(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

The boys told me that they had decided that we could not be around each other anymore and that I was no longer a little sister or a friend. They said that I would fully understand when I got older. I was devastated. My whole life altered without my consent and I resented it. When I vented my frustrations, both males and females would remark that it was surprising that the boys allowed me to play with them for that long, as if I should have been grateful for having a prolonged opportunity to be welcomed and respected in male circles. The reigning consensus was that it was more appropriate for me to be somewhere playing with dolls with girls.

In hindsight, a part of my free spirit died while a fire flamed in my spirit simultaneously. Suddenly, I was thrust into a world that made me wholly responsible for which gender I was around, what I wore when in the opposite sex’s presence and how easily I could be dismissed. The ultimate burden I absorbed was that as a female, my body was a source that uniquely identified and draped me with guilt and shame. Be damned, my spirit refused to be completely broken. I was not going to be put in a box that I did not craft.

Read all of this (freaking fantastic) piece by Elischia Fludd here.