This torrent of truth made me blush. Mum turned to Hannah and asked for a list of suspected borrowed items. “School tights, black ones and blues ones. Gym knickers, a few panty & vest sets, my white floral tights, those grey knitted woolly ones, various ‘natural’ pairs and those white pop socks I wore with my cheerleader costume.” she said, before listing several pairs of panties and matching vests. “..but they didn’t disappear as often as my tights did.”
I wanted to disappear inside myself, especially when Mum asked “No skirts or dresses then?”
“No!” I insisted. My sister said she probably wouldn’t notice if I had, since a skirt or dress would be returned to the wardrobe rather than hidden in the laundry basket. I insisted once more that I haven’t been wearing her clothes. Hannah said she believed me, but stated that she does suspect that I’ve borrowed her leotard on a couple of occasions. She used to attend a tap dancing class and wore thick white tights with a black camisole leotard with an opaque wrap mini skirt. It was seeing her wearing that outfit that I first began to wonder what it might be like to wear tights, but being a boy, it was something I shouldn’t really have been wondering about. Hannah only did tap class for a year and since then, her leotard had sat in the bottom of a box in Mum’s wardrobe. I confessed to wearing her leotard, and to wearing an old swimming costume too.
“But… why?” Mum asked. “You didn’t go swimming did you?”
“No.” I gulped. “I just wanted to know what it felt like… boys don’t wear anything like that and…” I tried to explain my intrigue. How things that look weird or unusual capture our imagination and tempt us, taunt us, even. I wish I explained it that well to my mother and sister. In reality I stammered my way through scraps of thoughts and fragmented feelings, how a pair of tights is a like a big pair of socks and shorts, all in one… how a leotard and swimsuit is a vest and undies all in one… how I wondered if tights only looked nice and whether they were actually warm or not.
“Surely you’ve worn them enough times to know that they’re warm.” Mum asked.
“Only under long pants though.” I replied. “I’ve no idea if the girl’s at school are freezing or not.” I said. “Some of them don’t even wear tights in the winter!”
“That’s because girls are tougher than boys.” my sister smugly stated.
“I know.” I replied. “…and they can wear what they like and no one thinks they’re weird.” I added. “You can be girlie one day and a tom-boy the next and no one bats an eyelid… but boys have to just be boys.”
“I know what you’re saying Peter.” Mum replied. “But I grew up in the era of Boy George and the New Romantics, Julian Clary and Eddie Izzard… we understand that gender isn’t binary.”
I wasn’t sure what ‘gender isn’t binary’ meant until my sister described the spectrum. “I’m not gay… and I don’t think I was born in the wrong body…” I claimed. “I just think we should be allowed to wear what we want.”
“So you do want to wear skirts and dresses?!” Hannah quizzed.
“No…” I claimed. “I mean… I wonder what it’s like… you know, walking to and from school wearing a skirt and tights in the middle of winter.” I said, imagining that it must be freezing. “I don’t want to try it… I just can’t help but wonder if they’re warm or not.”
“Well you could have just asked.”
“I know… and I’m sorry.” I meekly replied. “I guess my intrigue got the better of me.”
“Well we’ve been over the whys and wherefores.” Mum said. “You didn’t ask because you were too shy… and you should have been more discreet when giving your brother his Christmas present… what we need to talk about is what next?”
“What do you mean?” I reluctantly asked.
“Well… it’s all out in the open, although we all knew long before yesterday… I’m happy for you to try different things, your Dad is too… and from what your sister’s said, she’s not bothered either.”
“Providing you ask first.” Hannah stated.
“Of course.” Mum replied. “However there needs to be some boundaries… I don’t want you walking down the street wearing a dress.”
“I don’t want to wear a dress.”
“It’s just an example.” Mum retorted. “If you do begin to ‘wonder’ what it might be like, than there’s plenty to choose from.”
“I won’t!”