Gender Journey: Part 1 - Childhood

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Mikhail who was friends with a group of boys in his Kindergarten class. Mikhail enjoyed hanging out with them and felt accepted by them, that is, until one confusing day at recess. On this day Mikhail and his friends were hanging out like every other day at recess. One of the boys decided to do the friendly thing and inform Mikhail that while he was a cool person, he was not a boy. He was a girl. So he had to go hang out with the girls in the class.

Confused, Mikhail looked to his other friends but they all confirmed that this is how it had to be - since Mikhail was not a boy he couldn’t hang out with them anymore.

The next day at recess Mikhail was unsure of where to go. The boys had excluded him and the girls seemed intimidating. So Mikhail decided to play on the swings by himself. Luckily, a classmate named Natalia came to play on the swings as well and the two began to talk. Mikhail didn’t know what it meant to be a girl but he felt comforted with the fact that he could be friends with Natalia - a girl.

Over the years their friendship grew stronger. Mikhail and Natalia became best friends - hanging out every day at school, at each other’s houses, and talking on the phone constantly. As they grew older Natalia embraced her femininity while Mikhail was waiting for it to all finally make sense.

While Natalia wanted to wear her mom’s dresses, play with makeup, and call boys on the phone Mikhail was utterly confused. He thought, “what’s the point of all this?”, or “why do we want to call boys? ew.”, and even things like “aren’t we too young for makeup?”. Mikhail felt like something was wrong with him. Why hadn’t he adapted these girly behaviors like Natalia?

Things got worse when Mikhail’s mom and aunt started asking if there were any cute boys in his class. His response was “ew, no” while his younger sister already had an answer ready. Mikhail worried that he hadn’t started to like boys yet or enjoy being a girl. His mom would attempt to comfort Mikhail by telling him “oh, you’re just a late bloomer. Don’t worry, it’ll happen.”

Share your own early gender memories below. Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series.