I'm interested in reaction to this (as I've never told
anyone before) and also to see what out-there fucked up things you've done. The
sort of things that make you question your own sanity, your own worth. Surely
I can't be alone.
[Background, I'm a guy in my late 20s who was taken into
care aged 7.] Everyone around me already knows that I was brought up by foster
families because I had a shit early childhood. I deliberately keep it vague and
say stuff like "I'd rather not go into it" so that people will just
assume I was abused in some way and they'll stop asking about it.
The truth is that for the first 7 years of my life, I was
brought up as a girl by my pshyco birth mother who really really really wanted
a daughter and didn't let the snag of giving birth to a boy stop her from
trying to raise one.
She was a pretty successful professional in a legal field
(not entirely sure what) and had me via anonymous sperm donor from a fertility
clinic. She found out i was a boy at a late ultrasound and then moved across
the country. Gave birth to me at home and continued to move about until I was 5
or so. It was just the two of us all my life, we had contact with other people,
of course, but they rarely got very close. I had lots of friends, but was
always supervised.
I found out way way after that my mother's strong puritanical
Christianity was a lie she used to explain why she was so strict about me being
'private' and never letting anyone see me get changed or anything. I just accepted
all of this as fact, having never been told anything different.
I was sent to a religious school for girls and had a really
great childhood. I was a bit of a tomboy, and played with Lego and toy animals,
rather than dolls and stuff, but that's not unusual and no one ever questioned I
was a girl - even me. I knew about men and women, but had never really seen
much of naked people. my mother never ever spoke to me about it, but I kinda
had the impression that when I grew up and got boobs and stuff, my dick would
kinda fall off or something and I would be a woman, and other kids would keep
their dicks and they'd be men. I don’t know, to be honest, I never really
thought about it
Anyway, I carried on with my happy girlhood, and had a bunch
of friends and everything was great until I was 7 and a teacher accidentally
spilled a cup of hot coffee over me at school. The liquid soaked through my
clothes and was scalding me so the staff immediately stripped me out of my
dress and underwear to get the hot coffee away from my skin. And then they
found out.
The cops were called and I got taken to speak with who I
guess would be Social Services. They asked me a bunch of questions about life
at home and stuff. Meanwhile, my mother was taken in for questioning too. She
refused to acknowledge me as male and insisted I was her daughter. Because she
was, y'know, delusional and stuff, I wasn't allowed to go back home but got put
with a foster family and went through loads of therapy and stuff.
The worst part was that literally overnight, I lost
EVERYTHING. my mother, my home, all my toys, all my clothes, I moved school so
lost all my friends, they cut all my hair off and told me I wasn't a girl any
more. It was really really traumatic.
The first forster home wasn't that great. They had three boys
already and going from a sheltered 'religious' only-child upbringing to a
rough-and-tumble testosterone-filled environment was really difficult. They
tried to force me to be masculine and I was just too confused about what they
wanted. Anything 'girly' was reprimanded and I felt so lost and alone because
nothing I did was right.
I tried to commit suicide when I was 11 and again at 13 because
I didn't feel I fitted in anywhere. After the second attempt, they moved me to
a different foster family who were awesome. I consider them to be my parents. They
actually stood up for me, the first thing was that they let me grow my hair. From
when I got taken into care, they buzzed my hair short, and I hated it. They
always had to hold me down and do it forcibly while I was crying and fighting. My
new parents flatly refused to do it and said that loads of boys had long hair. They
also let me quit karate and football and take up swimming and jazz dance. Since
I’d been in care, no one had ever stood up for my right to choose what
activities to do, or how to dress before. It was amazing.
in the end, I came out of it with a pretty healthy gender
identity (I’m a guy, but not the most butch guy ever, but I’m fine with that),
I went through school and got my degree and have a pretty good job and an
amazing, supportive wife. Everything looks great.
But I can never speak about my early childhood, and how I grew
up as a little girl.
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