Being Bullied Is Everything You Thought It Would Be!

I have been writing about my life, which has made me the woman I am today. This is a long read, but I think many of us can relate.

In October of 1963 my family and I moved from Seattle to Auburn. This was the time in my life when things began to change how I felt about myself and these were hard years on me. It is hard for me to relive this time in my life, and it is not ever very far from my thoughts. You would think fifty plus years after the fact things would fade from my memories, but they haven’t, and, for some reason, I am unable to let them go. I wish I was able to let go, but a person must live through them then maybe a person can understand and why. I wish very much I could. Are most people able to learn to let them go? I don’t know, but all I can say is I can’t. I know it would not change my feelings of being a woman, and in that, I know I am not alone.

My dad was hired by the Auburn Police Department in October of 1963 and was the reason for the move. I was so excited for a couple of reasons; 1) I thought the police were probably the coolest people in the world and now my dad was going to be one. 2) It also meant we would be leaving Seattle for the small town of Auburn which at time had a population of less than 8,000 people. For my dad to get hired to a small department like APD was no small feat. I knew I was going to miss all my friends, but I also knew I would be making new friends. Yes, it was an exciting time in my life……or so I thought!

We moved from Seattle into a rented single-story house with a small yard on the north end of Auburn where we lived for about a year. The coolest part of the house was the walnut tree in the front yard and a cherry tree on the side of the house that straddled the property line of the next-door neighbor. There weren’t many kids in the neighborhood and the ones that were weren’t that friendly with me. We all played together, but I never felt like I belonged. They were never mean or anything toward me I just never felt we had anything in common. At least that was my perception, and I can’t explain it much more than that. It might have been because I did not go to the same school as the kids in the neighborhood. They all attended North Auburn Elementary School, now known as Dick Scobee Elementary School. For some reason, when I was enrolled into the Auburn School District, I was sent across town to West Auburn Elementary School, where I was in the third grade. My sister Sally, who was in the first grade, was enrolled into North Auburn. My parents told me I had to go to West Auburn because North Auburn was full and did not have room for me in the third grade. We all lived far enough from our schools we had to ride the school bus, but in my case, I had to ride the school bus across town, and change from one bus to another halfway home. So, here I was eight years old, in a new town I knew nothing about, in a new school on the other side of town. I was scared to death and would sit in school not concentrating on my schoolwork wondering how I was going to get home. To make matters worse, my teacher, Mrs Wilson, noticed I was fidgety and not concentrating and she would threaten to keep me after school. I truly think this affected me for many years to come because up until then I was a good student, but after my experience at West Auburn, my grades and ability to concentrate tanked. It was suggested to my parents by the school I see a child psychologist. I am not sure why it was suggested but my parents scheduled me to see a psychologist. I don’t remember much about my visit or the questions he asked. The one thing I do remember is we somehow got onto the subject of swearing. I think I may have hinted at, or outright told him, my dad used to swear. He asked me what kind of swear words he used, and I refused to answer for fear of getting into trouble. He continued to insist I tell him what kind of swear words my dad used, and after a few minutes I finally told him what words he used. I was so uncomfortable saying the words. I have no idea what the results of my evaluation was, or what he said to my parents. I never went to see him, or any other psychologist, again. Shortly after my evaluation, I was moved from West Auburn Elementary School to Washington Elementary School. I was able to walk to school, which was about a mile or so from our house, then eventually ride my bike to school (always alone BTW). I remember my parents bought a basket for the front to put my lunch in while riding my bike and a lock so I could lock the bike up once I got to school. I was so excited about riding my bike to school I was unable to sleep the night before. Anyway, I was no longer worried about getting home from school, but I was still unable to concentrate and do my schoolwork. Many times, I was made to stay in from recess to finish my schoolwork. When I did get to go out for recess I either played Chinese Jump Rope with the girls, or I played by myself. During the winter the rain would form big, deep, puddles of water on the playground which I gravitated toward. I have no idea what the attraction was, and I don’t even remember what I used to do. I do remember always having wet shoes and feet and would sit in class all day that way. Shortly after starting Washington Elementary School we were sitting in class when my teacher, Mrs Edberg, was summoned to the office leaving us alone in class. She returned several minutes later and was crying. Once she composed herself, she told us President Kennedy had been shot and was dead. I don’t remember anything else about that day it was all just a blur. I couldn’t even tell you if they let us out of school for the remainder of the day. As an eight-year-old I did not understand the gravity of the event, even though I remember it very vividly. I remember everything on TV had been pre-empted for three or four days for the coverage of the President’s assassination. I was mad that all the Saturday morning cartoons were not on. That Sunday, I was watching TV when Lee Harvey Oswald was being led to a vehicle in the parking garage under the Dallas Police Department and saw live as Jack Ruby appeared on the screen and shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it had to have a profound effect on me as an eight-year-old. Is there anyone who was alive, young, or old, during that time not remember where they were and what they were doing when they learned of President Kennedy’s assassination?

I have always been emotional and wear my feelings very close to the surface, and still do. Maybe even more so since I began taking hormones. I have always had a very soft heart for animals as well. I remember soon after moving to Auburn, we had a black cat show up on our front porch. It was in October, right before Halloween so it was cold. Why it picked our house to come to is anyone’s guess, but it sat on our porch and started crying. The more it cried the more my heart started to break and how sad I felt for it. I asked my mom if I could give it something to eat and she refused saying if we feed it, it will never leave. Well, the cat did not leave and the more it cried, the sadder I got, and I eventually I started to cry as well. I asked my mom just before I was sent to bed for the night if we could feed it and if we could keep it. She told me no, we could not feed it and no, we could not keep it. My bedroom window was right above the small cement step and landing where the cat had parked itself and I listened to it cry all night. I also cried all night listening to it and feeling just awful for it. When I got up the next morning for school, the cat was still on the front porch, and I was still crying. Before I left for school, I asked mom again if we could keep the cat and she finally relented and said we could. I don’t know if she felt bad for the cat, or if she was just tired of me crying and begging to keep it. I was so happy we were going to get to keep him I could not wait to get home to spend time with him. I am not sure why, or even who named him, but he became Sam. Sam lived with us for a couple years until one day I went to school. When I got home that afternoon Sam was gone and I had no idea what had happened to him. I asked my mom and dad where Sam was and all they told me was they took him to a farm where he could run and play and have a much happier life. I was devastated and wondered why they would do that, and why they would not tell me they were going to do it. As I grew older, I began to believe Sam was never taken to a farm but had been euthanized. To this day I have no idea if there was anything wrong with him requiring him to be euthanized, or if there was some other underlying factor.

I remember I was still feeling different about myself. I knew I was different and used to wonder if I was mentally retarded, I really did!! I would look in the mirror and the person looking back at me was soooo ugly I had no real idea what the matter with me was, but I just knew I was different from the other boys, and never really felt accepted or part of the group of boys in the neighborhood. I wanted to be a cub scout so bad and was allowed to join. There was no den mother, so my mother volunteered. There were five or six of us in the den, and even then, I just wasn’t accepted as part of the group, although I never said anything to anyone. We would meet once a week and do activities and crafts after school and have pack meetings once a month. It was the only year my mom was a den mother.

The following summer my parents bought their first house and once again we moved. This time to the other side of Auburn about a block from Terminal Park Elementary School. It was a very nice neighborhood, and we were in a small, but nice and comfortable house. The front yard was on a slight incline with a one car driveway and attached garage. The driveway was also on an incline, and I remember I got a skateboard for my birthday one year and would sit on it and ride it to the bottom of the driveway. My dad also put a basketball hoop up on the roof after we had lived there for a while with a huge backboard made from plywood painted white. I used to play basketball by myself, although it was difficult sometimes to play on a sloped driveway. I always seemed to manage.

When we first moved into the house, I thought the neighborhood was so cool. I quickly made friends and we would play together a lot. It was a quiet neighborhood, which allowed us to be able to ride our bikes in the street, which was a new concept for me. I thought the sidewalks were pretty coo tool. They were wide and instead of being squared off at the end they were gradually curved around which made it easy to ride my bike fast on the sidewalks and turn. I used to love riding my bike on the sidewalk because of that. In the summer we could play outside until well after dark. My mom had a whistle that she would blow both day and night when it was time to come home. We could hear it from anywhere in the neighborhood

When school started that fall, everything was great. I was getting along with all the neighbor kids. My only complaint……my teacher. When I started the fourth grade, I was originally assigned to Mrs Montgomery’s fourth grade class. She was a very nice, older lady, who I truly believed loved her job and children. I was happy to be in her class, but within a week I was moved to Miss Strand’s fourth grade class. She was at least 90 years old, at least that is what my 9-year-old brain told me. She was a very strict teacher, almost to the point of being mean, even for the mid 1960’s. I was not, and still am not convinced. she even liked kids. I supposed when you have spent your entire adult life working with kids that age, your tolerance level for kids begins to wan. I was a nervous kid and had a hard time sitting still. Because of that, I had a hard time paying attention and doing my schoolwork and Miss Strand was always getting after me for being disruptive. I was new at the school and most of the kids did not know me, so I got laughed at a lot. The day after the 1965 Seattle earthquake I was sitting in Miss Strands class. I was still pretty shaken up by the earthquake, deathly scared I should say, fearing we would have another one. I remember seeing movies where the earth would open during an earthquake and people would be swallowed up. We had been assigned to do a report on the earthquake the day before and we were getting up and read them in front of the class. I was not paying attention, just staring out the window when I saw what I though was an airplane flying very slowly. I didn’t think much about it and went back to listening to the student reading their report. My attention turned back to the airplane just in in time to see it lower its tail section and begin to decrease altitude as though it were coming in for a landing. I watched horrified as it continued to get lower and lower until it disappeared behind “White Lake Hill”, which was only about a mile away, two miles at most. I had never seen anything like this and was not aware of any kind of airport behind the hill. Of course, I let out a gasp and tried to explain what I had just witnessed. No one else had seen it and Miss Strand began to scold me and told me stop and pay attention. Of course, the class just laughed at me while Miss Strand just glared at me and shook her head which just made me feel awful. I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I just wanted to leave the classroom and never come back. Even to this day, I am still embarrassed and remember it vividly. I was so happy when the school year ended. When I started fifth grade, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned I had Mrs Montgomery as my teacher. She moved up to the fifth grade from fourth grade. The following year she moved up to the sixth grade and was lucky enough to get her again in the sixth grade. My grades were never what they had been prior to leaving Seattle and moving to Auburn. I believe I had undiagnosed ADHD affecting my behavior and ability to concentrate.

It was in the 4th grade at Terminal Park Elementary School when I began to develop my love for music. Of course, we had music in all the other schools I attended, and it was the same at Terminal Park. I used to love going to music class where we got to sing songs while the music teacher would alternate between playing the piano while we sang or standing in front of the class raising his hand up and down with the change of each note of the song. Singing was fun to me and a break from sitting in class and struggling to sit still and with my schoolwork. We were introduced to an instrument called a Tonette. I haven’t seen a Tonette in years, but it resembles a Recorder without the small bell-shaped bottom. I remember it was easy for me to play and I picked it up quickly. I learned the names of each note and the location of the note on the fingerholes of the instrument. It wasn’t long before I could play songs both by reading the notes and by ear. Some of my favorite songs I learned by ear were the themes from the TV shows Combat and Hogans Hero’s just to name a couple. I loved playing my Tonette so much my mom took me to the music store in Auburn and bought me a Tonette of my own. I was so proud of it and took as good a care of it as I did anything I had. I would play it every chance I got until just before I started the 5th grade when my mom suggested I take music lessons at school, which were about to start. I was so excited I couldn’t stand it. I immediately knew what instrument I wanted to play and that was the Clarinet. I have no idea why I chose the Clarinet, and I knew very little about it, but that was the one I wanted to learn. I don’t know how my Aunt Loretta and Uncle Vick became aware I wanted to learn the Clarinet. Heck, they lived 350 miles from us in a tiny town called Newport on the Washington/Idaho Border northeast of Spokane. Well, Uncle Vick had an old metal clarinet. It did not look anything like any Clarinet I had ever seen once I decided I wanted to learn how to play one. It was made of metal, silver in color and long and thin with a black mouthpiece and came in a ragged looking, beat-up black case. Well, instead of buying one or renting one my dad asked Uncle Vick if we could borrow it for me to learn to play, which Uncle Vick readily agreed. I was excited, but disappointed when I got to school with it for my first lesson and saw the other kids learning to play the Clarinet. They all had new, black, shiny clarinets that had been bought or rented by their parents. I was very envious of those kids and remember wanting a new Clarinet of my own. How I wish I had that old clunky Clarinet now!! Our band teacher was Mr Sauer (pronounced Sore), who was a Clarinet Player himself, although as the band teacher, he was able to play several instruments as well. I remember him being a tall, skinny, balding man who drove a Volkswagen Bug. It was so funny to watch him pull up in front of the school and park, then unfold himself out of it. I have no idea how he ever got into it, let alone be comfortable when he did. He was probably the nicest man I had as a role model growing up, and I know he looked upon me as a son. He never forgot me and always asked my mom or dad how I was doing until the day he died. When I learned of his death I was saddened. He always told my parents I was one of the best music students he had. He even gave me private lessons for a couple of years. As with the Tonette, I was able to pick up the Clarinet easily and before long I was able to play it with very little practice. It was fun to play, but I hated to practice. Like the Tonette, I could play songs out of a music book as well as by ear. I remember I would hound my parents repeatedly for a new Clarinet, but the answer was always no, with no real explaination. I had a hard time blowing air through it to make a note but play it I did. I also squeaked a lot too. I would complain to Mr Sauer I was having a hard time and asked why I squeaked so much. I am not sure if Mr Sauer went to my parents or if my parents went to him, but I remember coming home one afternoon from school and was getting ready to practice. My dad came into my bedroom asking if I was getting ready to practice. I said I was, and he pulled out a black square case from behind his back and asked if I was going to practice on this one. I recognized the black case as being one that held a brand new, shiny, black Clarinet. He handed me the case and I could hardly contain my excitement as I opened it up and there it was. I put it together and began to play and to tell you the truth, I never looked back. I played that Clarinet until I graduated from high school. I marched in several parades including the Daffodil Parade every year through Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner, and Orting, and in the Rose Parade in Portland, Oregon. No, not the one in Pasadena, but what a trip that would have been if I had been able to do so. I still have that Clarinet, although I have not picked it up to play in decades. I remember my dad telling me when I was an adult that he worked a lot of overtime at the police department to pay for that Clarinet and he was so excited when he was finally able to pay the $160.00 for it and bring it home. Try getting a Clarinet for $160.00 today. He also told me when he talked to Mr Sauer about the metal Clarinet, Mr Sauer told him he believed it had a hole somewhere, probably a pad. My dad replied what the heck are you talking about, there is a hole down the entire length of it.

This was about the time things started to go bad for me as a kid and the bullying began. I am not even sure how to begin as I tend to be very embarrassed and ashamed of the things that happened to me. There used to be a big, wooded area that we all used to play at. It sounds kind of cliché, but all the kids would refer to it as “The Woods”. We would go over there and play army, climb trees, and ride our bikes. It was a fun place to go play until one time I went over there with one of the kids in the neighborhood, Mike Sears. Mike was a year older than me but he as all the other kids, used to play together. Anyway, Mike and I went to the woods and were just kind of talking and hanging around. Mike could be kind of mean when he wanted to be and suddenly, he pushed me down to the ground then told me to get on my hands and knees which I did. He got down on his hands and knees behind me and started to thrust himself against my buttocks as though he were having anal sex. I was very naïve about the birds and the bees and really had no idea what he was doing. All I knew was I didn’t like what he was doing and tried to stand up and get away from him. He would not let me get up and threatened to beat me up. I kept asking what he was doing, and I kept trying to stand. He finally let me stand up and I went home, although I never said anything to anyone….until now. As I got older and began to learn about sex, I realized what Mike was doing and I became very embarrassed about it. I never said anything to anyone because I was SO embarrassed.

Things progressively got worse until one evening I was playing at one of the neighbor kids houses. Mike’s little brother, Kenny Sears, was there as well. He was a year younger than me. We were playing two square and I was starting to get a little mad at Kenny. I don’t remember why, but it was something to do with the game we were playing. Kenny started to taunt me and call me names until I had had enough and charged Kenny and we began to fight. I was getting the best of him, when suddenly I was tackled from behind by Mike. The next thing I knew both Mike and Kenny were beating the hell out of me. I was trying to fight back, but they had ganged up on me and would not stop hitting and kicking me. I was finally able to break free and ran home with them chasing me. Once I got home, they stopped, and I was able to go inside to get away from them. I do remember my mom came outside as I got home, and she ran them off.

At the time, I thought it was a onetime fight and we would all be friends again after a few days. Boy, was I sadly mistaken, and to this day I have no idea why things just perpetuated and grew to other kids, Kelly Kotwitz and Shelby Shultes and others, wanting to gang up on me to beat me up. I don’t remember all the kid’s names, but if I could, they would be named here too. I could not leave my yard for the next two years without one, or all, of them running after me to beat me up. Sometimes I was able to get away and sometimes I wasn’t. I was not much of a fighter and was never very rough and tumble. Life for me after all of this became difficult. I was always looking over my shoulder to see if someone was coming after me. The only place I felt safe was in my backyard. There were times they would stand on the sidewalk in my front yard and taunt me. Sometimes, they would even come into our front yard if I was out there and try to start something. Sometimes my parents would come out and run them off, sometimes I would have to go inside to get away from them. I do remember my mom or dad, I don’t know which, talked to the parents of the Sear’s boys, but it fell on deaf ears. I never felt I got a whole lot of support from my parents because all they would say is beat them up and they will leave you alone. A lot easier said than done. I did not like to fight, in fact I hated it, and would go out of my way to avoid fighting with anyone. My dad finally signed me up for Judo lessons and believe it or not, I really liked going to my lessons. It was kind of like tumbling whereas we would learn to fall, and we learned to flip each other over our shoulders and other Judo moves. It really was a lot of fun. My dad would take me from Auburn to Renton (about 10 miles away) twice a week. He only signed me up for three months and at the three months it was over. I have no idea why I was only signed up for three months, but I would loved to have continued, but that was it. Then after that, he would insist I use what I learned in Judo on them. I did not learn that much in defending myself, but I did learn how to fall. I guess I could have fallen on them. After a while, my dad just told me to start carrying a baseball bat and when they started to punch me, or to be more exact just before they started to punch me, hit them with bat. Good suggestion dad!! Out of fear, I did carry the bat, and even found a way to attach it to my bike so if I needed it, I could get it in a hurry. It worked and they kept their distance. I used to daydream how I would use it, and often wondered if I would actually hit them with it. The last thing I wanted to do was to go to jail, hurt someone, or worse. I remember one time before things really got bad Shelby Shultes threw a tennis ball at me and hit me on the lip. I took off after him intent on trying to beat the heck out of him. I was unable to catch him, and he ran home. His mom came out and started to yell at me for wanting to beat Shelby up, and that she would have thought the kid of a cop would be better behaved. WHAT?? Yes, my dad was an Auburn Police Officer, but I should be better behaved because of that? I really was a well behaved and disciplined child. I did my share of things, but for the most part, I rarely got into trouble. I remember telling my mother that and she was appalled, and never forgot such a ridiculous thing to say to a kid.

In my mind this all was a classic case of bullying. When people say these types of things can have life long lasting effects on people, they are right, and that is the case with me. I have never forgotten those times, and never will. This went on for about two years until my parents finally had enough and decided to move. I was so happy to hear we were moving, but I am not so sure my parents really wanted to take such a drastic a step. I am sure they were only trying to protecting me, but wished I was a little more assertive and able to defend myself better so I would not get picked on. To this day I think I might have been a bit of an embarrassment to my father. I am not sure if he was ashamed of me because of this, but I do think he resented the fact that we had to move because of me. Maybe not, but it is how I feel now, especially since he never wanted to do a lot with me afterward. I realize he was a cop, and worked different shifts and weekends which made it difficult but so was I. I made it to a lot of my kid’s activities and enjoyed doing so. I always felt I was different and should have been born a girl, and often wonder if this is what really brought my transsexuality to the forefront of my mind. It was after we moved that I really wished I had been born a girl and maybe my dad sensed this.

It was in the summer after sixth grade that we moved to Lake Tapps and into the Deringer School District. I was so happy to be moving but was very disappointed I would not be going to Olympic Junior High School. Deringer was a one school school district, and it was a K through eighth grade school. We would go into Sumner Junior High School for ninth grade, and Sumner High School for tenth through twelfth grades. My other disappointment was having to leave my best friend Mike McCart. He went to Terminal Park School with me, and we became best friends, especially during the bully years. He lived about a mile from me, but I was able to ride my bike, bat and all, to his house and he to mine. We remained friends until his death a few years ago from cancer. We did not see much of one another over the years, and I really regret that. Just before we moved from Auburn to Lake Tapps, and while I was still at Terminal Park Elementary School, Mrs Montgomery decided to have a talent show, and Mike and I decided to enter. Mike played the electric guitar and I of course, played the Clarinet. I don’t remember why, but we decided to play the song “Wabash Cannonball”. The only problem we had was the sheet music with the guitar chords and notes for Mike would not work for us to play together on my Clarinet, so the music needed to be transposed. Mr Sauer taught me how to transpose the music. We practiced the song until we could play it by heart. It was so much fun. We played it at the Talent Show and won. It is still a source of pride to me.

Life for me after we moved became much better although the feelings I should have been born a girl grew stronger,