Royal Frills

Madonna

I do not understand why anyone would write a book about me. I was only 10 years old so it was limited to what people could write. I spent all my life being me and I do not think that I could write a book about myself. Dad told me that the book would reveal secrets and some bits of the book would not be true. If secrets were revealed, it meant that some people who knew me would have to speak to the author. This made me think of who would spill the beans. It worried me about who I could trust and who I could not trust. I was afraid that after reading the book, I would be wondering who told this author about me? This was very scary as it meant that everyone around me would be a suspect.

Shortly after my parents left, I woke up in the middle of the night and heard Niki crying. Niki never cried. He did not even cry when his family did not visit him. I tried whispering to him and asking him why was he crying. I tried asking him if I should get help. Niki just sniffled and told me that he just wanted to be alone. I wanted to go over to him and help in any way that I could. This was hard as I was trapped in a crib. I just listened to Niki sob and tried not to bother him. Niki was always smiling and optimistic. I had never seen this side of him before. It just shows that Niki is human and his feelings could be hurt. Everyone is capable of being hurt in some way. We can put on our best smiles, but when someone hurts us, the pain will always be there.

My Grandmother was worried about me. She was not worried that I wanted to be at the institute, she was more worried about my privacy. The Royal palace sent a statement from the Queen that "The prince is at the Victorian Virtue Institute where he is discovering his identity and place in this world. The Prince has found the feminine side of himself and could be transgender. This is the same for the other boys at the institute. However, the other boys are lucky that they are not in the public eye as the prince is, where the prince is being judged and at times even mocked. The Queen will support the prince even if he discovers that he is transgender. The Queen also reminds us that the prince is a child, and deserves privacy and time to discover who he is. This is a challenging time for the prince and his family, and the Royal palace hopes that the media will give the 10-year-old prince the space and time that he needs."

I was so proud of my grandmother. She disagreed with this institute and the way we were treated. She considers it a form of child abuse. Still, she knows that I like it here and that I am happy. I also think that Granny can see a feminine side of me that has nothing to do with the petticoat program. She just wants me to find my identity and not have to do it in the public eye. I have a grandmother who loves me and wants to protect me. This made me one lucky boy.

Madam Criben gave us another class and told us that she noticed that many of us thought that we were still boys. We referred to ourselves as boys and used male pronouns. She said that this had to stop. We are no longer boys. We are not girls either. We are sissies. Being a sissy is not bad and it is not a punishment. It means that we are like we are genderfluid. We are not afraid of showing our feminine sides. We are not afraid of being girly. The world may think that this is wrong and we are just freaks. The world may think that we are being forced to be girly, but we know that this is not true. Madam Criben wanted us to be proud of who we were. She did not want us to refer to each other as "boys". If we were to use pronouns about each other, we would now have to use the term "she".

Blake was mad about this. He asked me why no one could see that this was another step to get rid of any masculinity that we had. I did not respond. All I thought about was now that everyone would call me "she" or "her".

Julia sent me a letter. She loved the visit to the institute. It was still hard for her to understand why the institute was allowed to do what they did. However, she was relieved that I was so happy. The problem my sister had was that everything seemed so empty when she went back to the palace. She wrote that she missed me. To be honest, I also miss Julia. She may only be 7 years old, but she is fun to be with and in many ways wiser than me.