day 1 of being a girl. my mom barely waits ten minutes after i’m born before painting my toes red. i’m a newborn infant and already being taught what gives me value as a female in this world.
day 1,100 of being a girl. the dresses i have to wear to church are itchy and uncomfortable, but i have no choice. i have to wear them, or god will be sad. it doesn’t matter that i’m autistic and certain textures are hell on my skin, or that having my short hair pulled into pigtails is painful. i’m not a person. i’m an ornament. i’m a girl.
day 1,465 of being a girl. my mom plays the piano at home for me to sing show tunes. i request to sing the boy’s song, because the boy gets to have fun in his song, and be rowdy and goofy. it takes a while, but mom finally relents, and i get to be a kid for a moment.
day 1,825 of being a girl. for my 5th birthday, my grandpa takes me to walmart to buy a fishing rod so i can go fishing with him at the creek. he buys me a bright pink barbie fishing rod, even though i sulked at the very idea. it’s less functional than the other rods and, like most things with ‘girl’s’ in the title, mostly decorative. i hate it.
day 2,940 of being a girl. i’m pulled aside on my first day at a new school for wearing shorts that are deemed ‘inappropriate’. i’m admonished to never wear them again, or i will be sent to the principal’s office. i’m in third grade.
day 3,270 of being a girl. my best friend has a mary kay birthday party, where the mary kay rep lets us try out eyeshadow and mascara and blush. i beg my mom to let me take some home, but she says i’m too young, only relenting and buying me a couple lip glosses. i saw how i looked with my lashes so long and black, my eyes sparkling with pigment, and wondered why i had to be ugly, at almost nine years old.
day 3,670 of being a girl. one of my mom’s friends has a daughter a few years older than me. she wears glasses and, when i’m forced to get glasses, i study her to figure out how she’s still beautiful with her glasses while i’m doomed to be ugly with mine. i figure out it’s because she has her ears pierced. i ask to get mine pierced so i can still be beautiful.
day 4,015 of being a girl. my parents take us to visit our grandparents for the first time in a few years. an old man who previously paid me no mind sits behind us during church and tugs on my hair and runs his fingers down my neck and shoulders and back. he does this during the entire service, and i don’t move an inch, focusing completely on not reacting. maybe then he’ll stop. afterwards he tells my mom how stubborn i am, with a laugh and a wink. i’m thoroughly changed from this experience and see the world through different eyes.
day 4,400 of being a girl. i’m at the pool with my family and my mom scolds me. i only shaved below my knees and left my thighs alone, because that’s what the puberty booklet said some women do. my legs are long and i don’t want to waste so much time in the shower shaving them. she shames me for not removing all the hair, and i never show my legs unshaved again.
day 4,745 of being a girl. i get my first period. my stomach cramps feel like i’m dying. i tell my mom and she tells me ‘welcome to hell’ before handing me some pads. i go on to have period cramps so painful i vomit and have to stay home from school, shaking in the corner of my room with the heating pad on full blast. my periods are three days long, i bleed so heavily. but anytime i express an opinion that’s contrary to the boy i’m talking to, he says i must be on my period. why else would i be opinionated? that’s all periods are - a time when girls and women are obnoxiously pissed off for silly emotional reasons, not crumpled on the floor dry-heaving because their stomach has nothing left to give up.
day 4,800 of being a girl. we’re gathering for family prayer before bedtime when my parents tell me to change shirts. i’m in a wide-strap tank top. they say my ‘boobs are all out’. my a-cup, barely developed, thirteen year old boobs are offending them. i throw on a sweater and want to crawl under a rock.
day 5,600 of being a girl. i stop wearing makeup and only paint my nails occasionally. i’ve gotten into 1960s hippie culture and my mom loathes it. she begs me to wear makeup. i tell her i feel beautiful exactly as i am. she shuns me until i relent, asking her if she’ll give me the money to buy new eyeshadow and lipsticks. she happily agrees, and finally starts to look at me again.
day 5,700 of being a girl. i’m taken to the emergency room in the middle of the night for what i believe is appendicitis. the pain is unbearable. i’m given a pill for nausea and then interrogated by several doctors, without my mom present, about whether or not i’m pregnant and am i really sure i’m not? and am i absolutely telling the truth that i’m a virgin? really? after an hour they finally ultrasound my abdomen and discover an ovarian cyst so large, it’s a millimeter away from them having to surgically remove it. i’m given tylenol and sent home without any sort of apology.
day 5,940 of being a girl. my geography teacher tells the class they have a new student, and i beam since it’s me. the boy sitting in front of me gets excited. ‘a new student?’ he says, turning around to see me. i smile, thinking maybe we’ll be friends. ‘oh.’ he replies, thoroughly disappointed at my appearance. i go home and cry for hours.
day 6,300 of being a girl. the boys i eat lunch with have a lot of opinions about women. women who wear makeup are ugly, they say. they sleep in it and pile on more in the morning. only the girls who wear ‘natural’ makeup are beautiful. it’s ugly when they stand up after class and pull their pants up. it’s annoying and stupid when they get into geeky stuff like doctor who. but have you heard about this new superhero film?, they ask each other. let’s go to the comic book shop after school, they invite each other. i haven’t showered in two days, they say with guffaws. i try to make conversation. they act like i’m not even there. i’m not, not really. not in a way that matters to them.
day 7,000 of being a girl. i cut my hair short and dress in my usual comfortable clothes. my mom berates me, asking me how i think i’ll ever get a husband dressed like that. she asks me why i want to look like a boy, why i think i look good the way i dress when i very clearly do not. she yells at me about this for hours on several different occasions, until eventually, i think maybe she’s right.
day 7,550 of being a girl - except now i think i may as well try to be a boy, since being a girl was never anything good for me, and everyone is always asking me if i’m trans because of my hair and how i like video games, so maybe they’re right. i just feel like a person, not a girl, and all my life experiences have taught me girls aren’t people. i tell my old friend from high school about this over email, and his first response? asking me if i’d like to have sex with him before i transition, just so i know how it feels as a girl. i politely decline. it isn’t until i tell my therapist about this that i realize how fucked up his response was.
day 8,800 of being a girl. i realize i am a woman, and that women, no matter how society tries to beat it into us, are in fact people. woman is not a feeling. woman is my material reality. for expressing this online, i’m told i’ve fallen for a cult, a hate group, a lie. that men in wigs and dresses know what it means to be a woman far more than i do, that i should listen to them and let them tell my story. i refuse. i am a woman. and i have a whole lifetime of experience being one to back up my claim.
