gave way to a crushing weight of disappointment and injustice. It seemed easier to avoid being put in that position and try my best to look like a girl, since my parts seemed to dictate that that’s what I was.
“It’s smart and sporty; you’d find it much easier to take care of,” Mom pressed.
“Yeah, no thanks.” She turned back to face the road.
“I think a pixie cut would really suit you,” she continued. I stared out the window, a giraffe in a world of barnyard animals.
Over the next year, I saw Laura Desmond and her haircut everywhere. Her hairdo bore the hallmark of my failings, looming large as the symbol of my gender dysphoria. If I saw her in the school hallway, I’d duck into the washroom or linger in the gym to avoid her. Her hair became the token of all that I feared because I knew that cutting my hair the same way would reveal my hidden shame to the world. It seemed so pointless. There’s nothing I can do to fix this.
“Do you want to go to Mass tonight with me or tomorrow morning with Dad?” Mom asked a few weeks later. Saturday evening Mass was a welcome recent development, giving me a fifty-fifty chance of avoiding Laura Desmond each week. I began my mental calculations. Were the Desmonds likely to be there? How often have I seen Laura at Saturday Mass? Is it better to go with Dad because he never mentions Laura’s hair?
“I think I’ll go tomorrow,” I replied.
“I thought you liked going on Saturday.”
“I do, it’s just that …” I glanced at the dog lying in his usual spot on the floor. “Riley hasn’t had a walk today and I thought I’d take him before dinner.” Mom frowned slightly at the dog.
“Fine, as long as you go to church.” She grabbed her purse and walked down the stairs and out to the garage.
THE ANNUAL BACK-TO-SCHOOL shopping trip with my mom to Calgary’s Chinook Centre Mall filled me with anxiety and despair, and featured more than a few shouting matches in the clothing aisles over what clothing was appropriate for me to wear. We both agreed that this year, the summer before tenth grade, would be the last time she would take me shopping. Next year, I could go on my own and choose what I wanted.
Secure in the knowledge that I only had to get through this one last trip, I endured Mom’s snide remarks and sarcastic comments about the wrongness of the clothes I preferred, focusing on my pending freedom. Mom patrolled one side of the aisle separating boys’ and girls’ wear, me the other, each defending our chosen theater of war. As I picked out boys’ Levi’s and sweaters, Mom spoke up, her tone overly practiced and a little shrill in an attempt to sound casual. “We should probably get you a little training bra, something with some support,” she said, eyes avoiding mine as she fingered some lace blouses.
“Uh, I don’t have any breasts,” I answered truthfully. “I don’t need one.” My body had been very slow to develop and I hadn’t even had a menstrual period yet. I wouldn’t until I was eighteen. This one. This one looks like a boy.
For the last several weeks I’d cursed myself daily after asking her why my chest hurt. I’d been climbing over a fence during a hide-and-seek game on our street—an intensely competitive nightly battle involving at least ten kids, spanning more than five summers—when my chest pressed against the wood as it always did and I felt some tenderness, a bit like sore muscles. Her excitement had shocked me. “Oh, that means you’re getting breasts,” she practically sang.
That same joyful, celebratory propaganda had dripped from a thinly veiled ad they showed us in school called “Now You’re a Woman” or something like that, made by Kimberly-Clark. All of the sixth-grade girls had been herded into a room to watch it, separated from the boys, who watched their own film. We were strictly warned not to talk to the boys about our film and they weren’t to discuss theirs with us. We were given sample packs of menstrual pads at the session’s end. Watching the film, I’d felt as grossly out of place as I now did in the women’s foundations department.
“Don’t be silly,” Mom scoffed. “You go pick one out—try it on first, you can’t tell by looking—and I’ll meet you over by the leotards.” She pressed twenty-five dollars into my hand and hustled off before I could protest. I stood there, frozen, certain her request was as ludicrous as sending my little sister off to buy a jock strap. It felt that foreign. Finally, I convinced myself that if I just sucked it up and grabbed a bra, I’d be out of there and she would be appeased, and I would never actually have to wear it.
I crept into the women’s foundations department like a ninja on an assassination mission, certain someone would stop me and demand credentials proving I was female. I imagined a salesperson calling the police, who would haul me, the creepy boy in women’s foundations, off in handcuffs. If I could have belly-crawled to avoid drawing attention, I would have. Women’s foundations? What the hell is a foundation other than a concrete structure holding up a building, or a charitable organization? I whispered under my breath. It’s underwear. It’s just frigging underwear.
I skulked around the bras—big ones, padded ones, flowered ones—and tried to find something intended for someone who didn’t need or want a bra. Glancing around me, I saw women—many at least sixty years old—with huge breasts to restrain, sifting through bins and boxes of undergarments. I imagined within this secret society there existed some mother/daughter bra-shopping ritual, and I swore I would never participate in this with a friend, let alone my own mother. Get me outta here.
Deciding the buxom grandmas were not going to lead me to training bras, I struck out for another wing of women’s foundations. With fewer mushroom colors and more bright tones, this seemed like a better place to find something my mom would approve of. Within minutes, I found myself in line waiting to pay for a tiny piece of white cotton sporting one microscopic flower between two minute triangles that were intended to cover breasts—thirty-two inches, no cups to speak of. I held it tucked under one armpit, dreading the moment I would have to speak to the cashier. I felt sorry for the aged woman in front of me as she struggled with her purse; hands shaking, back stooped, blue veins visible. Why can’t we hire people to do this? I was next up.
I heard two voices whispering behind me in line. Until now, I had deliberately avoided eye contact with anyone, but I glanced surreptitiously behind me to see who was speaking. As I strained my peripheral vision in ways I previously hadn’t known possible, I heard one of them say to the other, “What does he need with a bra, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” her friend—or more likely daughter—answered with a sniff. My cheeks burned from the fire of embarrassment and misunderstanding. I stepped up to the clerk, who eyed me with suspicion. Note to self: women’s foundations is a snake pit.
“Yes?” she raised her eyebrows at me, not looking at the mini Maidenform number in my sweaty hand.
“I’ll take this one,” I choked out.
“Is this a gift?” she asked with a smirk, pretending to be helpful.
“No.”
“Because if it is, I can give you a receipt so she can return or exchange it if it isn’t right,” she persisted, seeming to delight in my growing discomfort.
“It’s fine,” I said, handing her the scrunched-up twenty-dollar bill, avoiding her eyes and trying not to give her the satisfaction of knowing she got to me, although I’m sure I was unsuccessful. I grabbed my change and walked away quickly, shame boring a hole in my breastless chest as I prepared to meet my mother and endure her delight over my purchase.
