Flashback to the third grade. Soccer team, my mother put me on the soccer team…long read hair all over the place, dirty knees, muddy sneakers cause I didn't want to be a girly girl. Soccer team would prove that, sports proved that. I wasn't one of them. I didn't play with dolls, I didn't crimp my hair, I wasn't all about shopping. I was more than that.

More than what?

That feminine, girl next door, I hated her.
I was strong like the boys. I played like the boys. Hell, I even played with the boys.

So why was I rejecting the girls in their skirts, twirling their hair, standing on the sidelines? Why did that notion of so-called 'femininity' repulse me? What is it about the feminine that is so 'uncool'?

I am running around the field with my dad, kicking the ball, hair flapping wildly in the wind, running and kicking with every muscle in my body, pushing my entire tiny girly frame into that ball, concentrating on my physical strength. Mom put me on the soccer team. Not the girl's soccer team, because that did not exist. The boys soccer team. The macho, strong, aggressive, boys soccer team. Just me and another tomboy blonde the only females. I remember her as shy and extremely sweet.
The boys were bigger, better, stronger.
Most of the time we sat out on the sidelines.

My memory fails me, but I remember instances of boys laughing and smirking amongst themselves. Boys smiling as one of us girls failed. Some boys nice to us, but yet in a pitying manner- we're so sorry, little girl, we know it is much, much harder for you.

Picture perfect typical Brooklyn childhood scene. Practicing on large open grassy field while noisy cars, sirens, neighbors, kids, parents, scorched at heightening levels nearby. Picture perfect Brooklyn scene of the macho boys with their macho New Yawk Dads giving their sons a hearty pat on the back, looking at me, laughter pouring out of their pupils.
I feel it, I swallow it, and move on.
I kick that ball with all my might cause it is better this way than sitting on the park bench with the sissies and their stupid dolls.

I remember the youngest boy on the team. Cute little thing. But different, very different, and different is bad, just like girls are bad. His hair reached down to his chin, shiny and bright, flopping around in the wind. His mom was energetic and friendly. The boy was the butt of every joke. The other boys looked at him in contempt. Why did he want to look like a girl? Why did he wear his hair that way? I listened to the chirping mothers surrounding me, whispering, smirking, nagging, ignorance brimming out through the tops of their ten foot tall teased 80's hairdo's. Disillusioned to find out that my own mother joined in sometimes, despite her so-called teachings of tolerance and acceptance and all.

"Why does that mother keep his hair that way? Doesn't she realize how much teasing he is receiving because of it? Why doesn't she just make him look like a boy?"

Because looking like a girl is so goddamned awful.
Playing like a girl is even goddamned worse.

So I practiced with them all. But what kind of attention did I receive? Was I encouraged, corrected, praised when I did good? I don't recall. And then the games came. I loved the shiny colors of the uniform. There I was all snug and proud and sparkly in my get-up. I loved the smell of them-that sweaty, smelly, muddy, hard-working dirty boy smell that said Nicole Beth, you are a true sportsMan. I loved them socks we had to wear-all the way up to our knees, the same ones every time. And the kleets! How exciting kleets were, and the muddier and more worn they were, the better, stronger, more powerful player you were.

So I was all ready. On the bench I sat. And sat. And waited. And sat. And grew restless. My shy blonde companion sat next to me, and together we sat, waited, grew restless, our hands on our laps, not a word escaping our little girl lips.

But one day a few words escaped my mother's girl lips as she stood up to my chauvinistic uncaring coach and told him to put me the hell out on the field or else. Go mom.

So there I was in the game, but lost.

I didn't have the same skills the others had, and I sucked.

I put all the blame on me- why did I suck so much, why why why? Why did I have to be a girl? I really was weak like the girls. I couldn't escape being a little girl after all, could I? Why did I ever think I could? Some other girls did, sure, but they were the lucky few. Most girls were girly girls, and sadly, that included me.

I ran around the field, no really sure what to do. The ball might have come to me once, I don't remember, but definitely not more than that. I was clueless. I was intimidated. I felt meek and small and insecure running around that field, and suddenly that costume that was so shiny and bright and strong felt like a clown's suit. And I was the star of the circus.

No one taught me what to do. Sure, I practiced. Without much help and advice. Without a second glance. Without encouragement the rest of the team got. So yeah, I sucked, and why shouldn't I suck? Why did I ever think I could really change around who I was born as-
A girl?