Dystopia For A Boy

"Why are you wearing boy shoes?" she asked.

"How come you don't put your hair in a braid?" she pressed.

"Why are you wearing boy shirts?" she continued.

"How come you never wear dresses?"

"Why are you wearing boy--"

"Because I'm not like most girls," I replied every godsforsaken time.

She shrugged. "That's strange. You really shouldn't do that. It's weird."

"So what?!" I challenged. "You're weird!" I huffed and turned away.

This wasn't the first time I was questioned. Not the second, third, fourth... I'd lost count of how many times people asked that same damn series of questions or something along the lines of it. But what more could I have suspected?

Here, boys and girls were forced to be boys and girls. Dresses and skirts for the women. Makeup, hairstyling, dancing--everything permitted for them implied femininity and, most importantly obligation. Boys received comic books and action figures for their birthdays, wasted hours away playing video games while donning baggy shorts and jerseys. Here, there existed no escape from gender conformity.

The GPD (Gender Police Department) stalked every street corner, planted themselves in the back of classrooms when someone didn't follow the norms, collected every bit of information of every individual's actions and behaviors, only to later send them home in a giant white envelope for the parents' viewing once per month to scrutinize all actions, teach kids to "act like a lady" or "be a man" and in the end, "better their lives".

By age 18, the GPD required individuals to either conform to societal standards or stay homeless on the streets living as Stragglers. Nobody would ever give a Straggler meals at a restaurant, for society would rather watch them scour the filth-ridden streets for food day and night--laugh as they beg for money and never receive any. Relying upon one another for everything necessary and obtaining nothing, Stragglers knew all too well how difficult it could be to get by. They lived lives eternally alone, never making a friend, trusting nobody but themselves.

Straggler--outcasts--lived eternally in exile. Each day was another force-feeding of the advertisements plastering every billboard, wall, and mailbox for dance classes or scouting troops, and Stragglers wept knowing they should join their designated community despite knowing solace couldn't possibly exist within it. Not for people like them.

Conformers muttered the legend of Jason Jamie to scare these Stragglers straight, then spammed every public domain with flyers and signs advertising dress or suit sales in any store within a ten-mile radius. These couldn't possibly be avoided unless someone blinded themselves or swore to never look again. Stragglers knew they belonged in one of those outfits, but not whichever one Conformers expected them to wear.

TV shows portrayed women with glamorous dresses and skirts following their careers in different forms of dance or makeup artistry, exaggerated their failed romances for viewer pleasure as well as their typical, catty girl drama. The men however, got portrayed as wrestlers or expert sportsmen and cowboys chasing after women to fall in love with and be a mirror-image of Hercules in every aspect. He had to hunt, survive, face hardships, be brave.

All this added to society's single most important belief: following gender norms is the only way to lead a successful life.

This was disgusting in every sense.

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As a little girl, I woke every morning and reached into my drawers for sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt with some favorite character plastered on it. As per usual, I sauntered into the classroom of fellow first-graders where the girls all sat in assigned chairs wearing skirts, legs crossed. They examined my outfit, eyeing me up and down at sights foreign to their minds.