The Story of the Boy and the Girl

There once was a boy, and inside this boy there was a girl. A bit like one of those nesting dolls. Not like a real nesting doll, of course — that would be gruesome — but like a metaphorical nesting doll.

For many years, the boy didn't know there was a girl living inside of him. After all, most of us don't have eyes on the inside and have to find other ways of looking inside ourselves, which is difficult and often scary.

The boy only knew that he was sad. Sad because he was so awfully big. Sad because he didn't look like the boys who looked a bit like girls, or the girls who looked a bit like boys. It didn't take many looks in the mirror to understand that the boy not only didn't look anything like them, but had little hope of ever looking like them, much as he might try. Only in stories that begin with "Once upon a time …" can a boy find a magic lamp and transform his dreams into reality with but a wish. In stories like ours that begin with "There once was …", lamps are just lamps and wishes just air.

It's true that where there's a will there's often a way, but without the words to express it, a will just isn't worth a whit. Since the boy didn't know the words to express his desire, there was very little hope of finding a way.

And so the boy resigned himself to being a big, ugly duck instead of a beautiful little swan … or some other bird. Swans, after all, are not known for being small birds, especially not as compared to ducks, but sometimes metaphors force our hands, and I would be a terrible disappointment to my country if I didn't make this particular literary reference.

The boy grew up, became a man … although isn't age a funny thing? Just because you've attained a certain number according to strict chronological calculations and people start calling you a man, doesn't mean you can't still feel like a boy, or call yourself a boy. Or a girl. Anyway … the boy grew up and learned a lot of words. He found such joy and pleasure in words, even as his mouth struggled with them, because the beautiful thing about words is that they can be written, and not only that, but written just fine with your mouth shut.

And the really beautiful thing about words is that they allow people without a mouth, without a voice, to speak. Not just people like the boy, whose mouth sometimes refused to cooperate with his head, but people like the girl.

As the boy grew up and learned all these words, he began to express things that he had never been able to express before, and in this way he slowly discovered the girl, and the girl discovered that she could talk to the boy and tell him about herself.

The boy thought to himself, "It is very sad that this wonderful girl has no body of her own, but has to share it with a big oaf like me. There must be some way I can help her."

And with that there was a will, and with a will, a way can be found. Even if the way is scary and not altogether easy or clear. But all ways are, after all, just a series of steps, and if you can find the first step then you can find the next, and in this way you can traverse the whole way eventually.

"The first step," the boy thought, "must be to use my words to lend her my voice, so that she may speak to the world and show them who she is. And from there we will see where to go."

But the girl was shy, and not a little scared, for the world outside the boy can be a scary and unwelcome place.

"But you cannot hide in there forever," the boy told her, even though he often felt like hiding, too. "That's no life to live, hidden away where no one can see you. Come out, don't be shy. Here, I'll help you. I'll start."

Hi, my name is Sebastian, and I am that boy.

And I am that girl. You can call me Sasha, a beautiful name that I think fits me really well.

I know I may not look like a girl, but looks aren't everything. It's what's inside that counts, and inside of me there is a girl who shares her body with a boy. Two souls in one body, if you will. Even if, like me, you don't believe in souls in the religious sense, it's still a good word to describe an abstract concept.

I wish I had been born in a girl's body, and that I looked like Elsa from Disney's Frozen, but I am well aware that I wasn't, that I don't, and that I never will, since there are no magic lamps for me to find. But how many girls can say they look like a Disney princess anyway? Not many. And maybe if I had been born in a girl's body, the boy in me would wish he had been born in a boy's body and that he looked like a Disney prince, and then nothing would really be different. Maybe I should have been born as twins, but since I wasn't, I must make do with a single body and its many limitations.

Right now, since I've spent so many years looking inside, I don't really know what to do about the outside. I know I'll never look like Elsa, but I hope with time I can figure out what it means to look like me. And isn't that what matters? Being yourself, looking like yourself. I think it is.

What to call a person like me whose gender is a bit queer? That will depend on the person, of course. For me, I prefer non-binary or genderfluid: I'm not a boy or a girl but both, and just like the ebb and flow of tides, sometimes Sebastian is closer to the surface and sometimes Sasha is. So I think both terms are good ones to describe me.

Whether you call me Sebastian or Sasha, and whether you use he, she, or they isn't too important; all of them are correct, I guess, but since the boy in me has been blessed with a body that matches him so well, I'm going to favor the feminine terms of address myself.