I have become very contemplative of late. I don't know why but scenes from my life have been crowding in on me in what feels like HD clarity.
One was the moment when I realized that I wanted to be a girl. I was too young to understand what it meant or know what to do about it but I was changed forever.
My parents did not like me watching daytime TV so when I came home from elementary school mom gave me milk and cookies and set up an old movie. The one that day was a Western. I cannot remember what it was called but it involved a group of women - showgirls I guess - going to some town. All I remember is one scene, the scene that changed me.
The girls wanted to bath in the river. Obviously the two old guys who were being paid to take care of them couldn't bathe as well. I think one girl half-raised her skirt revealing her petticoat before they noticed the old guys watching. The petticoat was something that I had never seen before and which I could not explain. All that happened was that the girls shooed the guys away then petticoat after petticoat was thrown onto a bush accompanied by peels of girlish laughter. The two guys strained to see what was happening and were clearly amazed by what they saw. That was it. It probably lasted less than minute but has stayed with me ever since.
The divide between women and men could not have been clearer even then. Girls were high spirited and happy. They inhabited a world that was full of laughter but from which men were excluded. They wore clothes that were not just prettier but very different from those I wore. Guys were drab. The only happiness in their lives came second-hand from watching women who controlled what they could do and when they could do it.
I knew immediately what side of the bush I wanted to be on. I have been there ever since.
Does anyone else have a similar precision moment they could share?
Princess Vagina