My name was Nancy Anne up until three years ago. I always thought of myself as a boy, or a man. What was on the inside did not always match with what my reflection showed in the mirror.
It all started when I was 2 years old. I was jumping on my parents' bed, and in my mother's dresser mirror, I saw a girl jumping on the bed. Who was this girl I saw? It didn't look like me at all. Was I dreaming -- more like a nightmare -- or was it really who I was? So I jumped off the bed and, hardly able to reach my mom's pin box, on my tiptoes I grabbed a hat pin and poked my eye with it. "Ouch!" I said and realized I was not dreaming. That little girl was ME. Hearing me, my mother got off her phone call quickly and ran into the room. "Oh my God!" she said in her Puerto Rican accent, "Nancy are jew crazy?!" I said "I thought I was a boy!" She said "No, I am bery sorry you are not a boy. You are a girl and that is how it is."
I was confused and heartbroken, as though I had entered a nightmare and could not wake up. I decided when I was 5 years old that my hair needed to be short and that I should wear boys' clothes. Thank God I had an older brother who had clothes that were too small for him. When I was around 7 or 8, he caught me trying on his jock strap and underwear and admiring the look in his mirror. I feel it was more embarrassing for him than it was for me. Honestly it felt quite normal wearing a boy's underclothes.
Not everybody in my family understood my point of view, but my grandfather on my Dad's side always let me play dress up with his clothes. His name was John. He would make windsor knots on his old ties and let me try them on. I loved playing dress up with his stuff. I felt he accepted me and knew somehow that I was really a boy.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. More to come...
