{"id":14632,"date":"2017-08-22T20:50:09","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T15:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/?p=14632"},"modified":"2017-08-22T21:27:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T15:57:00","slug":"growing-up-genderfluid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/growing-up-genderfluid.html","title":{"rendered":"Living Stories : Ra Opens Up About Their Gender Confusion As An 8-Year Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

An 8-year old on a playground. Wearing purple shorts skimming the knee and a flowery t-shirt. This is me. Were you picturing a girl? Or a boy?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This was 14 years ago, I was shy. I loved to play and to read, talking, not so much. I cared more about Pokemon and Harry Potter than anything else. Most importantly, I was in a new country. With my lovely aunt, her new baby (my favourite person) and my uncle. I would go down to the playground by myself everyday and on my first day down there, this introvert got very very lucky. I made a friend. It was the first time I\u2019d ever had to actively try to make one.<\/strong> The shy, young thing that I was, I followed this girl around till she noticed me. She was really pretty and very very cool. She had the coolest name: Zoey. I remember wanting so much in my 8-year-old mind for her to think I was cool enough to hang out with her. AlI I really wanted was for her to notice me. And she did.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were on the swings when two of her friends found us. They wanted to swing too. So she said to her friend –<\/span><\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t you sit on his lap (while pointing at me). His name is Ra, he\u2019s from India. He runs fast<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember the clothes I was wearing that day? 8 year old me had an enviable sense of style. With bright purple shorts that reached my knees and the “girliest” t-shirt I could find<\/strong> (because my aunt had been begging me to dress “like a girl\u201d)<\/strong>. It had pink and purple flowers all over it. I wore purple sandals and painted toenails. I thought I was the cooliest. My long hair was in pigtails, three of them actually. My head looked like a 3 legged spider and I loved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember being happy. I remember wondering why I was so happy that Zoey thought I was a boy.<\/strong> But I didn\u2019t dwell on it. I let her think that.<\/p>\n

\"Gender
Source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We played almost every evening that summer. On the playground I was he, playing teasing getting rough and tumble. <\/span><\/p>\n

At home, I was she, singing when guests came over, helping take care of a baby and being told in so many ways that \u2018wild\u2019 was not okay for a girl like me<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was happy. I did it all. The he, the she, the just plain human, it’s everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple of weeks before I was to leave to go back home, my aunt washed my hair. I had to go play with my hair flowing down my shoulders, reaching all the way down to my non-existent butt.<\/strong> I hated my long hair. It got in the way of EVERYTHING. I couldn\u2019t run around or wrestle, people thought it was funny to pull my hair. But I kept it. Because it made my grandmother happy. I kept it because all the moms on the playground told me that I was a very good girl for keeping it so neat. I kept it because I wanted my beautiful aunt to think I was pretty too. I kept it because my brother couldn\u2019t have long hair like me. I kept it because it gave my mother a reason to spend time with me, she loved braiding my hair for me. I kept it so everyone else would like me, but it was never really a part of me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zoey didn\u2019t like it either.<\/strong> She saw my hair and as we sat on the swings, she was staring. She looked at me twice, thrice. She looked again. And then she said, softly, a little awed –<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a girl?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Almost immediately, as though to correct herself, she said –<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a pretty girl<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I remember smiling at her and nodding. I didn\u2019t know what to say. Inside I was very confused. I couldn\u2019t understand how a hair change had made me a girl to her. I was sad, I really liked her calling me a boy.<\/strong> But between my barely there voice, and her (mostly) Mandarin-English, there was something she said that day that I never caught. Somewhere between the way she stopped wrestling with me and the way I smiled mute and awkward, something else was lost. Maybe it was an <\/span><\/p>\n

I see you <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

or an <\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know you anymore <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

or a <\/span><\/p>\n

You are the same aren\u2019t you?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But I\u2019ll never know.<\/span><\/p>\n

We never played after that. I went home and I have never seen her since. But to me, she was the first one to ever truly see me, even before I learned to see myself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And I remember her now, as I realise that I am seen, and I am heard. And I am me, boy, girl, both and neither.<\/strong> Sometimes by turns, sometimes all at once. And my 9 year old friend saw that. Maybe she didn\u2019t quite understand, but she saw me, a feeling I am still seeking.<\/p>\n

Ra<\/strong> is a young person who someday hopes to make art that matters. Ze writes poetry and makes comics and is currently trying to figure out how to turn a Maruti Omni into a mobile home. Any helpful\u00a0information is welcome. Ze identifies as genderfluid\/trans-masculine but prefers not to refer to zerself in the third person.<\/em><\/p>\n

Would you like to hear brave souls retell their stories, like this one, in flesh and blood?<\/strong> YourDOST in collaboration with Social Offline is proudly brings y0u a one of a kind event:\u00a0Living Stories \u2014 Vol. 1: Mental Health,\u00a0<\/strong>on Saturday 26th August, at antiSOCIAL Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi. RSVP here for more info and event updates<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>We’re really looking forward to see you there.<\/p>\n

Are you a person with gender dysphoria who’s having trouble coping with it. We’re here for you. Talk to an Expert at YourDOST today<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cover Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An 8-year old on a playground. Wearing purple shorts skimming the knee and a flowery t-shirt. This is me. Were you picturing a girl? Or a boy? This was 14 years ago, I was shy. I loved to play and to read, talking, not so much. I cared more about Pokemon and Harry Potter than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lgbtqia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}