Boy Chick -1- Carlie

I guess I knew I was queer when I started school. Up until then, I was just another little kid, maybe a bit strange, but I hadn’t seen enough of the world to notice what was different about me.

I didn’t really fit in, even in kindergarten. The boys’ rough play didn’t appeal to me as a player but I liked to watch. The girls’ acted like I had cooties so I was left alone to sit on a swing or a teeter totter while the boys scrimmaged in a game of King-of-the-mountain and the girls nattered about their doll babies and barrettes.

My name was Carl, Carl Prince, but everyone, even the teachers called me Carlie. It was what I was called at home, too. I think some of my classmates thought I was a girl pretending to be a boy. It might have been hard to tell. Some of the older boys called me queer which wasn’t the first time I had heard the word.

By the time I was in the second grade, I had another nickname. Princess. I didn’t object though some of the kids got in trouble if a teacher heard them call me that. I just smiled. I would rather be a princess than a Prince, I decided.

I liked the girls’ pretty things, their hair, their clothes, the toy jewelry they wore. But I liked the boys’ strength and energy, the things they did, even the pushing and shoving and hitting. I didn’t push or shove or hit back but I didn’t cry when someone picked on me either. At least I had their attention.

At home, I was the youngest of five and my eldest brother, Rod, had already left home and got married and had a little girl, Julie, a year or so younger than me. My other two brothers, Rich and Bill, were in high school when I started learning to read and my sister, Joanie, was nine when I was five.

Joanie had caramel-colored hair down to her waist and bright blue eyes and dimples when she smiled. Everyone said I looked just like her except I had short hair and was supposed to be a boy.

“Are you sure you’re a boy?” she would ask when we were playing alone in our room. “Maybe you’re really a girl, Carlie?”

“Okay,” I would say. I liked this game. She would get out some of her old clothes and dress me up. “Now I have a sister,” she would say. And strangely, when dressed as a girl I found it fun to play with dolls and talk nonsense about what we were wearing and do stuff that did not interest me when dressed as a boy.

It was playacting, a relief from being myself and a time to be someone else. Someone who could have fun doing the things my sister wanted to do.

Mom, whose name was Carla, came in on us at this sort of play more than once. And until I started school, she seemed to have no problem with it. At times, she even joined in the fun and played along, perhaps enjoying the idea of having two daughters. She would brush my hair and fuss about what I was wearing and comment on how pretty I was. And she would remind me that I was named after her, little Carlie and big Carla.

My father, Mike Prince, and my brothers had less welcoming reactions. My Dad accused Mom of trying to raise me as a girl and my brothers simply called me queer and sissy.

By first grade, all that sort of playacting had nearly ended. My sister was ten and had no time for a little brother, or a little sister. Most of the time. We still enjoyed it a bit if we were trapped inside on a rainy, cold day and no one was home but Mom. She would leave us alone for a time, letting Joanie and Carlie play with dolls, have tea parties, and bake pretend cookies.

But it all had to be put away when Dad came home.

Getting the chance to play like this was made easier by the fact that I shared a room with my sister until she started wearing training bras. By that time, Rich had joined the Marines and left home. So I was moved in with Bill, eight years older than me, a junior in high school.

I didn’t mind at all. Bill fascinated me and I tried to tag along everywhere he went. He didn’t know how to take that. I was proud of him, he was on the varsity at school, a three sport hero, and dating one beautiful girl after another. He didn’t want his queer little brother awkwardly hanging around when he was with his friends and he made that plain enough.

This was the late seventies and I was allowed to keep my hair almost shoulder length. More than once, one of Bill’s buddies, or worse, his girlfriends, would refer to me as Bill’s “cute little sister.” I liked that because I thought it was funny and if I overheard such a conversation I would playact it to the hilt.

I even got a Christmas present from one of his girlfriends addressed to “Carlie, Bill’s littlest sister,” because of course, she had gotten one for Joanie, too. Mine was a cheap plastic locket with a gold chain, I don’t remember what Joanie got.

Eventually, Bill went away to college, on an athletic scholarship, and I had my own room. Joanie was in high school and I was in fifth grade, tall for my age and skinny as a lawn flamingo. Joanie and I still looked a lot alike, dark blond hair and blue eyes. I still got mistaken for a girl sometimes and it still didn’t bother me.

And naturally, being a queer boy with an older sister, I had collected some of her clothing. Outfits that no longer fit her had a way of disappearing from the bcak of her closet to the back of mine. Generally, I wore them only when I was alone. I didn’t think of it as crossdressing and I had no real desire to be a girl full time but occasionally I would think how much fun it would be to wear a pretty frock out in public and be admired as a cute girl.

It might never have gone any further than that if not for puberty.