After school, a group of six or seven of us walked home together. Two of the group, Patrick and Nigel were giving Andrew and his brother a hard time about having dresses and wearing them. They defended themselves by claiming that they don’t like them, they’d rather not wear them and only do so because their mother makes them. I also backed them up, using the analogy of our school uniforms. “None of us want to wear this everyday but we have to.” I said. “We all have to wear what we’re told to an extent,” I added. The retort was one of ‘if my mum bought me a dress would I wear it?’, to which my reply was, “I’d rather not but like I say, we all have to wear what we’re told sometimes.”

Andrew’s brother Mark began to explain how both he and his brother had tried their best to avoid wearing their dresses, especially out of the house, but this was met with a torrent of abuse from Patrick. None of us were more shocked than Patrick when Andrew thumped him in the face, sending him crashing to the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes as he picked himself up, but his abuse continued as he parted from the group. Not wanting to receive the same or similar, Nigel muttered an apology to Andrew and Mark, before heading off after Patrick. “That certainly showed him,” I said to Andrew as he checked his hand still working.

“He’s always been a mouth ache,” Andrew replied, before thanking me for backing him up.

“No worries,” I replied. “Is your hand all right?”

“Yeah I think so.” he gulped, but it clearly hurt. Not surprising as it was some whack!

I mentioned the incident to my mother when I got home but spared here the finer details. Mum claimed that Andrew should have just ignored Patrick instead of hitting him. I would have done, but then again, I’m not much of a fighter. Patrick wasn’t in school the following day, and Andrew’s hand was in a bandage. The day after that, however, a very sheepish Patrick did turn up, sporting a very black eye. Wisely, he kept himself away from Andrew, but I’d heard that the headmaster had had words with both of them. I told my mum about Patrick’s shiner, and whilst she agreed that he probably had it coming, she maintained that there’s never an excuse for violence.

On the weekend, I went into town with Mum, as usual, to help her carry the weekly shop. I was used to seeing the ‘boy’ mannequins dressed in girl’s clothing in the shop windows, but seeing actual boys wearing skirts or dresses in the town center is still an unusual sight. One poor lad looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole as he walked with his parents through the main square. Clad from head to toe in various shades of pink, he wore a candy pink satin dress that would be too girlie for most girls, let alone a boy! His pale pink tights had little white love hearts on and even his shoes were pink with little kitten heels. But worst of all was the big pink ribbon tied on his very boyish head. Mum thought he looked sweet. I said it must be horrible having to wear something that prissy. “It wouldn’t be so bad wearing a dress if it was plain, blue maybe, and not satin or frilly,” I added.

“I don’t see the point of plain dresses for boys” Mum replied. “ they’re going to wear plain clothes then they may as well just wear what they’ve always worn.” she mused. “If I was buying you a dress it’d be a really pretty one,” she suggested, much to my horror.

“Please don’t,” I asked. The level of fear was evident in my voice.