The Sad PowderPuff Cheerleader

My family did not live in the inner city but we did live in a blue-collar town in the poorest section of the county. I guess that's why I identified with Rosanne more than I did with Cosby, back then. In my town CDing for males was really not accepted at any age, except for the powderpuff football games. Which was suppose to have been were I first got the chance to dress in public enfemme. The issue with that was that I had to severely pull back though. At that time for me it was the closest chance I had to dressing up in the cheerleading uniform that I so desperately wanted and not the football uniform that I had to wear during the games. So when the chance came to be a powderpuff cheerleader I remember the point I realized that it was not going to be the experience that I hoped for in my dreams.

After school, when I went to get my cheerleading uniform with the rest of the football team, I soon discovered that what was supposed to be my first magical moment and first opportunity to live my dream of being a cheerleader turned into a literal circus. When the other football team members got their uniforms, to them, it was a huge joking experience. I remember when I got mine. Even now writing this, it tears my eyes up a bit. The uniforms where the old and worn cheerleader uniforms from previous actual girls squads. I was a bit upset it wasn't the current ones like the squads were wearing at that time, but it was still ok though, It was still a cheer uniform that had the schools name and colors. It was at that moment that I was caught in a instance that it should have been the happiest time of my school days, but I dare not show it. So I had to attempt to act the fool like the rest of the fools that day in that locker room and joke about the having to wear a cheerleader uniform. I remember leaving the school that day and I am sure even the angels in Heaven were smiling brighter that day.

I took the uniform home and my father frowned about i,t but since the powderpuff game was a known event and he was just happy that his "son" was playing football he just ignored it mostly. I guess this is where some would have ran to their bedrooms and locked the door and spent the rest of the evening wearing their first female outfit. I dare not, my father .... at that time.... it would have been like a neutron bomb going off if I got caught wearing it for anything but the game. So my uniform sat in the corner with my football gear and that was the end.

I wish I could say that this story had a happy TG ending but it did not. Over the next few days we had "cheer" practice and it became crystal clear to me that I could not be a powder puff cheerleader because during the practices it was clear that what was serious to my "TG" heart and soul was severe laughable joke to my "teammates". Where I was listening to the instructor with greater effort to learn the moves and to learn the cheers, the rest of the team it was a joke. I do believe that even to the instructors who were coaching us it was a joke and they fed into the joke of the guys being dressed as the girls. It was too much for me. I quit after 2 practices and sadly turned in my first cheer uniform with out even wearing it once.

I remember attending the powder puff game and seeing how my former teammates were dressed and acted. Blow up balloons for breast, gawdly applied makeup, and wigs that were... just not right and even beyond clownish. The audience in the small stadium laughed and joked about the spectacle that these boys dressed as cheerleaders put on. It was then that I knew that it was the right thing that I did quit the powderpuff team. To me, it was the golden chance to live the dream that I had always held in my heart to put on my school cheerleading uniform and be that cheerleader I was inside. To be on the sidelines instead of being on the field. I guess this when cheerleading became, to me, the same ballet. Both activity's soon became too difficult to watch. That freshman year two things happened though, I never played organized football again and never went to another of my sister's ballet recitals. If you or anyone else encountered people during your school days that encouraged CDing in a positive way, the void of hatred and more importantly the void of seeing it as more of a reason to laugh, then I envy those of you.