Writing
I Wore A Skirt to School
It was the last day of grade 7 and I already knew I was switching schools. The school I was at was too full for the program I was in at the time, and my classmates and I were to be moved to a smaller school with a free classroom. So, knowing I was leaving behind these kids forever (or likely forever - who really stayed connected before everyone had cellphones?) I decided to wear a skirt.
It's important to note for accuracy and hilarity that I was 5'4" and approx. 110 pounds in grade 7. I was well used to wearing clothes made for someone 4 inches taller and 7 sizes bigger than me (my older brother), so most days I was swimming in clothes meant for an adult. Seeing pictures of myself from then sends me between loops of embarrassed laughter and hysterical sobbing that no-one thought to check in on me properly. CPS was used as a threat by my parents, but should have been a tool to salvage my childhood from the neglect and poverty that was so readily apparent. I digress.
Because my fashion choices were never really mine or a choice, the idea to wear a skirt is probably my first real act of self-discovery. It began as a gag because my sisters' clothes and mine were jumbled in the last washing and I found an long cotton skirt with pleats where I expected an Airwalk T-Shirt with a dog peeing on it to be.
"It's the last day of school, what could possibly come from this?" I remember thinking, ignoring the slight uptick of my heart as anticipation set in. "It's not like I _enjoy_ this."
I stepped into and pulled the skirt up over my blue jeans.
Due to physical disabilities I used to get picked up by a short bus in front of my house in the morning. The bus would come after my parents and siblings left for their schools, so leaving the house I wouldn't have anyone to check if I forgot my lunch or decided to "crossdress like a f*g" as my dad would say years later. There was even some drama the prior February when I had shown up to school wearing shorts and a t-shirt, sans a jacket. My parents had argued that "they weren't around 24/7 to dress him" so it wasn't their neglect that had caused me to be trying to go out to recess in -14C weather like that.
The bus driver Lisa was really nice and personable with all the kids she shepherded to school. Over the 3-hour daily roundtrips, she became a surrogate parental figure in the two years I had known her. She had asked me in grade 6 what radio station I wanted to listen to (102.1 CFNY, because they would talk about sex and drugs sometimes), and would tell stories of the bands she saw live as they played over the tinny speakers used for announcements when kids were screaming too loud. She didn't comment on the skirt except to warn me about tripping as I climbed into the bus.
My friends back then knew well enough not to joke too pointedly about my appearance, so there was some lag time before they realized I was "trying to be funny" with the skirt. Looking back on it, perhaps they just thought I was gay and were too unprepared to ask. Once they knew, it became a game of pantsing me. The girls at school complimented my wardrobe, though with a glint in their eye the skirt's hem scraped the laminate tiles and swept dust in my wake. They too knew that making too many comments would result in a jab back, but were happy to play along.
At recess the skirt was temporarily abandoned. Playing tag or red rover was too complicated for someone who already had issues on two legs, so for a time I would shelve the pink temptress and be a little boy playing with his little friends. Once we lined up and went back inside, I stopped briefly at my locker to don the increasingly-tattered skirt.
It's honestly remarkable that my very religious teachers refrained from pulling me aside or - as was common - publicly remonstrate me for wearing something so out-of-line for conservative Christian values. It was the last day though, so perhaps the teachers were also taking a vacation from their strictures to allow what energy was left in the kids to peter out. My heart had began to relax, until the bell rang. My heart skipped a beat, because to arrive at home where my siblings and parents would be wearing the dress would be -- AT BEST -- a grounding. I excused myself from my friends, snuck outside the school and surreptitiously threw the skirt into the dumpster. The hem was already destroyed in any case. No loss.
It would be the last time I wore anything beyond jeans, t-shirts and button-ups until I transitioned. I didn't even know that "switching sexes" was a real thing outside of polyjuice potions, but I would think back on this over the next few years.
"What if I wore a skirt all time?" I would ponder, half-awake and half-joking in English class.
"It'd be a lark, wouldn't it?"