At the age of six I was very skinny, little below 20kg with very short hair. I looked like a boy. But I did not care. But only until we went on holidays to the little village. I played with the children from the village. All together there were four of us (respectively six, but the two youngest ones were too young to play with us). Almost like the Bullerby children. We climbed on trees and ate cherries belonging to someone else. And on one of those trees, Willy caught us. “Get down”, he said. We sat there up in the tree and had no intention of coming down. “I say it again, get down”, and he got very close to the tree. We continued to sit there, quiet as church mice. “Then I will get up there and shake you”, he said and started climbing. But with his wellies this was not an easy endeavour. He was concentrating. Two of the children climbed lower, jumped on the ground and ran to the wood. In the meantime he had managed to climb the tree and had arrived higher up. The third child used this moment and also jumped and ran away. Now I was alone with that angry man. I started to climb higher. “Get down immediately”, he shouted at me. I climbed higher, scared but clever enough not to get caught. He began to shake the tree but since the tree was big and mighty, nothing much happened. “Get down there or I will fell the tree”, he threatened but he did not climb any higher. I did not make a sound. “You damn thief”, he grumbled. You damn boy“, he said. Now he had hit my pride. “I am not a boy”, I shouted back, hurt by his comment. “I am a girl”, I said. “I am not blind, do you think I am stupid!? You are a boy“, he answered. Then he started again climbing in my direction. No idea how heavy he was. But he was huge and for sure had about 100kg. I climbed as up as far as possible. He was far below me. Suddenly a funny noise. A branch had broken under him and he fell on the ground. He was swearing loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear it. Apparently he had hurt his foot because he jumped on one leg. Then he sat on this tractor and drove away, not before threatening me again with his fist and shouting “I will find you, you damn rascal, you boy”. When he was gone, I climbed down and ran home. On that day I decided to never ever again cut my hair. I don’t want to look like a boy. At that time only the girls were wearing long hair.

This changed only a short time afterwards. Today the length of the hair has hardly anything to do with the sex. Yesterday I was swimming. I was standing under the hairdryer and was watching the new arrivals. Among them a tall athletic father with two young boys. All three have shoulder long hair. I am drying my hair and am almost done with it. Suddenly I see the two boys from before, standing helpless in front of the doors to the showers. One has to know that the swimming pool can only be reached through the shower rooms. Many do not know this and come back after the shower. I wanted to help and went closer to the boys. “Guys, you need to go through the shower room and then you are at the swimming pool. Over there are the men’s showers.” I said and pointed to the middle door. The taller one looked at me and said: “But we are both girls.” I felt guilty, but could not remedy what I had said. How will these girls deal with it? Long hair they have already!