She’d never really given her body much consideration until then. She liked to run around and she liked to braid her friends’ hair and she liked to climb trees. This was what having a body was for, and her body was pretty good at all of these things. She’d never thought too hard about her hair or her clothes - short hair and shorts were best for not getting muddy, but sometimes it was fun to be cute and pretty too!
Her parents never thought her interests were strange or unusual. They were happy to buy her dolls to dress up, and cars to race around the house. They cheered her on when she did her hair all fancy with butterfly clips and strutted down the hallway - though then the clips all fell out, so she never bothered wearing them to school.
Her friends were all girls, because something about girls just seemed to make sense to her, even though there was really no difference at that age. If other people thought it was weird, she didn’t notice. She was too busy playing wolves under the trees with her pack.
Then, halfway through fourth grade, things changed. The teachers separated the kids into boys and girls, and suddenly the difference mattered. She watched her friends trot down the hall and felt a pang in her chest, but of course she didn’t like being separated from them, right? Wouldn’t anyone be sad about that?
Afterwards, in the bathroom, she stared at her face in the mirror, feeling something she’d never quite felt before. She thought about the boys in the videos they watched, thought about how their voices deepened and faces squared and bodies sprouted with hair. She tried to imagine her body expanding, deepening, voice dropping and becoming gruff, and her reflection blurred.
She joined her friends for lunch. She felt at once nearer and farther from them as she’d ever been. She listened as they talked about how gross the video about periods was, and felt her gut twist. She imagined them taller and older and felt a sharp pain in her chest.
That afternoon she got home and ran to her mom. “Mommy, I think my body is confused.”
“What do you mean, sweetie?” She put her book down, concerned.
She explained the videos from school. “I think they showed me the wrong video. I’m supposed to grow up like you did, not like Daddy.”
Her mother gave her a tight hug, and told her everything was going to be okay. She called her husband and he came home early, and the three of them cuddled on the couch and talked. Her father cooked her favorite meal, and put on her favorite robot show. She gulped, swallowed again, and said, “I want to be Jenny.”
And Jenny went to school the next day, and her parents started calling doctors.