Just because I've never liked sport, any sport, comics, computer games or any of the other pointless activities most males waste their lives on, any more than I've ever liked pink, frilly stuff, clothes, dolls and make up and the other things most females seem to be obsessed by doesn’t make me, soft, sissy, lesbo, butch, trans, freaky or gay, and it definitely doesn’t make me a trans girl or a trans boy both of which I’ve constantly been accused of over the years. I don’t have any issues with what ever others are, but I just happen to want to live as a straight boy. I’m not interested in cars, motorbikes, horses or fashion either, but I am interested in workshop activities, wood, metal or plastics it doesn’t matter. Photography, CNC programming, wildlife, cooking, all things STEM, the list of things I enjoy is endless.

I like pretty girls’ clothes as long as there’s a pretty girl wearing them. I’ve never wanted to be a girl, wear their clothes, behave like one or be treated like one. As far back as I can remember I've always wanted to be a boy, wear their clothes and be treated that way. Sure some of the things I’m interested in are seen as girls stuff, like cooking, but when Mum’s working you should see some of the crap my brothers cook. Not me, I pay attention to what Gran and Mum do in the kitchen and help whenever I can. We’ve never known our dad and there’re the four of us, I've three brothers. I’m the second eldest and the others used to give me a hard time about just about everything till they realised what I put on the table was actually edible. None of us are big built or tall, we’re kind of middling, but I’m the only clever one.

I do like dressing tidily and I look after my hair and skin because I don't want to look greasy and full of acne like my brothers, and I’ve never felt obliged to prove my masculinity, that’s another one of those pointless things most males are constantly doing, and I don’t get involved in arguments or fights at school. The boys my age at school leave me alone because I’m considered to be dangerous, like loco dangerous. I got beaten up by four big boys at school when I was eleven. The following weekend I took each one out with an demolition bar, no bone breakages, but I hurt them. I told them if they ever laid a finger on me again I’d hurt them so badly they’d never walk without pain again and never be able to hold a pen again, not that the latter would be any hardship. I suppose I am loco because I meant it and I’d do it. All I want is to be left alone. After being beaten up Mum made sure I was allowed to use the medical centre lavatory and change for games there too. I don't know what she said but she's a solicitor.

Despite that I like school, and have always got on with most of the kids especially the girls which the idiot boys used to give me grief for but they're jealous about now. The idiots are now resorting to calling me soft, sissy, lesbo, butch, trans, freaky and gay, not always in that order, but they never miss one of them out. Actually most of my friends are girls because they don’t look down on kids who try to do well in lessons. If the boys would treat the girls like human beings the girls would like them too. It doesn’t take much to work that out, and then they wouldn’t need to be jealous of me for having a pretty girlfriend.

I’m fifteen and the only one in my year with a steady girlfriend. I’ve been going out with Jessica for nearly two years, more or less since her family moved into the area and she joined my class at school. When we first met and started seeing each other outside school she was a tall skinny girl with two ironing board flat backs and a pretty face. She got a lot of grief at school for it from the boys. She's got brittle bones like her mum and doesn't do games, which she gets grief from the girls for. Over the last two years she’s become curvy and drop dead gorgeous. She’s a wildlife nut which is cool, cos I like that sort of stuff too. She’s not unfair, I get involved in her interests, so she gets involved in mine. She’s become interested in the stuff I do in the garage which doesn’t house Mum’s car but her washing machine and tumble drier and my workshop of course. Mum and her mum weren’t happy about the amount of time we spent together on our own to begin with, but they’re ok about it now because we’re not just going out with each other, we’re each other’s best friend too.

When the weather is good we cycle out into the countryside with our cameras and when it’s not we go into the workshop or the kitchen. Jessica has become really good at wood turning and enjoys it, so we enjoy our time together and kissing is fun too. We are both in all the top sets at school and work as partners whenever we can. We both like that for obvious reasons, but it also means we work with someone who pulls their weight instead of having to carry a slacker, so we both do better.

We’re identifying lichens on the tombstones in the church yard for our examination practical work in biology, cataloguing local rocks for our geology, repairing and rewinding a burnt out three phase motor and making it run off a single phase supply using a Steinmetz connection for our physics and trying to make a decent bar of soap that doesn’t burn your skin off using fat and wood ashes for chemistry. Most of the kids had projects given them but Jessica and I dreamt up our own.

The bane of my life is Kevin Jessica’s elder brother. He’s a Neanderthal knuckle dragger, heavily into sport and his only original idea died of loneliness before he hit four, for sure he’s never had another since going to school. Don’t misunderstand me, he isn’t a bully and he has no problems with me going out with his sister. It’s just he loves his sister, is protective because of her bones and he likes me. He feels obliged to befriend me and constantly tries to shew me the way to manhood by involving me in his activities. It’s a very misplaced kindness, though useful as some of the bigger thugs leave me alone because, and I’m quoting something I overheard last year, “That queer may be a sissy, lesbo, gay, butch, trans freak, but it goes out with Kev Wendover’s sister. Kev looks out for the pair of them, and you really don’t want to upset Kev, so best leave well alone.”

Jessica’s mum and dad think I’m ok because I can fix things. Her dad can’t even wire a plug, he’s an English teacher, and her mum, who’s a nurse, was amazed when I got her dishwasher working. It baffled me at the time that they were so amazed because there was a flashing light on the front panel that said ‘fuse blown’, and it took a standard cartridge fuse in a push in push out fitting right next to the light, no screwdriver required.

Mum and her partners have recently started their own law firm, they’re all solicitors, so she spends a lot of time at work. My brothers have reluctantly learnt how to load the dishwasher, and put clothes in the washer and drier. Gran lives on the other side of town, so till they learn how to iron a shirt and sew buttons back on they’ll have to wear crumpled clothes with missing buttons till Mum has time. I on the other hand can replace a zip in a pair of trousers with the sewing machine, but I’m not going to do stuff like that for them, and they know better than to ask Jessica.

Most of the boys anywhere near my age seem to regard me as an affront to their own masculinity because either I'm letting the side down or I should be letting them get their hands on me. That I’m prepared to admit to cooking, using a sewing machine and an iron or cleaning my own room triggers all sorts of abuse, but when accused of being a sissy, lesbo, gay, butch, trans freak my standard reply is, “I’m not the one who only ever hangs out with a crowd of boys, and I don’t think Jessica would agree with you.” What I think bugs them is I always have a bit of money and don’t have to ask Mum for it. I fix and make things for money. Jessica and I turn small bits and pieces to sell using wooden offcuts and odd bits of plastic. They sell well on the street market, and at school too. Mum and Jessica’s parent’s sell a few at work for us. We’re making a lot at the moment ready for Christmas and Mum wants to buy a boxful of individual wooden key fobs for the company to give to customers. You know the ones that have a plastic window you can put a piece of card behind with all the company’s details on.

Jessica wants to go to a Halloween party with both of us in costume. I’m not sure what kind of costumes she’s thinking of, but I’m going to have to keep my wits about me because she’s been getting a lot more amorous recently, and her inhibitions and sense of embarrassment have definitely dropped to a level way below mine. Whilst I admit I have been thinking rather a lot about us becoming more intimate recently, from the time I hit puberty and started thinking about stuff like that, I’ve never had any intentions of proving my adulthood by becoming a parent before I could support a family. You see the whole issue is ironic really. All my life I’ve been taking crap for being perceived as being a girly boy or a butch girl, and for the last two years, as Jessica changed from a skinny girl to a beautiful young woman, the boys understood progressively less and resented progressively more why someone as hot as Jessica even bothered talking to someone like me. It’s their own fault. When that skinny girl joined our school they wouldn’t talk to her, but I did, and we’re still talking.

Last year, till Kevin made it clear to the idiots that he liked me, I used to get threatened by Karl, he was a big thug in the year above us, with being beaten up if I didn’t stop talking to Jessica. After we’d been seen kissing she was repeated told by him to dump the freak and touched up by him in attempts to intimidate her to go out with him. Eventually Kevin heard about it and beat the crap out of him and that stopped too. I don’t want to take part in what Kevin enjoys doing with his mates, but I do actually like the guy, and I enjoy going out with him and Alyssia on double dates as much as Jessica does. Jessica and I leave school next May, and college next year with no thugs will be a lot easier and safer too. You see, unknown to them, these days I encourage the idiots to keep focussed on having a go at me because me taking the crap diverts attention away from Jessica whose gender they've never thought to question.