When I told Mom that I had joined the middle school cheer squad, she was very surprised. I had never had any interest in sports even when I was Matthew, though she took me being a cheerleader as another sort of exploration I was doing since my gender changed. My brother Tim snickered a little bit, but I didn’t really react. I had never had much esteem for cheerleaders; I had always seen them as sort of a sideline activity as a way to give girls something to do while the boys played the sports. I was ambivalent when I was Matthew, but as Maya I sort of resented being relegated to the side.

  Despite Erin’s nervousness about trying out for the squad, it turns out she really had nothing to worry about. Pretty much all of the girls who tried out got onto the squad, including Danielle, Carla, Amanda, and Michelle. I should have just let Erin try out on her own so I didn’t get roped into it, but considering that my entire group of friends was on the squad I didn’t really have a choice but to stay since I didn’t want to be the odd one out. Good lord, were we going to be the cheerleading clique in high school?

  I was disappointed that cheer practice overlapped with my dance class. I actually enjoyed how flexible I had become in the class, though I have to say my favorite part was how comfortable the leotard was to wear. I wasn’t heartbroken about it, but the dance class was way more interesting than cheer. I was also bummed that I had less time to practice my music, but it wasn’t going to affect my monthly catalog shoots or visits to the researcher. I still had to bank up money, after all.

  Cheer was far less complicated than I remembered it being in the 2020s. Cheer had not become so fast-paced and competitive yet; the coach was confused when I asked her about competitions because in 1994 they didn’t happen, especially not at the middle school level. Instead, cheer was strictly on the sidelines. There was no complicated tumbling or tossing, just chants and light stunts. While I kept a smile on my face when I was around my friends, I wasn’t looking forward to cheerleading at all.

  In the first few weeks we just learned tumbling and chant coordinations. It was dreadfully easy, and we spent most of our time goofing around. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when we did the chants, but it turns out I had the loudest voice of the entire squad, to the surprise of almost everyone. I had always been soft-spoken as Maya, but in my previous life as Matthew I had some inner ear problems so I had always spoken too loudly. As Maya I had perfect hearing, oddly enough, yet when I did the chants I boomed. As a result, I was the one assigned to call out the cheers, much to my excitement.

  It was a month of practicing before our blue and white uniforms arrived. Even though I regularly wore skirts, I felt a little embarrassed wearing the uniform. My previous disdain for cheerleaders was heightened by the fact that I was dressed like one, from the tiny bow holding my pony tail to my kneehigh socks. It didn’t help that I might have gotten the wrong size, since it was really tight on my chest. I felt like a bad joke, but I faked it well enough so that all of my friends suspected nothing.

  For the next month we started learning extensions, preps, and thigh stands. I happened to be one of the taller girls on the squad, so I ended up having to be the support, and it was very frustrating. It seemed like every day I was flushed and weak, and I was barely able to do the tumbling because I would have stomach aches or my chest would hurt. I thought it was because of the uniform, but it would even hurt after I took it off at the end of the day. It was starting to get to me; I felt moody and just wanted to excuse myself to my room so that I could pluck away at my guitar in peace without having to pretend to enjoy cheering.

  One day in early April, I woke up feeling dizzier than usual, and a little warm. I shrugged it off as I showered and picked out a skirt for the day. My chest was sensitive as usual, but that morning the slightest graze to my chest was like a dozen needles. Even on the bus to school I felt a little faint, and it seemed to get worse as the day went on. I got permission to skip practice that day, and took the bus home on my own, which wasn’t unusual since Mom and Dad both worked until five. As I started up the hill from the bus stop, I started feeling like my stomach was churning, but not like any way that I had felt before.

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  I started walking very briskly, and practically burst through the front door and into the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, doubled over, I looked down and saw a telltale spot of red in my panties. My heart stopped, and in the span of seven seconds I went from shock to anger to relief to sobbing like a baby. While Mom had had “the talk” with me and I knew full well the biology of what was happening, experiencing it first hand shattered me into a panic. All of my adult rationale, all of my so-called intelligence was for nothing, and I felt a crushing sense of unpreparedness as I cried and cried, not knowing what to do besides sit in the bathroom and stare at my feet.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, alone in my house and feeling more vulnerable than I had ever felt in my life. Eventually I ran out of tears and sat forward, hugging my knees with my hair hanging to the floor. I felt numb, I felt dirty, I felt like a freak. For a moment I felt as if I would go into another bout of crying, when suddenly a small voice inside of me gave a sigh of relief. There wasn’t anything wrong with me, it said. A realization dawned on me. My body was normal after all. I may have woken up as a girl three years ago, but I wasn’t a boy. I was going to be an adult eventually, and what’s more I was going to be a woman. The thought was terrifying and thrilling.

  After consolidating these thoughts, I cleared my head to address the pressing issue of the moment. I sat up – slowly, since my insides were still in flux – and started to clean myself up. Holding a bunched wad of toilet paper to myself, I shuffled over to the bathroom cabinet and tore open the box of pads Mom had prepared. Realizing that I needed to change my underwear, I stepped out of my panties and skirt, and raced down to my room half naked. A minute later I changed my bottoms, applied the pad like Mom and I had practiced, and laid down to take a short nap, my head still buzzing with epiphany despite my discomfort.

  Mom arrived home after picking up Tim from baseball practice and Janie from preschool. She discovered me curled in bed with the lights off, and immediately guessed what happened. She checked in with me to make sure I was okay, and once confirmed she left me to rest, and pointedly made a batch of lasagna, my favorite, for dinner. I could tell that Dad had been informed of the situation and was overly gentle with me. Tim and Janie ate while blissfully unaware of anything going on with me.

  I ended up going to bed early that night, after receiving a hug from Mom. I tried my best to get comfortable; I still felt a bit heated and my insides still cramped a bit. Not to mention that the pad felt like I was wearing a diaper, even after I changed it. Despite my discomfort, my mind reeled with thoughts of my future, which in a way was my past - yet it wasn’t going to be my past as I had known it as Matthew. Being a girl, on the whole, wasn’t that different from being a boy; it was just being a kid, with dresses instead of pants.

  I had gotten used to being a girl these past three years, and I actually came to enjoy it. I was just biding my time until I became an adult again, and just vaguely thought I’d just be doing what I did in my former life as a male. But it was all different. I wasn’t going to be a man; I was going to be a woman. It was striking me to my core that everything was going to be different. What was most stunning is that I wanted it to happen. I wanted to be a woman. It was a pain and a hassle, it meant I was going to be physically weaker, and it meant that I would get unwanted attention from boys. But despite this, I was excited.

  I was Maya Peterson, and I was going to be a woman. Assuming I’d be able to make it through these damn stomach aches.