The Birth of Lesley Renee                       by: Lesley Renee Charles

 

Part 3 - The School Years

I lived in Middlesex, New Jersey until I was eight. My family then moved to Lawrenceville, New Jersey. My dad did not want to commute to work anymore was the reason that we moved. I thought that my dad would spend more time with us but it didn't work out that way. I was extremely shy as a child so it was hard for me to lose my friends. Once in the new house my preferred friends were two girls who lived across the street. This was great because I could play girl roles and play with dolls without asking my parents for them. I still did not have many male friends, I was not comfortable being with them. It did not help that I was not interested in playing sports or any other typical male behavior. My favorite past time was to read a book somewhere quiet.

Around the time I was ten, my mother told me that if I didn't keep my privates washed they would fall off. I stopped washing them because I didn't like the funny way they felt. I guess I was trying to see if my mother was right, but no they stayed on. Pity. To this day I very seldom touch them.

I started puberty when I was twelve. But I was closer to thirteen when I mentioned to my doctor that I was feeling a stiffness between my legs. I thought I was dying. He tried to explain to me about sex and the differences between boys and girls. I guess I must have looked confused because he recommended a book for me to read. When I started to develop body hair, I really hated my body and very rarely exposed it.

When I was fourteen, I went to a summer camp for two weeks. It was at the camp that I started to become depressed with suicidal tendencies. When I came home I told my doctor and he had me go see a psychiatrist. I was in single and group therapy for two years. The depression seemed to ease a little. My one regret, now is that I never mentioned by gender issues with him. Maybe I could have started transitioning earlier. Around this time, I prayed to God every night to make me a girl so that I could be happy.

By the time I started High School, I was practically a social outcast. I remember walking past groups of kids and hearing them laugh. High School was something I tolerated.

There was one incident that happened to me when I was in tenth grade. I had to go to the bathroom real bad. I saw a door that I knew was a bathroom, but no sign as to whether it was a girls room or a boys room. I went in, did not pay attention to the fact that there were no urinals, since I always used a stall. While I was doing my business I heard voices, as a group entered the restroom. I was still not paying attention to what sex the voices were. I finished what I was doing and left the stall, that was when I noticed that I was in the girls room. There was a bunch of girls there, boy, was I red-faced. I know that they must have kidded me some. I thought I was going to be in a whole mess of trouble, but it was never reported.

During High School, I became interested in painting and drawing and became quite good at them. During my Senior year, my mother had a heart attack around Christmas. I had to take over the cooking of meals for a little while. I was always good in the home economics classes. It was wood shop that was my cross. It would take me six weeks to barely get one wood shop project done. It was during this time that my mother and I found out that my dad had a mistress. He even tried to buy a house for her from the inheritance he received after his mother died. He didn't have enough on his own and tried to get my mother to help finance it by taking a second mortgage on our house. She refused and he lost the other house. It was around this time that my feelings for my father changed.

That summer also proved to be very eventful. I was accepted into Trenton State College as an art major. My whole Senior year of high school was spent in trying to get me to live on campus. The school was fighting me over the ten-mile radius. I credit my Guidance Counselor for encouraging me to stick with the fight. I was soon allowed to live on campus. My Uncle Patsy was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his spine. The doctors opened him up to see if they could remove it. They couldn't so my uncle was scheduled for radiation treatments. It was while he was having this therapy that I found out about Art Therapy. The treatments worked, they shrunk the tumor. But about two months later, we found that the cancer had moved to his liver. My bedroom was next to his, so I could hear him moaning through the night. I started my Freshman year of college and had a difficult time of adjusting at first. Around the beginning of October my uncle went into the hospital for the last time. He died about two weeks later. To this day I still miss him. He was a truly remarkable person.

Around the time I was nineteen, I was feeling that I should have been born a girl. Then, I thought that if God wanted me to be a girl, I would have been born a girl. I felt that I had to accept being born a male. This started me on a period that would be my longest form of denial.

 

 

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