Learning two genders while at school

I suppose it was a combination things but I failed the 11+ exam. As a result I went on to an all girls school where I learned to cook, sew and taught myself method acting to play the part of a “girl”. I heard the nearby boys school taught carpentry and ruefully I wished I was there.

I learned how to be boy and man from other models around me including my father, I learned what sort of person I didn’t want to be from bad examples. The example my mother wanted me to follow was “turn the other cheek” it maybe kept me out of fights at school in the first year but backing down I think increased the bullying because even the weaker kids could throw their weight around without risking it coming to blows.

The John Wayne Cowboy model squaring up to a bully put some of kids off but perhaps made me a target for others but by facing them head on they didn't hit me. Like everyone else not in her motley gang I studiously avoided the ‘cock of the school’ though. Ironically in my last year I accidentally started a fight with her by making a careless remark for which she grabbed me with the intention of giving me a good pasting. I reckoned that she would do me some serious damage unless I went in “guns blazing”. I got into trouble for kicking her shins before they pulled us apart but nobody bothered me again.

I hated games with a vengeance quite out of proportion for a skinny child of average height. The statutory clothing was nasty thick black knickers. I fell over hurdles and my javelins rarely went far, how can you excel when prancing round in your knickers is humiliating! In the last year or so we had to wear a gym skirt we had been making in sewing class. I failed to finish mine so I got one from a pile of cast offs. The only game I enjoyed was netball and threw myself into it because you were allowed to be assertive. The worst thing was that the showers were communal, laid out in one line, you dumped your towel, ran in and ran out covering your parts shivering with the cold in winter. You could be excused from games if your parent wrote you a note so between notes and showers everyone in your class knew who had hit puberty. I don’t know why anyone ever thought that kids would not mind being seen without a stitch on while coping with hormone driven angst. The answer for those who were behind in the great “becoming a woman” stakes was to bung cotton wool in your bra and try not to be seen in the shower.

We had one of the new “educational lessons” which didn’t mention gender variation. Very heterosexist it was too since L, G and B weren't mentioned either. It was more of a “how to avoid getting pregnant” lesson really. I already knew though that men had relationships with other men by 1967 so I wondered what else school wasn't teaching us about. I hadn't developed much ability to think laterally then though so imagine how surprised I was when I discovered that some women had relationships with other women.