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“See this body, see this body, see this body’s not for me,
The way my bones are breaking is the way my skin will bleed”
– Dead-Bird by McCafferty
Richie Tozier has never been like the other girls her age. She didn’t like playing with dolls or barbies like the other girls did, and when she played house with other kids, she always preferred to be the dad, the older brother, or the pet (only if the other kids told her she couldn’t be the dad or older brother because she was a girl and not a boy, which was stupid). She liked roughhousing with the other boys, tackling and shoving and getting all dirty with mud and scraped knees and palms. She hated wearing dresses, skirts, and bows; shorts, T-shirts, and ugly and funny Hawaiian shirts were what she liked to wear more. Her hair was in a curly pixie bob that she’s had since she was six.
When she was younger, she used to tell her mom and dad (before they really stopped paying attention to her) that when she was older and able to, she would find a way to get rid of her breasts. Her dad had snorted in amusement while her mom had laughed and told her, “You’ll just grow to like them, honey. I promise.”
She also used to tell her parents that she didn’t want to have her own kids. “I feel like throwing up anytime I imagine myself having another living being in my body that way,” she would tell them. “I’d rather adopt or foster instead.”
Her parents had just laughed and told her she would think otherwise when she grew up.
Richie didn’t think she ever would think otherwise.
It was the summer of 1989, after she and the rest of her friends, the Losers Club, had fought It that she had gotten her period for the first time. She was one of the only girls in her grade who was last to get it, and it had made her feel like a freak that she hadn’t gotten it as early as girls like Gretta Keene or even her friend Beverly had. She thought she would’ve been happy to get it, as most girls usually are because it means they’re growing up, it means that they aren’t a little girl anymore.
It made her want to throw up, instead.
She sat on the toilet, staring down at the blood on the piece of toilet paper in her hand. There was a tight feeling in her chest, a knot forming in her stomach. Her mind was blank, staring at the blood still.
Swallowing, she threw the piece of toilet paper into the toilet, finished her business, and flushed, standing up. She opened the cabinet door under the sink, rifling around before she found the box of pads her mom had stuck in there several months before in anticipation of her getting her period. Opening the box, she shakily took out one of the pads and situated it on her underwear, the tightening in her chest getting worse and the knot in her stomach hardening even more as she did so. Tears welled up in her eyes as she stuck the box back under the sink, pulling up her underwear and then her pants.
She tried to ignore the feeling of the pad as she washed her hands and left the bathroom.
That night, after dinner, while she and her mom were cleaning dishes together, her mom rinsing them and Richie drying them, she told her mom.
“I–I got my period today.”
Her mom gasped excitedly, giving her a wide, happy smile. “Oh, Richie! That’s fantastic! And how do you feel?” She handed Richie another plate to dry as she said it.
Richie shrugged as she took the plate and began drying it. “I dunno. I feel normal.” Lie. “Nothing’s really changed.” Lie.
Her mom hummed as she nodded. “It feels normal at first, hon,” she said. “But you’ll get cramps a lot and you’ll be a lot more cranky or emotional. And you’ll crave things most of the time, too. I know I do. I tend to crave dark chocolate and your dad’s meatloaf a lot.”
“Oh,” was all Richie could say in response.
She cried in the shower that night, hugging her knees to her chest as she sobbed quietly under the hot water.
When she noticed her breasts starting to get bigger, she freaked out.
She had been in her room getting ready for school, the new school year after everything with It and Bowers, when she had noticed. She had been trying to figure out which ugly Hawaiian shirt she should wear for the first day of school (a light brown background with bright pink balloon patterns or a dark green background with black little monster faces that she had thrifted) when she noticed the slight swelling to her chest.
She brought her hands to her chest, a cold feeling settling over her as she felt the small swell. Bringing her hands back down, she looked away from her mirror and quickly threw on a bra her mom had gotten her a while ago and the dark green shirt with black monster faces on.
“Fuck,” she said softly, keeping her eyes up instead of looking down. Turning her body away from her mirror, she headed straight towards her desk that was by her bedroom door, grabbing her backpack and stuffing anything she needed in it. She’d worry about her chest and the uncomfortable cold feeling that was within her later.
Later at school, during lunch, when it was just her and Bev (the boys were all running late from their classes), Richie asked her, “When you noticed your, um–chest getting bigger . . . did you like . . . freak out at all? Or not like it?”
Bev looked at her confused, brows furrowed slightly. “No?” she replied in a confused tone. “I’m actually a little excited about it, if I’m to be honest.” She tilted her head, studying Richie silently. “Why?”
Richie just shook her head. “No reason.”
Bev opened her mouth like she was going to ask something but then Bill’s voice interrupted with a, “H-hey, Richie, B-Bev!” as he and the others sat down at the table.
(Later, when Richie’s chest had fully developed, she had started wrapping her chest to hide it. Or hunching over in her chair at school and at lunch. She’d lay on her side in the hammock in the clubhouse so she wouldn’t have to look at her chest by accident. Taking showers was a nightmare for her; most times she would leave the light off as she took a shower and would just blindly wash herself, cringing internally everytime she had to touch her chest. There would be days, days before she ever came out to her friends, where she would wear the wrappings around her chest for days until she couldn’t breathe and she had to take them off just to breathe.
Later, she would throw up anytime she got her period, wishing she could just carve her uterus out of her body. Sometimes she would lay in bed, hiding herself away from the world, or sometimes listening to Stan or Eddie who would come over and visit her on those days when she just felt like crawling into a ditch and dying. Stan would play one of her records for her, almost always Abbey Road by The Beatles, and just sit next to her bed, just existing with her. Eddie, when he would come over, would always give her a heated water bottle and some sour gummy worms and would read comics to her softly as she munched on the gummy worms.
Later, she would come to learn to love herself. Years down the line. But right now? Right now, all she knew was that her body felt wrong and she could never find out why.)
When she was fifteen, in the early months of 1992, she would come to Stan and say: “Stan, I–I don’t think I’m a girl.”
“What?” Stan would ask, confused.
“I don’t think I’m a girl,” she repeated to him, fidgeting with the hem of her Bruce Springsteen T-shirt.
Stan set his book down, giving her his full attention. They were in his room, Richie having come over to hang out (with the intention of talking about this thing going on with her). They were sitting on his bed, Stan sitting up against the headboard while Richie sat at the other end, their legs intertwined. “What do you mean?” he asked, not unkindly. It was genuine, gentle. Soft.
She bit her lip, not looking at him. “I just–” she started, cutting herself off, thinking of the right words. “I just . . . You know how I’ve never been like other girls?” Stan nodded. “Well, it’s like. I don’t know why it’s so hard to explain. But I would tell my mom and dad that I would find a way to get rid of–of my breasts when I’m older, or how I didn’t want my own biological kids. And they would tell me I’d think differently when I’m older, and I’m older now and I still don’t think otherwise. And my body feels all–all wrong , like none of this should be here. Like I shouldn’t have a period, and that I shouldn’t have fucking boobs , and that I shouldn’t fucking be a girl. ” By the time she was done, voice having gone quieter as she had continued to talk, tears were running down her face. “And I feel like I’m–I’m some type of freak for feeling like this and I can’t even look at myself in the mirror– ”
Stan’s hand touched her face gently, cutting her rant off. He wiped her tears gently. “I may give you shit, Rich,” he said, “but you are not, and never will be, a freak. You’re still Richie; you’re still my friend.” He gave her a smile. “We’ll figure it out together, okay? Thank you for coming to me.”
She sniffled, wiping her face with her forearm as she nodded. “Okay,” she said softly. Then she added, “Thank you, Stan the Man.”
Stan would laugh and push her shoulder at that.
(A week or two later, Stan would hurry over to Richie, a notebook clutched close to his chest as he took her away from the rest of their friends, saying, “Richie and I have a project we have to finish! We’ll be back before lunch ends!”
He would take them to the library, to a secluded section that was near the old dusty Britannica books, and would give her the notebook. “I did some research,” he told her, “about what you said about not feeling like a girl. And I think I–I found what it is.” He motioned for her to open the notebook, shuffling his feet.
Blinking, she opened the notebook and she could see, in Stan’s perfect loopy scrawl, the words, Transsexual: someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender they identify with.
The words rang through her head as she reread them over and over again, not speaking. “Oh my god,” she finally said, looking up at Stan, tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh my god, Stan. ”
Stan smiled at her, taking the notebook from her shaking hands and holding her hands in his. “I think we found what you are, Rich,” he told her gently, squeezing her hands.
She giggled wetly. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we did.”)
Richie had been practicing at night.
“This is Richie,” she would say, “and he’s funny. He’s a nerd. He’s a dork, but he cares very much for his friends. He loves his friends. He’s trying to love himself.” Saying he in regards to herself made her feel . . . lighter, almost. Warm.
She would practice saying it to herself at night for a week before she asked Stan to use he/him pronouns in regards to her, when it was the two of them.
“Richie is my best friend,” he’d start, “and he’s really annoying and tells the worst jokes, but he’s my best friend and always will be. He’s smart and funny, and caring, and is always there when I don’t realize that I need someone. He knows me better than I know myself, and I’m happy he trusted me to help him with this.”
Richie was crying softly when Stan had finished. “Yeah,” she–no, he said. “Yeah.”
Coming out to his parents had been–bad, for a lack of better words. There had been a lot of yelling, a lot of “You’re not sick! ” and “It’s just a phrase!”, a lot of crying (on Richie’s part at least), but at least he knew he had his friends. And if not all of them, at least he had Stan.
He came out to his friends next, after the fiasco with his parents. They were all in the clubhouse, all seven of them, when Richie had sat up in the hammock that he and Eddie were sharing and said, “I’d like if you guys used he/him pronouns for me please.”
It was quiet before there was noise.
“Of course, Rich!” Ben.
“S–sure thing, R–Richie.” Bill.
“Thank you for telling us, that was very brave of you.” Mike.
“Sure thing, babe! It doesn’t change anything much.” Bev.
Stan gave her a wide smile and a thumbs up, causing him to grow warm and itch the back of his neck in embarrassment.
Eddie had been silent for a moment before he went, “Of course, Rich. You’re still Richie, whether you’re a guy or a girl. Thank you for telling us.” He gave Richie a shy smile and gave him a hug, arms wrapped tightly around him. The rest of the group joined in, hugging each other tightly. No one commented on Richie’s soft crying.
(Years later, after Richie left home, after he forgot Derry, he never forgot himself. As the years went by, he got onto hormones, he got top surgery, he began to love himself. He still had days where he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror, still had nights where he showered in the dark because he refused to have to look at his nether regions when he washed. He still had days where he wondered if he passed well enough for a man, but he didn’t have to worry.
Richie was always a boy, always a man. It just took him a while to realize it.)