Gender Journey: Part 2 - Puberty

Puberty was perplexing to Mikhail, as it is for a lot of kids. He knew something was going to happen to his body but he wasn’t really sure what that was or what what it meant.

It seemed like magic. Overnight you develop liking boys and loving everything feminine. While he didn’t understand it, he accepted that he was a late bloomer. Puberty was the answer that would magically solve all his worries.

One day Mikhail’s mom pulled him aside and explained that soon he would be getting his first period. The news that he was going to be bleeding an entire week each month for seemingly the rest of his life was a tough pill to swallow. Mikhail didn’t know what puberty was going to be, but this was definitely NOT what he had pictured. His mom went on to explain that having a period was just part of being a woman. This felt completely unfair as Mikhail never wanted to be a girl. “Why do I have to be a stupid girl?”, thought Mikhail.

Mikhail’s first period arrived shortly after that conversation. It was a memorable experience as a cousin pointed out the mysterious stain that appeared on his shorts. Mikhail was mortified and went looking to his mom for help with the situation. As his mom handed him his first pad, he realized that this period experience was something he shared not only with his mom but women in general. Mikhail, for the first time, felt a camaraderie with women. Women share this period experience and men just have NO idea about it. Life was unfair for girls but we all just put up with it for some inexplicable reason.

With his period, however, did not come this magical love of everything feminine. Instead, Mikhail found out there were A LOT of steps to puberty. Why wasn’t there a comprehensive easy-to-follow checklist? Something like: Step 1. Period. Step 2. Like dresses. Step 3. Boys.

During this time Mikhail was bombarded with new things to obsess about, per his classmates. Things like body hair - not something he’d ever thought about before but was told that it was gross and shaving was the next big thing a girl had to do. The stress over shaving was too much. There was the stress put on by his classmates around this topic such as “Will my hair grow back thicker and faster if I start shaving?” and then there was Mikhail’s own stress. The 2 main questions Mikhail asked at every step of puberty were always the same - “why?” and “do boys have to do this, too?”

Mikhail was constantly looking over the gender wall that had been put up that day he was excluded from hanging out the boys. He wanted to know what other stupid thing he had to do for no good reason. Why was this happening? Why did no one seemingly care about the gender wall like Mikhail did?

Share your own awkward puberty memories below. Stay tuned for Part 3 in this series.