Where’s the Boy?

Elizabeth had been transitioning for a year and a half. For most of that time her testosterone had been higher than the ideal ranges for feminisation, and her estrogen had been a little too low. She'd had a slow start. She usually only looked like a slightly different boy, and she had bought or acquired most of her clothes while still living under the pretence of boyhood. She had technically worn skirts before, but only ever for a few minutes at a time, in cramped op shop cubicles with dusty mirrors and bland lighting, and friends who were on their way to somewhere else.

Now, at home, she was wearing her housemate Warren's skirt, trying on different shirts and woollen jumpers and scarves to try and make an outfit. She wandered back and forth along the hallway between her bedroom, where her clothes were, and Warren's bedroom, where the narrow full-body mirror was. Warren was studying in the lounge room, which was between their bedrooms. Music videos were playing on the television in the background. Elizabeth stepped into the lounge room and did a little twirl. The pleated skirt didn't twirl very well, but Warren smiled and performed a happy applause.

Elizabeth wandered back to the mirror, and she knew that it was only because of the lighting and the face she was making, how she was posing and how she was feeling in that moment, but she looked in the mirror and saw herself and thought – where's the boy? I can't see the boy right now – and that was a moment of happiness.

Saskia is a queer and disabled aspiring writer who is in the process of producing a little oeuvre of microfictions.

Illustration by H J Ford.