By David Johnsrud
Being posed for a photograph in a red velvet dress, both the photographer and my mother had difficulty getting me to look up and smile, to hold the phone next to my ear as if I were talking on it. They wanted me to look up, but I kept looking down at the expanse of brightly colored dress, white leather baby shoes, and especially the itchy strangeness on my upper arms where the gathers held the fabric close in bunches. I was aware of one thing: This was all wrong. The date on the photo puts my age at 22 months.
It was a feeling that would become so commonplace as to almost be tolerable at times: The strangeness and humiliation of being literally forced into feminine-appropriate attire and behavior, coupled with the realization that not all girls were uncomfortable being girls, which was my first lesson in gender dysphoria: Not everyone has it. It shocked me to realize that most girls indeed liked being girls.
