Gender Expression Throughout My Life

As far as I can remember, my entire life can be described as the typical girl being raised by how the society would approve of a young girl being. Yes, this means I was a girly girl, not so much when I was an infant or when I started to walk because my mom was pretty old school, so she put me in anything that could fit, even if that meant left over clothes from all three of my older siblings. Though when I was about four or five, I was at the age where I could decide what I really wanted to put on. My choice was to be girly, wearing barrettes & beads in my hair etc. As a young child I was very particular with how I wanted to wear my hair and I absolutely had to match everything. From top to bottom, which surprisingly enough is accurate still to this day. I remember even being so excited when I first noticed that I was beginning to grow boobs because that meant I was starting to become a young lady. I didn't like boys attempting to toughen me up, which was really hard when you live with two older brothers. I can remember always having to "snitch" to my mom that they'd been hitting on me and because I was so short they sort of had an advantage over me. Once I turned nine or ten, I let them have it. Turns out I was pretty good at fighting back which led me to starting the fights more often, but now they just get annoyed with me because they know I have a strong right hook. Moreover, getting toughened up by my older brothers didn't steer me away from my girly self in a way. Going into high school I found myself getting involved in a lot of things such as: band playing the flute, majorette team, girls swim team, girls track and field, and I even was the captain of the cheer leading team. All of these in a sense are gendered in some way, in my eyes swimming and track were the most competitive which was discovered in class to be a characteristic that mostly males acquire, but even so I was always up to the challenge. Outside of sports I was always presenting myself as that girl who dresses the right way, keeps up with herself, is friendly, outgoing, and just that ideal figure that you would think a woman/ girl should be, which ultimately led me to winning prom queen. At that moment I knew that not only I thought of myself as a prominent female figure, but others thought so as well.