I am not Cait, but this is my story.
My mama wanted a little girl more than anything, but after four boys she surrendered, accepting her fate to mother Richard, John, Tony and me. I was not your ordinary little boy, and Mama loved me even more for my differences, making me feel extraordinary most of the time.
It wasn’t always a walk in the park. I rejected the things that made little boys in nursery rhymes — no “snips and snails and puppy dog tails” for me. As far back as I can remember, everyone reminded me, some lovingly and others tauntingly, that I was a lot more “sugar and spice and everything nice,” the things little girls are made of. I remember when I was no more than three or four and my aunt zipped me up into her daughter’s baby blue ruffled, lace-covered dress and paraded me around all day. Oh, everyone thought it was a hoot, all except for one little boy who still can’t forget. They laughed at me, not with me.
I loved dolls, kittens and Mama’s lipstick, all very unapologetically. Sometimes I would lock myself away in the big blue bathroom, painting on my face just like all the times I had watched Mama do it in the mirror. The only difference: when I did it, the door was cautiously locked, and every trace of mascara was scrubbed off with a washcloth and Ivory soap. I honor the lady who found the remnants of my makeovers and never said a word. Mamas just get it, most of the time.
My elementary school years were confusing, frustrating at times as I tried to find my place with the girls who always accepted me, and was so often forced to be with the boys who saw me as different and an easy target. Physical Education in junior high was demoralizing with insensitive coaches and the All-American boys picking me last for baseball, banishing me to the bleachers during football scrimmages, but selecting me often to whirl a dodgeball toward until I ran away and hid. I navigated carefully through high school, avoiding the bullies by befriending the girls they wanted to date, but I never attended dances, Friday night football games, or places where I felt unwelcome or misunderstood.
I still remember the hot rush of shame the day I was nominated for homecoming queen, the peculiar irony being that under different and better circumstances I would have made a fabulous homecoming queen and loved it. I never tried to end my life, but I understand the anguish that leads some young people to it. I grieve for them and shame a world in which it can still happen in 2015.
That’s not to say I didn’t have great times, too. I collected the best small group of friends who are still my advocates, although I lost the greatest champion when my mama died. To be clear, I never really wanted to be a girl. I just wanted to be me — a boy who often preferred “girl stuff.” Labels are for soda pop cans, not people.
No, I am not Caitlyn Jenner, and Diane Sawyer has expressed no interest in telling my story. I am David, and I am telling it not because it will help me in any way, but because maybe, just maybe, it will save a young person’s life or at least help him or her to know the truth. It really does get better.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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