Genderbent (part 1)

I've always had a lot of difficulty with being a girl. I was a 'tomboy' from a very early age, and spent equally as much time catching frogs as painting my nails. The former was a question of fun, but the latter was entirely based on my personal aesthetics. I was almost solely a shorts type of dude, given the constricting and uncomfortable nature of much of girls' clothing. Later on, I was almost forced into pants-wearing by my injuries; Those who have been teased about themselves find it much easier to deal with some physical discomfort in exchange for less mocking.

I think I made it to around 12 when it occurred to me that there was no reason to wear girls' clothing. It was ill-fitting, awkward, and boys didn't have to have their asscrack showing when they bent over (Though unfortunately, that seems to have changed. I hate it, especially given its origins*). So over the period of a summer, I replaced most of my clothes with boy's clothes. Shorts were replaced with military-style cargo pants and some different jeans, though I had a lot of difficulty finding my size. My pink-tinged sneakers (AUGH) were replaced by men's combat boots, which I did manage to find in my size (5US in Men's). By all mannerisms and temperaments, at the age of 13 I could pass as a boy save for my long hair. I loved it, and had been growing it out for most of my life, but ever since Andrea Yates, a local with a vaguely similar appearance to me (round glasses, long dark hair, that faraway look commonplace to people with depression...), I was teased mercilessly even for that. I held off on cutting it, though, until I went to highschool.

When I began ROTC, I saw quickly that something would have to be done about my hair. Military dress states that She-bodied people must put their hair up, in a bun or other, nonintrusive updo over which a cover can be fit. My hair, just down to my mid-back, made it clear that that would not happen. The length was too heavy to do it without visible support, so cutting it was an easy decision.

Overnight, I lost a couple feet of hair, and gained some new reactions. By now, the lesbian rumors were in full swing, and it was made clear that my harassment would continue**. It took everyone a few days to realize my hair was NOT, in fact, in a ponytail, it was gone completely.

In ROTC, I was not treated like a girl. That was before I had lost my strength, and amongst soldiers, strength is respected. My only limitation at the time was running, so otherwise I could keep up with the men, and made good comrades of some of them. Being one of only two girls in our platoon helped; most students in our school thought ROTC was too....'hardcore' for them. I was finally acknowledged as a boy, and suddenly all sorts of people were mistaking me as male! I mean, the insults and such coming at me were mostly gendered, but my school was full of ignorant fucks. They might have made fun of me, but I didn't see any of them with a harem of besotted shadows.

(TBC)


*prison rapees

**for several years, it had been an established pact amongst my peers, that if I was hot by the time we got to highschool, they'd let me be. I was, in fact, not left alone, but they had ceased breaking bones by then.