Several years ago, I decided to go back in time and watch hours of childhood home movies. I had just gotten divorced, quit my job, and was living alone for the first time in my life. In a desperate effort to confront my unprocessed trauma, I assumed that these painfully unfiltered, first-hand representations of my childhood might be a good place to start. I closed all the windows, crawled in bed, and nervously hit “play” as if I were preparing to watch an eight-hour slasher movie starring me as the main victim.

There were a few videos that stood out. (Don’t worry, the videos I’m about to recount didn’t depict anything particularly traumatic… I’ll get back to that storyline later).

The first was of me and a friend naked in my bedroom in 1991. We were both three years old. My dad was there, as was this little girl’s mom. The topic of genitalia came up. Apparently, my friend, let’s call her Mary, had recently learned about vaginas and penises, and how to tell them apart. She explained in broken yet adorable three-year-old English that her brother had a penis, and that she and her mom had a vagina. “What does Anya have?” her mom asked. Mary shook her head. She didn’t know. My dad chimed in, “Why don’t you take a look!”

Mary walked up to me, crouched down to look at my crotch, and very excitedly proclaimed “GINA!” Everyone laughed and cheered, but I sat still, confused and contemplative. “Mary said you have a vagina!” my dad said gleefully, trying to get me to join in on the fun.

After a few more seconds of silence, I leapt up, grabbed my vagina with both hands in an unmistakably similar manner to how men frequently grab their balls, you know, like this, and shouted “I have a penis!”

“What?” My dad asked, genuinely confused. I repeated myself clearly, still standing. “I have a penis,” I said. My dad responded again, “No, you don’t have a penis, you have a vagina.”

I sat down on the bed, shook my head pitying his ignorance and said “Naaah”.

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