The Cheltenham Ladies’ College has turned out thousands of dazzlingly successful Old Girls. There is also, as far as I can work out, one Old Boy: me.
When I came out as trans in 2008, I was studying for my GCSEs at an unremarkable comp in a shabby industrial town. I was the first trans person that a lot of my friends had ever met, so a lot of the support I received was a little clumsy. But it was support.
With it, I grew in confidence. I cut my hair short, ditched my feminine clothing and started wearing copious amounts of Lynx body spray – I was a teenage boy, after all.
So, when my parents announced that I was being sent to an all-girls’ boarding school, it felt like a punishment for rebelling against my assigned gender.
I tried to fight. Every night I railed against the idea, attempting to make them realise that it wasn’t what I wanted. But ultimately what I wanted didn’t matter – I was going. I hadn’t actually come out to them so I suspect the fact I’d stopped using my birth name might have tipped them off to the fact I was trans.
In some ways, it was an adventure. Like many, I grew up on the Harry Potter books, and the Hogwarts-esque architecture enticed me, with its promise of magic and heroism.
However, if they’d focused a little more on all the therapy Harry probably ended up needing, I might have realised what I was letting myself in for.
Stuffing myself back in the closet was agony. Even in Sixth Form, school uniform was compulsory, and this uniform was fitted to every contour of my awkward post-pubertal form.
It was a thin green v-neck with a narrow waist over a white blouse that girls were always getting told off for ‘showing’ their bras through because the material was so flimsy. Pinstripe blue trousers were cut to accentuate the hips, my least favourite feature on myself.
Cut off from support, I was stuck in a women-only space trying to navigate my own fledgling masculinity. I had no frame of reference for manhood, which resulted in a few bizarre affectations. I was making wild guesses about how young men should behave and trying to integrate that into my personality.
Half way through my first term I was suspended for bleaching my hair to look like Sick Boy from Trainspotting. After attempting to survive on a diet of Bovril and instant noodles because I had romanticised the ‘bachelor lad’ archetype, I developed scurvy.
More successfully, I cultivated a love of cricket – I even told the school that my grandmother had died (she hadn’t) so that a friend and I could run off to London for the weekend to watch England play Australia.
I only got as far as telling the school counsellor ‘I’m struggling with my identity’ before a slight eye roll made me too afraid to keep going; it was a combination of her lukewarm attitude and my own fear.
But who could blame me? I was trying to find myself, but the school kept holding up great women for me to aspire to. I used to watch talks by Old Girls and wonder sadly if the school would ever invite me back as an Old Boy.
I was stuck in a women-only space trying to navigate my own fledgling masculinity
I felt disconnected. I thought that if I just survive school, I could start again at university.
But it wasn’t always grim.
In a single-sex space, there’s no enforced gender binary, resulting in brief moments of gender euphoria. When I dressed as David Tennant’s Doctor for Heroes and Villains Day, I came back to my boarding house to discover I was the talk of the third years – they seemed to think I was someone’s brother.
I got plenty of attention from girls my own age too.
With my short hair and masculine dress, I was presumed to be gay – which I am, just not in the way that some of them were hoping. I’m a gay trans man, which means I’m attracted to other men.
I never knew what to do with the girls’ advances. When one put her hand on my thigh during an end-of-year assembly, I just assumed she was being friendly – the complexities of female friendships had always confused me and I put this down as yet another thing I didn’t understand.
I made a poor job of pretending to be a girl. When I came out again in my second year, one friend responded: ‘Why did you feel the need to tell me that?’
I was surprised, not entirely comforted, and taken aback. Still too afraid to come out to teachers.
I didn’t try reasoning with my parents again; I’d cried for nights on end the first time and it didn’t get me anywhere – although my mum has since apologised.
Apparently I had been living in a glass closet the whole time – possibly something to do with bawling my eyes out at Brokeback Mountain in my first year, or writing a 3000-word essay on the works of Alan Bennett. I mean, I should’ve known I was gay and trans the whole time!
Although I wasn’t unpopular – I was shortlisted as a prefect – I have few friends left from my time at CLC. I was desperately lonely, despite being surrounded by friendly, energetic people day and night.
If you had asked me at 17 what I would be doing 10 years later, I would have been surprised that I was going to live that long. At that time in my life, I had no plans for the future. I had still never met another trans person so had no idea what a future looked like.
Believe me, men don’t want to be in women’s spaces.
Looking back, it was awful. I do think the school does a wonderful job for most of its students but being trans male in an all-girls’ environment is absolutely crushing.
Whatever the upsides of being in such an esteemed establishment, I didn’t feel fully able to make the best of my education there due to the constant dysphoria.
Having worked in schools since, it’s heartening to see more young people feeling able to come out.
Though I have known schools prevent trans students from wearing gender-affirming clothing at prom, I have also seen teachers who want the best for their students having productive discussions on how to support trans kids.
And something like that can really make a difference, believe me.
LGBTQ+ Pride week
From 22-28 June, Metro.co.uk is spotlighting the voices of LGBTQ+ people and the unique challenges they face.
If you have an experience you would like to share, please email james.besanvalle@metro.co.uk with LGBTQ+ Pride week as the subject.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/23/came-transgender-girls-school-12885800/
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