By Paula Gaikowski, Femulate Contributing EditorBack 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!
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.
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| Wearing Venus |
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| Benjamin Koldyke emulating in the 2012 television series Work It! |
