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Puberty was a special kind of hell for Sidney. His body, which he wasn’t that fond of before that, was doing new, awful things all of the time. He was getting bulkier, his voice started to crack and drop. Worst of all, he started to have wet dreams.
He had sex ed. He knew that all of this was completely normal for a 12 year old boy. Before now his penis was just an annoyance. He kept it clean and didn’t pay it much attention. Now it was demanding attention and getting bigger. It was so alien to Sidney, like it wasn’t really his even though it was attached to him.
He got hard at the worst times, like in class or trying to put on his jock before practice. The other boys on the team were laughing about jerking off and talking about breasts and Sidney just kept his mouth shut. The only reason he noticed Nadine’s breasts was because he was jealous of them.
At least sex ed had taught him a little more about himself. All his confusion and annoyance at his body pointed to something called Gender Identity Disorder. Ben had laughed and said those people were trannies which their teacher got mad at. Apparently that was a negative term for a transsexual and it made Sidney feel weird.
Sidney didn’t say anything in class, but he read his textbook over and over again.
Gender identity disorder (GID) or transsexualism is defined by strong, persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with one's own assigned sex. People with GID desire to live as members of the opposite sex and often dress and use mannerisms associated with the other gender. For instance, a person identified as a boy may feel and act like a girl. This is distinct from homosexuality in that homosexuals nearly always identify with their apparent sex or gender.
Identity issues may manifest in a variety of different ways. For example, some people with normal genitals and secondary sex characteristics of one gender privately identify more with the other gender. Some may cross-dress, and some may actually seek sex-change surgery.
He didn’t act like a girl. That was the only thing that was off. He would play with dolls when Taylor wanted to and have tea parties. But he only did those things with Taylor because she was his sister.
His dad always acted weird when he had played with the girls across the street when he was younger. He told him that boys didn’t play house and Sidney protested that it was what Jenny and Caroline wanted to do and he was just going along with them.
So Sidney concentrated on hockey instead. That made his dad happy and it didn’t matter who he was on the ice. It made him happy too.
To a point.
Eventually he had to get off the ice and go back to the real world where his friends were talking about jerking off and he would get hard too often and his body that wasn’t developing breasts even though he wanted it to. And he was starting to think of himself as a girl in his head all the time.
Sidney was miserable, angry, and wished he could tell the truth. His mom had even taken him to a doctor to talk about why he was so upset. But the doctor had told him that since he was under 18, he was obligated to tell Sidney’s parents if it was something harmful to Sidney’s well-being. So he didn’t say anything important. Just that school was hard and hockey was taking a lot of time.
Sidney ripped the page about Gender Identity Disorder out of his textbook at the end of the year and kept it in his wallet as he got older. By the time Sidney had a therapist confirm that yes, Sidney did have Gender Identity Disorder, it had been there for almost twelve years.