It's a girl!
One day, my dad, who was a teacher in a school, took me to work with him. I was very little, significantly younger than a first grader, which would make me 3 or 4? He had a few classes to teach, and in the meantime, he took me down to first grade to be watched. He handed me over to a girl, whose name I don't remember, and said, "Please play with Sasha for a little while." The girl looked dubious but she took me by the hand and started taking me around her classmates. To each one she'd say: "Would you like to play with Sasha?" I got eyed up and down, and most people declined.
I wasn't paying attention, just looking around: I had never been to a school. Finally, I tuned in to what she was actually saying: "Would you like to play with this nice little boy Sasha?"
The customer she was trying to pawn me off on said, "I don't play with boys."
"Wait, wait!" I said, "I'm a girl!"
She took a second look, also looking dubious, and finally said, "I still don't want to play with you."
It was clear that she did not believe that I was a girl. Thankfully, at that point, the bell rang and saved me from more humiliation, as we went into the classroom and got busy with arts and crafts.
It was a fairly embarrassing experience.
You see, in Russia, there was a certain code of behavior and attire to which most people conformed; if it wasn't followed, confusion ensued. For example, little girls wore little dresses, tights and bows in their long braided hair. In fact, little dresses were really all you could find in the Russian stores for little girls to wear.
I, on the other hand, always sported Osh Kosh overalls, which had been snuck into the country, or sent with some travelers, covertly, via certain relatives who had studied in St Petersburg, and now lived in France. This seems hard to believe, but you couldn't really communicate with the West by any means, including mail.
Additionally, my name was "Sasha," essentially a boy's name (like Alex), and not Lena or Natasha, like all the other little girls. I also had very fine hair, a result of cold St. Petersburg climate, and so I always had a short haircut. On top of that, I wasn't allowed to pierce my ears because mom thought it was tacky on a child.
There was basically nothing to prove that I was a girl:
I completely understand and don't blame the first-grader who thought I was a boy, and the other first-grader who didn't believe me when I assured her of the opposite. Can you blame them, I mean really! For all intents and purposes, I'm a boy:
Unbelievably, this did not cause me to be deeply traumatized, or induce a gender identity disorder or make me allergic to first-graders.
From then on, I simply went around and introduced myself only as "Sasha-girl," to avoid any serious misunderstandings.
Until I grew boobies... more about that later :)
I wasn't paying attention, just looking around: I had never been to a school. Finally, I tuned in to what she was actually saying: "Would you like to play with this nice little boy Sasha?"
The customer she was trying to pawn me off on said, "I don't play with boys."
"Wait, wait!" I said, "I'm a girl!"
She took a second look, also looking dubious, and finally said, "I still don't want to play with you."
It was clear that she did not believe that I was a girl. Thankfully, at that point, the bell rang and saved me from more humiliation, as we went into the classroom and got busy with arts and crafts.
It was a fairly embarrassing experience.
You see, in Russia, there was a certain code of behavior and attire to which most people conformed; if it wasn't followed, confusion ensued. For example, little girls wore little dresses, tights and bows in their long braided hair. In fact, little dresses were really all you could find in the Russian stores for little girls to wear.
I, on the other hand, always sported Osh Kosh overalls, which had been snuck into the country, or sent with some travelers, covertly, via certain relatives who had studied in St Petersburg, and now lived in France. This seems hard to believe, but you couldn't really communicate with the West by any means, including mail.
Additionally, my name was "Sasha," essentially a boy's name (like Alex), and not Lena or Natasha, like all the other little girls. I also had very fine hair, a result of cold St. Petersburg climate, and so I always had a short haircut. On top of that, I wasn't allowed to pierce my ears because mom thought it was tacky on a child.
There was basically nothing to prove that I was a girl:
I completely understand and don't blame the first-grader who thought I was a boy, and the other first-grader who didn't believe me when I assured her of the opposite. Can you blame them, I mean really! For all intents and purposes, I'm a boy:
Unbelievably, this did not cause me to be deeply traumatized, or induce a gender identity disorder or make me allergic to first-graders.
From then on, I simply went around and introduced myself only as "Sasha-girl," to avoid any serious misunderstandings.
Until I grew boobies... more about that later :)
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