When I was 20, I didn’t like the choices available to me. Gone were the fantasies of my teenage years when I imagined that the man I would eventually meet would be as invested in my future, and helping me reach it, as I was in his. When strangers told me that smiling made me more attractive, I thought everyone wanted to be more attractive because it was part of the race to be coupled up.    I didn’t think it applied to women especially or that that guy was checking me out. I knew that women were supposed to do the cooking and the cleaning, but I didn’t think too hard about that. Cleaning didn’t take too long anyway, or so I thought, especially if he was helping me. Him living there too I did expect him to do his bit. Cooking could be fun though it wasn’t really something I liked to do. Maybe I should find a man who liked cooking. My mother hadn’t liked cleaning, she made us help. I figured I would get by anyway.

There were moments when I felt attracted to someone. I remember a guy with light skin and curly hair that made me feel warm inside and brightened up the day but I got confused when sometime later, a curly-haired woman made me feel the same way. I’m attracted to people with curly hair I thought, which seemed likely because I always ate my crusts when I was small, but still my hair remained dead straight. During my teenage years I ended up resorting to a bottle to make my hair curly. A curly-haired husband might mean curly-haired children, I thought, and didn’t think of the other thing too much.

By 20, I’d dodged enough boys on dark streets and been asked why I didn’t let them catch me, to wonder what they expected. Especially the look of astonishment on their faces. What did they expect? I was proud of the fact that I was faster than them. It doesn’t pay to be too fast I soon found out but what I didn’t find out was why. The worst was a boy at a ferry terminus who told me he had a flute to play and he’d like me to play it. I told him I wasn’t very musical and he looked surprised. Then he pressed against me and I understood what he meant. When my hand reached around to hit him on the private parts, he escaped by running on the boat ahead of me. Probably just as well, I hadn’t realised then how much I could hurt him if I’d connected. What really astonished me was the girlfriend I was with, who distanced herself and mumbled something about not being able to meet decent men when I was around. That was a decent man?

Maybe I needed someone less demanding. At least someone gentler who didn’t talk about sex all the time. Benny at work seemed just the guy and he was friends with my mother so I was in with a chance. Only trouble was rumour had it he was gay. That seemed unnatural and he wasn’t like that, I thought. How could men do it together, all the bits were wrong.

When my parents were caught smuggling and my friend, Benny let them stay at his place, I thought he might be the man I wanted. We had good times together, he helped me sort out my bookcase when I moved in to be with my parents and then we sat on the veranda in the cool summer air chatting to the neighbours.

Whenever I tried cooking, he would grab things out of my hand and show me the correct way to do things. It was a bit annoying actually but I learnt a lot.  He’d learnt how to cook following his mother around. He invited his parents over and the place did become a little crowded. His mother liked me and she could cook.

While I was waiting to press my suit with Benny (and learning to cook) I took up with another boy who had curly hair. I don’t know where I met him but I remember waiting to meet him to go out somewhere. Somehow, I found myself in bed with him making love. I probably cooperated but he was not particularly good at it and I found myself pregnant to him and had to arrange an abortion. A girlfriend knew a doctor who did an illegal abortion every morning. She did it properly with an anaesthetist. Only trouble was she told me I wasn’t pregnant.

“I feel pregnant,” I said so she tested me anyway and had to apologise. “Be here Monday morning,” she said, “at 6am.” I was and she had the anaesthetist waiting. He told me to count backwards from 100 and I was asleep before I’d reached 98. It frightened me and I couldn’t sleep for days after that, but at least I wasn’t pregnant.

Benny was kind and sympathetic and worried for me. He was glad that I seemed to get over losing the baby till I explained that I wasn’t that invested in it. I didn’t want it. He was glad I had an abortion because he didn’t want a kid in his house or a hormone-ridden pregnant woman. That was the same reason I had an abortion. I thought that one thing might lead to another after that but it didn’t and eventually, I was forced to admit that, yes, he preferred men. He even confirmed it to me a few weeks later when he needed help telling his parents about it. I was glad he was finally admitting the truth to himself but it left me back at square one. I needed a man who wasn’t into flute-playing.

Benny and I became good friends. It was a new social life for me and I liked meeting gay men. Some of them were friendly and we became good friends. They weren’t interested in sex with me so they took me as I was and got to know me. We went places and partied together and told each other our confidences, though they were mostly interested in their own.

“All men are bastards,” they told me when I complained and I wondered if I should be looking for men. I certainly wanted the lifestyle I had with them.

So, maybe I was a lesbian. I had been attracted to women with curly hair. I met some lesbian groups and marched with them at Mardi Gras which was a protest march back then. We marched along Oxford Street passing a bottle of wine back and forth and I enjoyed myself but didn’t feel any attraction. I went to some bars and saw lots of women, big ones, small ones, ones in overalls and some without, even women with curly hair, but didn’t feel any attraction. After an hour I was just bored and wanted to go home.

I went with my friends to gay bars after that. All of them had drag shows where the men would dress up and I would wonder why they wanted to be women. Being a woman is hard in this world, the only thing you’re expected to do is dress up.  Everyone else thinks we’re stupid and can’t do anything as well as men. We even get paid less. I know of women who’ve worked hard all their lives and still can’t afford their own house. And if he wants to later exchange her for a younger model, he usually gets to keep the house and she has to rent, if she’s lucky. Often she lives in her car. If he lets her live, often he controls the finances and has to make all the decisions. He’s the boss, she has to do what he says and to make sure he tells her how stupid she is and couldn’t make a good decision anyway. If there’s children, she might keep the house but he usually gets paid enough to afford a new house, though he complains about a mortgage. Usually he just waits till the children have gone and only she has to worry. From what I can see, a lot of men are like that, whether a woman ends up with one who’s not is potluck.

I found out later that most of the men didn’t want to be women, they just wanted to dress up. I met a drag queen at a party once dressed more glamorously than I was. She was expected to dress well, that’s why she was invited to the party. Over a bottle or two of wine, she explained what she had to do to get a loan to have her tits done. She told them it was for furniture. That’s why her right tit was the lounge suite and her left tit was the dining table, and she flipped them both as she explained it to me. I asked her what she wore every day.

“Oh, whatever men wear,” she said. “I just dress up like this for parties. They expect me to.” How does she cover her tits, I wondered, wear loose tops. I learned that day the difference between transvestites and transsexuals. Transsexuals really want to be women. Transvestites want to dress up.

I really wanted to be a man. I even fantasized about it. I wanted to be a woman too but I imagined what it would be like to be a man having sex. And standing up going to the toilet. I wanted the freedom to roam late at night without being murdered or raped if I have to cut across the park to get home. At least men fear wandering around alone less. I could use the higher pay too and would like to be considered intelligent, especially as I am. How do I explain that women in IT like me, simply don’t get the jobs because they think we can’t do them. We’re just not technically minded enough, at least not in Australia. In China, we are but I’m sure there’s something else we can’t do. And we often get sneered at when we try to make a contribution. High marks at university counts for nothing. Even women think we can’t do it. You need a husband some of them said.

I know of women who hate men who identify as women. They talk about men trying it just to get into women’s prisons so they can rape all the inmates. I don’t agree with them, people are people and men who want to be women are genuine even if I think they’re misguided. But I understand how those women feel. They just want to have agency.