Jude's mom stands her ground to enter Jude in the Linville Christmas parade as a girl! The Spangled Leotard by Torey Copyright © 2013 Torey All Rights Reserved.

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"My son doesn't need any special treatment!"

Those were the words we heard at practice as we practiced for our numbers for the Linville Christmas parade.

"Oh God, Mom, what are you up to now?" I thought as we finished our routine.

Barbara Jean Miller was the ultimate little league mom, scout leader, homeroom mom, dance mom and baton twirling mom in hillbilly heaven, also known as east Tennessee. Whatever her boys were involved in, she threw herself in with gusto, much to our embarrassment.

She didn't mind what people thought of her, which was a good thing since she had been married four times. My brothers and I had different fathers, and I was the one born out of wedlock, although technically by Tennessee law my parents' relationship could have been called a common-law marriage.

She could be loud, crude, but she loved us just the same.

My two older brothers, they were of the typical redneck-hillbilly variety. Think Daryl and Merle from "The Walking Dead," if you watch that show. They hunt, they fish. They like Nascar and play little league.

Me, oh that's another story.

I'm "the little girl my momma never had."

That's my mother's latest boyfriend's opinion. Oh yeah, Lloyd. He's a piece of work.

My mother never hid the fact that I was a "sissy."

No, scratch that, "Janegirl."

She read that in a magazine once and she wanted to be up on the trends. Yeah, try being the kindergartner with the fluorescent pink shirt that read "Mommy's little Janegirl."

She was proud to be a "tomboy" growing up, and she was proud to be raising a "Janegirl."

I admit it. I loved watching Hannah Montana growing up. Miley Cyrus was my idol, another Tennessee girl. I had the biggest Barbie collection a boy in the Smokeys ever had. I wore pastel colored clothes, bright purples, greens, pinks, yellows.

I take tap classes at Miss Katie's School of Dance. Yeah, I was the bumblebee in the recital last May.

My mother always insisted if I wanted to start wearing dresses, it was okay with her.

No thanks Mom, at least not yet.

Grandma's made me a nice country girl dress, but I'm waiting to surprise Mom with it after Santa comes.

But now back to our story.

I happen to be the only boy twirler in the Mountain Darlin's, also known as the training ground for future Linville High majorettes.

Our director, the lovely Heather Moultrie, tried to emphasize I was a "twirler," not a majorette. Our choreography tried to bring out the "manliness" of the only boy twirler in the Tennessee hills, who happened also to be one of the top three twirlers on the whole squad.

Miss Heather was proud of her 10-year-old wonder.

My uniform was always a pair of slacks and a colored tie that matched the spangled leotards of my fellow twirlers.

That was until the argument.

A couple of the moms were complaining that their daughters were going to freeze to death marching in their spangled leotards, while as the only boy, I was marching in a long sleeve shirt and long pants.

Miss Heather walked away from our practice to settle the argument.

"I didn't ask for Jude to get special treatment!" my mom shouted. "I think it's the other way around. The girls get the special uniform. I'd much rather Jude WEAR a leotard just like the rest of the girls!"

All of the girls looked at me. I wanted to crawl under a rock. Nice going there, Mom.

To make a long story short, here I stood shivering in a spangled red sequined leotard on Main Street two weeks before Christmas with about 20 other girls, waiting to begin to march.

Miss Heather explained to me I would no longer be getting "special treatment."

"Not entirely what I want," she said, "but I'm not going against your mother's wishes."

I heard a couple of smart remarks about the queer boy dressed as a girl. I heard the laughter.

But I also heard a few words in my defense. One from a father.

"Actually, he looks better in that get up than a lot of the girls in the squad, you know, the fat ones," I heard him say. "Who would do that to their daughters?"

Of course, there was Mom, in her shining glory. I was decked out in pigtails, makeup, lipstick and ribbons that matched my leotard. And that wonderful thing between my legs that set me apart from my fellow twirlers. Evidently, it's so small, you can't really tell I have one.

"Give 'em hell, Jude, show 'em how to strut your stuff!" she shouted from the street.

"Gee, thanks Mom," I thought as I looked her way and gave her a look that I thought my hint at a little lovely sarcasm.

"Actually, I think your Mom is kinda cool," said Becky Jo, one of my fellow twirlers.

I was never so glad for the marching to begin. We marched to Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Silent Night and other Christmas tunes played by the Linville High School Band, which marched behind us.

Then came our moment to shine. We did a routine to "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus right in front of the courthouse.

As one of the three featured twirlers, we did a few tricks apart from the group. I was in the middle between Kaylie and Amber.

"Hey, that girl in the middle is really good," I heard a man say halfway during our routine.

Miss Heather didn't bother to correct him.

And I'm cool with that.