Caught

By Paula Gaikowski, Femulate Contributing Editor

Back in 1968, I was 9 years old. The style at the time amongst my third-grade classmates was mini-dresses, fishnet stockings and go-go boots. I became captivated by my female classmates and what they wore. Each day I wondered what pretty or cute outfit they would wear. So was it curiosity or envy that led me to my sister’s bedroom that morning?

To this day, I am not sure. I just remember wanting to wear dresses like the girls in school did. I also remember being jealous on days when they all went to Maywood School of Dance. I would see them afterwards going home in their tutus and leotards. I remember thinking, “Gosh, it would be fun doing ballet.” However, I knew to keep that thought to myself.

It was a Saturday, my parents were gone somewhere and my sister was out, too. There in the closet it hung, an above-the-knee brightly colored paisley dress. Just like the one the girls in my school wore. A hasty search turned up black fishnet pantyhose, panties and a slip.

I couldn’t believe that I was actually going to wear these clothes, I was so happy.

I threw off the pajamas that I had been wearing and next put on the stockings.

Thinking back, I wonder how I knew how to do that, I mean how does a 9-year-old boy know how to put on a pair of stockings? Well, not surprisingly it seemed to come very naturally.

Rummaging through her closet I found black go-go boots just like the ones Irene Barusso got for Christmas!

Wow, so this is what it feels like. Girls are so lucky!

Somewhere in the room I found a wiglet, a bun that my sister used for a wedding she was in.
The wig let led me to the vanity and then the makeup, lipstick, mascara, then eyelash curler.
I would sit and watch my sister and Mom put there makeup --- now it was my turn.

Spellbound and absorbed, it took a moment for me to hear the car in the driveway.

My sister.

Panicked, I ran down into the basement as the back door opened.

My sister, called for me and I answered, “Down here, I’m playing ping-pong.”

Who plays ping-pong alone besides a terrified 9-year-old transgender girl?

Meanwhile, in a frenzy I had stripped off all of the clothes and was rubbing off my lipstick the best I could.

I heard my sister go into the kitchen. I covertly made my way into her bedroom. In a panic I threw the dress, fishnets and panties on the floor of her closet.

I wandered into the kitchen trying my best to appear calm and innocent, “What were your doing?” she asked in a snippy tone.

I opted for the stock answer of guilt-ridden children everywhere, “Nothing.”

I ran away hoping to escape further questioning, I don’t remember much else about that day, however it remains a pivotal day in my mind. It was the first time I dressed up as a girl and it ignited something deep down inside me.

The next morning, I went to my closet to get dressed and there on the floor just as I had left them in my sister’s closet were the dress, pantyhose, panties and slip thrown in a heap on the floor of my closet.

I felt my face flush red and fear run through my body. “What now?” I thought. She knows, I’m caught what will happen to me?

I hid the clothes and later when the house was empty again I went down to my sister’s room and put everything neatly away.

She never said anything to me about that afterwards. I wonder what she thought and why she put the clothes there. Was it a way to admonish me? Or was it an olive branch of acceptance?

I’ll never know. My sister died one year ago this week.

Wearing Venus

Benjamin Koldyke emulating in the 2012 television series Work It!