We all sat in a circle on the floor of the basketball court. It was the end of our first practice for the season, and our coach was wrapping up by giving us our Bible verses to read for next week. This was my last season in Elevate, a recreational Christian basketball league, as I was graduating high school in the Spring. Every girl looked towards the coach, but it felt like they were focused on me—on my legs. We all wore the same shorts, jerseys, and even similar tennis shoes. Everyone’s hair was up in ponytails except mine—I’d gotten what my mom called a pixie cut in January of that year, so I didn’t don a ponytail anymore. It didn’t feel like they were glaring at my hair on my head, but I could feel judgment upon my dark, thick leg hair. 

One hair stuck out too much and poked the girl, Mary, beside me. She’s married now, last I heard. I remember she looked towards me, then at my legs. The eyes stuck to me in that circle, and they stayed there until the end of the season. How desperately I wanted to get rid of them; how desperately I wanted to fit in with the other girls yet at the same time be myself, a transgender man. How desperately I wanted acceptance—but I couldn’t have any of that. 

*

I knew a lot of these girls from previous years, even from when I started playing back in fifth grade. I took a liking to the sport after seeing my older brother play. We introduced ourselves at the beginning of that same practice: Lydia, Elayna, Mary, and then came my turn— 

What am I supposed to tell them? Some of them already know me by my original name and think I’m still a girl—I have to be a girl here— 

This was the only dialogue that spun in my head all day before this first practice. “Tryouts” (really just an assessment of your skill level before the season, so that all the good players don’t get put on one team) had occurred in early December, before I’d realized I was transgender. It was now late January, and I’ve realized I’m a boy. My mom didn’t know this yet (she’d learn in June), but I told her I was hesitant to play this year:

Why? You love basketball! And it’s your last year.

I’m just not sure anymore if I want to play-

Well go tonight and see what you think after. 

I hesitated, what harm could it be to do one more season.

I tell mom “okay.” 

We all stood in that circle for what seemed like an entire half of a game, until finally: I’m [redacted]. 

*

My mom came to pick me up, and I told her I would play this last season. I did love playing (even if I wasn’t the best and hated when my dad shouted at me from the sidelines during games), and the season would only go until the end of March. I could do three months. I’d get through it. I’d be fine. At least I thought I’d be fine. 

*

Mom made me shave my legs before the next practice: all the other girls have their legs shaved, she explained. A few years ago, she had to convince me to put my hair up in a ponytail when I played. I explained that I didn’t know how to do so or that I didn’t like how it felt. Plus, I’d made a killer three-pointer on the first game of the season once when my hair was down, so it couldn’t be that bothersome. 

Still—everyone else has their hair up.

*

I tried to physically be a boy the best I could, but I still had to be enough of a girl. It was a balancing act. I remember contemplating whether or not to wear the packer (an item used to give the appearance of male genitalia) I’d constructed with old socks to practices and games. I decided not to. I imagine it would be odd to see a bulge between the legs of an 18-year-old high school girl in the girls’ basketball league. My pixie cut was feminine to on-lookers, and my legs were now eerily smooth like the others. I fit in enough that no one batted an eye. But it’s during that same season that I began to dig my nails into my skin every game out of anxiety, maybe more so worry or suppression. It became second nature. I fit in, I was one of the girls, but at a cost. This wasn’t how I wanted anyone to see me—my teammates, the crowd, anyone. 

*

I ran down the court with the rest of the girls. I was set to guard position four, right beside the hoop. I’m short (5’3” since eighth grade), and honestly, I wasn’t even entirely confident in my basketball skills. I just always got put there to block people from getting to the hoop. My position really consisted of me standing there until the people near me had the ball, and at that point I’d block them as best I could. There was a girl in the league who was very tall and very hefty, and she was often put in the same position with me, so she was playing offense when I was playing defense. She got the ball, and so I spread myself in front of her like a starfish. a small, small starfish. 

I starfished in front of her, but her shadow encompassed my entire body. Her backside was pressed against my chest as she shuffled her way backwards and towards the hoop. I was too small to block her well, let alone properly. She had no issue with turning around and nearly dunking the ball into the hoop. I did what I could, but there was no way I could’ve even partially blocked her from that net. 

*

She was my female self. I could block it out all I wanted, but no matter how hard I tried, she’d continue to push back, and I’d hear the swoosh of the net over and over. I was in limbo. I was living a double life. I had to. 

*

At the end of the season, everyone on the team and I went our separate ways; well, everyone except Mary and I. Maybe I liked Mary because she was more of a tomboy. She wore longer shorts and a t-shirt under her jersey, like me. Her long, just slightly dirty blonde hair hung well past her shoulders, and during practice and games, her still-long ponytail flopped from side to side. At the time, I thought I had a crush on her (something about her being the most athletic girl on the team, and her build portraying that), but now I think it was more of a need for companionship. 

My plan was to slowly introduce Mary to Aarron, my male-self who still felt like an alter-ego– the one being shut out by the large woman. I wanted to merge my two lives, I wanted to become Aarron to someone and have it been okay. Turns out I had very poor judgment, because shortly after I told Mary about being transgender, she left. 

I texted her about my other half, and her response was 

sorry, God says there are two genders. 

That’s not what I said, I thought— 

I’m just the other of the two, I told her to help her understand within her own logic.

Though, we still continued to text (even if I had to initiate every conversation). I remember sitting with her at the mall, enjoying some food court meals, laughing, talking, doing what the average teenager does at the mall. We hung out once after that too; we went to go see Batman VS Superman. I knew she wasn’t interested in me romantically, she barely wanted to be my friend now, but these hangouts felt like dates for some reason. Even if it was an acceptance that I misinterpreted as romantic interest, it was still acceptance. She wasn’t fully on board, she didn’t believe in it, but she still appeared, at first, to accept me.  

*

I invited Mary to my final orchestra concert in high school. That year my parents allowed me to wear the tuxedo if I paid for it, an easy $60 to rent it for the year. The money was nothing compared to the compliments I got from orchestra friends, telling me that I looked good, that they were proud of me; didn’t you wear a dress before? Yeah, but now I want to wear this. Nods and smiles all around.

Maybe I wanted her to develop a romantic interest in me too, maybe I wanted to convince her that how I was living my life was okay, regardless of what she interpreted God to say. I just wanted the acceptance. I’d hoped she’d see me on that stage in my tux, the minimally tailored sleeves still a tad too long for my short arms and my clip-together $5 bowtie. Maybe to her I’d blend in with the rest of the guys, as in-sync as the violins’ bow arms. Maybe she could see me. Maybe.

She left as soon as the concert ended, so I couldn’t catch up with her. 

A week later she ghosted me. 

The hefty woman was back—swoosh. 

*

Mary runs down to the top of the arc, following the point guard, who manages to get the ball to the large woman. I jump up, trying to deflect the ball as she overheads it off the backboard and into the net. As I run down to the other end of the court, I position my hands just barely in front of my crotch, suddenly embarrassed of the makeshift packer I told myself I’d try just this once. But they can all see—I can’t let them see—I can’t be this here. I leave it at home during the rest of the games, I continue to shave my legs, and I continue to react to [redacted]. I have to keep living this double life. There was no room for acceptance. 

AARRON SHOLAR is a transgender writer who has essays forthcoming and published in Dead Skunk Magazine, Broadkill Review, which was nominated for the 2022 Best of the Net Anthology, Beaver Magazine, Sierra Nevada Review, 45th Parallel Literary Magazine, Hobart, Polaris Magazine, and others. He holds a BA from Salisbury University and is an MFA candidate in CNF at MNSU, Mankato, where he is head CNF editor of Blue Earth Review.