Bruce
Jenner might become an imitation of woman, with artificial breasts and hormone
injections, but he will never be a girl who became a woman.
By D.C. McAllister in the Federalist
When I look at the glamorous pictures of Bruce Jenner dolled up as
Caitlyn, with his flowing locks, long lashes, plump lips, and full breasts, I
have to laugh. Not at him, but at the irony of it. What Jenner seems to have
achieved with a lot of money, cosmetic surgeons, and talented makeup artists, I
wanted desperately as a young girl and had to suffer through years of
natural—and sometimes humiliating—development to attain.
You see, I wasn’t a very pretty
girl. Actually, I looked like a boy. (I know, the irony.) We lived in a
military town, and my mom used to take me to the barber on the base to get my
hair cut. She would drop me off at the shop where I’d sit alongside Marines who
were either coming or going to Vietnam. I remember how big they seemed, how
strong, how brave. Trying hard not to make eye contact, I would slump in the
chair and face the mirror. A thin, freckled boyish face stared back at me.
I can still smell the shaving cream
and Windex that hung heavy in the warm, sticky air, and hear the whirr of a
corner fan that sent hair tumbling across the floor and the buzz of electric
razors that left heads shaven high and tight. Without a word, the barber would
chop my hair, dust the back of my neck, shake off the cape, and send me on my
way. I hated it. I hated being the only girl in the place. I felt small and
fragile next to the Marines with their mile-long stares, jagged scars, and
missing limbs. But my parents didn’t think much of nurturing femininity, so
they insisted I go. It didn’t matter that I was just a girl.
After every haircut, I would go home
and pull on a stocking hat that I’d gotten for Christmas. It didn’t matter
whether it was summer or winter. I’d always wear it. It had a yellow tassel at
the end, and I would toss it over my shoulder as if it were a braid of long
golden hair. I loved how it felt down my back. After having read “The Lord of
Rings” countless times, I would imagine my luxurious hair falling over pointed
ears, my perfect skin shining, my eyebrows slanted upward over blue, sparkling
eyes. I would pull on a sheet and tie it around my neck as if it were a cloak.
I was an elf from Rivendell. Gentle, strong, and beautiful. That was my
fantasy.
Of course, my mom made me take my
stocking hat off before I went out to play. “It’s silly to wear that thing,”
she would say. Off I’d go, climbing trees with the boys in the neighborhood,
picking hornworms from tobacco plants in a nearby field, and building forts in
vacant lots. As I chased fireflies and romped through the woods, I would forget
my hair. But then I’d glance in the mirror as I cleaned my dirty hands and be
reminded of just how plain, how boyish I really looked, and I’d pull the
stocking hat back on.
The
Trial of Growing Into Womanhood
Such are the trials of growing up as
a girl, of longing to be a beautiful woman. My hair was only part of it. I was
a tomboy, flat-chested and skinny. I thought of that as I listened to
commentators go on and on about Jenner’s perfect breasts. “How sexy, how perky,
how lovely,” they gushed. How nice for Bruce not to suffer the indignities of
developing real breasts. Some girls develop early, others develop late. There’s
the teasing, the awkwardness, the silliness. We endure it. It’s all part of a
girl becoming a woman.
There’s the teasing, the
awkwardness, the silliness. We endure it. It’s all part of a girl becoming a
woman.
My development was particularly
humiliating. While all my friends had developed nice, full breasts early, my
boyish looks held fast—until the little buds began to grow in middle school.
The thing was, with me, they didn’t exactly grow evenly. The right one
developed before the left one. I was painfully self-conscious about it, and
would wrap myself with tape when my mom had me wear a fitted shirt. Not knowing
much about such things, I became convinced something was terribly wrong with me
and that I probably had breast cancer. I wanted to tell my mom, but I was too
ashamed. So I kept silent, keeping my worries to myself.
That changed when I became sick with
bronchitis, and my mom took me to the hospital on the base where a corpsman
asked me to remove my shirt so he could listen to me breathe. Sheer panic took
over. I started crying hysterically and refused to take off my shirt. The
corpsman asked my mom to leave the room. After several questions about whether
I’d been abused, I told him the truth. “I have breast cancer, and I’m going to
die,” I sobbed.
Looking back, I realize now how kind
and patient the corpsman was. He took his time examining me as if I might have
cancer. Then he told me to put my shirt on. “You don’t have cancer,” he said
gently. “You’re just growing up, becoming a woman. Sometimes both sides don’t
develop at the same time. It’s normal. They’ll eventually even out. Nothing to
be afraid of.” He asked my mom to step into the room and explained what was
wrong. He put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Mom, I think it’s time to buy
this young lady a bra.”
My mother was horrified, and she felt
like a complete failure as a mom. Of course, she wasn’t. How could she have
known what I was going through, since I didn’t say anything? We laugh about it
to this day, and it’s a running joke in our family, but it’s part of life, part
of a girl becoming a woman.
Surgery
Can’t Give Bruce Jenner XX Chromosomes
Not every girl has such an
embarrassing story, but each one remembers. They know what it’s like to grow up
and become a woman, and those experiences are integral to shaping their
feminine identity—and an identity that is rooted in their nature, in their
genes, not in their fantasies. It’s something no transgender man can ever know.
He might become an imitation of woman with artificial breasts and hormone
injections, but he will never be a girl who became a woman—and that is all the
difference in the world.
Bruce Jenner will never know what
it’s like to wait expectantly for that first period.
He will never know what it’s like to
wait expectantly for that first period. Like everything else with me, things
didn’t develop quite as I’d imagined; mine was late in coming. All my friends
had started, but I was going into high school with no period. Then one summer
day, as I was getting ready to attend a wedding, the magic happened. My heart
raced, and my face flushed. I was so relieved, so happy. I was finally a woman
like my friends. I wasn’t destined to be a freak like I was afraid I’d become.
At one point, I even thought I was going to become a man, and I regularly
checked my chin for stubble. But those worries were gone, and my monthly
reminder of being a woman began.
That early delight faded pretty
quickly as the pain and drudgery of menstruation set in. I had heavy flows,
cramps, and lots of accidents. The worst was in ninth grade, when I was sitting
beside a boy I liked at school. It was an extended class because we were
testing that day. I was wearing blue slacks and had lost count of my days
between periods. As I sat there, pink-cheeked and stealing glances at the boy
next to me, I felt that sudden warm flow, and knew I had to get to the
bathroom. I raised my hand, and the teacher excused me.
When I got there, I realized I had
leaked all the way through. Thankfully, my mom worked at the school, and she
went home to get me a change of clothes. When I returned to the classroom and
approached my seat, I looked down in horror to see blood smeared on it, now dry
and browning. The girl who sat behind me snickered, and the boy wouldn’t look
at me. I considered that a kindness. I sat down and tried to clean it off with
my palms. I never looked at that boy the same way again.
Jenner won’t have to endure such
humiliations. He’ll never know what it’s like to be a girl, to bravely face the
realities, not the fantasies, of nature. He won’t know the joys, either. The
comfort of a girl resting in her father’s strong arms. The sweetness a woman
feels when her husband makes love to her and they create life together. The
soft movements of a child as she or he grows inside her womb. The peace she
feels as she feeds her baby at her breast, having given life and now sustaining
it.
The celebration of Jenner “becoming
a woman” is a fantasy. It’s artificial. It’s make-believe. It’s not authentic
at all. It’s a mirage. Jenner has always fantasized that he’s a woman, dreaming
of the possibilities of becoming what he imagines himself to be. But
possibilities in life are only fantasies when they aren’t rooted in something
real. You can’t become a woman without being a girl, complete with XX
chromosomes that determine our sex. The man posing as a woman on the cover of Vanity
Fair is a delusional mockery of every woman who knows what it’s like to be
a girl with all the pains, humiliations, and joys of actually growing up and
becoming a woman—and each one of us, in different ways, has faced it bravely
through every stage.
Denise C. McAllister is a journalist
based in Charlotte, NC, and a senior contributor to The Federalist.
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