“Ewww, there’s been a boy in our cabin!” One of my cabinmates squealed. We were at sixth grade camp. Others chimed in quickly: “Gross!”
The evidence? A pair of boys’ cargo shorts, held gingerly between a thumb and forefinger as if they had cooties.
“Ew!” “Weird!” “How’d he get in here?”
The shorts were mine. But I did not admit this.
As a kid, I sometimes wore hand-me-down clothing from my older brother. It made sense. I didn’t have strong opinions about fashion, and the clothes felt just as comfortable and fit just as well as the girl clothes my parents bought for me.
My elementary school classmates didn’t seem to notice or care. But this was sixth grade. This was the first year of middle school. Things were changing, and I hadn’t quite realized the full extent of these changes. Showing up at sixth grade camp with hand-me-down boys’ shorts was taboo.
Continue reading “A Transgender Man’s Perspective on Purity Culture Got This Cisgender Woman Thinking by Liz Cooledge Jenkins”
Feminism and Religion 