. If they remember me at all -and I suspect they do- I wonder if they’d tell me how they saw me back then. I’d love to just talk with them today. I have questions.

I didn’t really learn I must attempt to “control” the swish and sway of it all until that summer between the 6th and 7th grade. That fateful summer before leaving my little elementary school for the much larger regional Junior High where my biggest fear was the communal showers forced upon the boys of 7th grade. The sorting dictated I’d stand naked among them, and I was terrified.

I was never like Johnny. He loved sports and he loved to play them. Baseball and street hockey especially. He liked watching reruns of The Untouchables, and all manner of sports, a devoted fan of the Philadelphia Flyers, the Phillies, and oddly, the New England Patriots. I tried to watch with him, because he was more of a brother than the much older one who tortured me over in my own house, but I was never really interested. Johnny was kind and quiet, and had an easy laugh. We stayed connected until I moved away to the city, and then we mostly lost touch. Another story for another day, but a person I’d also like to look up and talk with. I tried to be more like him after that fateful day, to no success at all.

Patty would go on to be one of the chorus of voices calling me a sissy, a fairy, then a faggot. Our early friendship, like so many of them, lost to the ravages of growing up and sorting.

An entirely new generation of kids populates this neighborhood now, and I am one of the elders. This street is so very much the same as it ever was, just the humans have changed. Many wave as they pass, some never do and likely never will. I am intentionally cordial, as is my partner, but save for the lesbians across the street, I can’t say we have made friends here. Here, in the one place where I “should” feel like I belong, I often don’t.

I am still working hard to shake the feeling that I’ve done very wrong things, even as I know I truly haven’t. I WAS the “wrong thing” to be. And as I try hard to use my time and talents today, as I read vile lies told by politicians, alleged feminists, and even (former) “friends” about trans folk just like me, I wonder if I will ever understand just what they find so abhorrent.

On my better days I am determined to see this life through. But I may need to let go of trying to make sense of it all. Because so much of it makes no sense, and never did.

As an adult, I have made deep and abiding friendships with so many amazing people. Beyond these walls I have found my tribe. The lot of us may amount to so many broken toys, but we love one another, we show up for one another, and my days are filled with the knowing that I have deep and real connections with astonishingly wonderful humans.

Many of us are connected by similar stories of never belonging, and maybe that’s why we belong together. I couldn’t be more grateful, but I still don’t quite feel like I “deserve” any of them.

But there are days, like this one, when all I seem to manage is conjuring memories of inadequacy. Memories of pain and punishments that never made sense. Navigating this little hamlet on a well-used bicycle, navigating all the choices my adults made in which I had no say or agency, and feeling like somehow, some way it was my job to make it all somehow better, remains a heavy burden. One I have carried these 50 odd years.

Coming back here, to the house where I was “raised” was a default choice more than an active one. As so many of my “choices” in life have been. I always make the best of it, but is this the “best?” Or am I simply too tired to steer this ship anymore, letting her float with the tides, still hoping without reason for the day it all makes sense?

My adults did do the best they could, as I did raising my own children. I still inexplicably believe in humanity, even as I see fewer and fewer examples out there. These are insane times to be a trans person, but then, they always were.

Peace, Lovelies

- MM

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