I may be wrong here. But I convinced that if all had been left to my Grandmother in terms of my upbringing from age five into early adulthood, I would have have graduated from high school as a girl. I would have attended college as a young woman. My life beyond college would have been as a woman. My Grandmother passed away during my sophomore years of high school so maybe it would never have happened. If I had not decided when I was twelve to return to my life as a boy, if I had spent the seventh grade, the eighth grade, my freshman year of high school and the better part of my sophomore year of high school as a girl, would I have continued living as a girl living finally with my family? This is a question that cannot be answered. It does however seem more likely than not that by age fifteen, it would have been difficult for me to live the life of a boy.
Why did my grandmother raised me as a girl for seven years? Why did she even want to raise me as a girl? My dad had been an only child and she had wanted a large family — including a daughter (or daughters.) The Great Depression (and to a lesser extent the Second World War) kept her from the family she desired. As she had never had a daughter, she wanted a granddaughter. And the first three children born as grandchildren of hers were all male — sons, grandsons.
When I was four years old, my Grandmother started dressing me up as a girl — and would often take me out shopping for girl clothes. She did so because I had often expressed a desire to be a girl. Why did I want to be a girl? Maybe it is because I knew both my parents and my Grandma had wanted me to be a girl. I do not want to get into this whole ordeal at this time because I feel it is a bit of a ‘which came first the chicken or the egg?’ dilemma. Bottom line by the time I had turned five years old both my Grandma and myself wanted me to be a girl.
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