Her favorite color used to be pink. Her closet was full of pretty skirts and Hello Kitty shirts, frills and lace took up every corner of her pretty pink Hello Kitty closet and her pretty purple Hello Kitty room. Twirling curling irons, hairspray, pink costume jewelry, tiaras, and sparkles. She carried around her Hello Kitty backpack to school with pride.

Girls were made fun of if their favorite color was pink, because how dare you be so stereotypical and boring. But she was far from a stereotypical girl. Every day was spent yearning to tumble and roll in the mud, race around the track, and kick soccer balls with the boys and girls who didn’t care about the societal expectations of what it means to be a “young lady.” The ones who were athletic enough, loud enough, confident enough to be considered “one of the boys.” She was none of that. “That’s no place for such a soft and delicate girl like you,” was the phrase that was constantly repeated back to her. She cooked and cleaned and took care of children and did her homework like the good little young lady she was expected to be. She was quiet and had nothing to show for her strength, doing nothing but spend her days buried in a notebook-turned-sketchbook. She was such a girl that it was painful. She lay on her queen-sized princess bed, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, dreaming of a reality where she’s able to roll around in the dirt and pick up worms as if that was the expectation. She wrote in her black and pink diary about her woes of having the unfortunate curse of being born a girl. Since then, the Hello Kitty backpack she once wore around in pride was sent to the deepest, darkest corners of her room and her mind.

They resented the color pink. They got rid of their closet of frills and lace and tore down the Hello Kitty wall stickers. Skirts were replaced with grass-stained skinny jeans, and sparkly shirts were replaced with black graphic tees. Maybe replacing gymnastics with soccer could help them not be seen as something delicate to protect from the harsh world, as if they haven’t been through it already. They dreamt of changing their name to a more gender neutral one, giggled at the idea that someone might ‘mistake’ them for a boy one day. They hated the color pink for that reason. Pink means you’re a girl. They cowered at the idea that the first thing someone would think of them is that they were a girl, obviously and painfully a girl.

Their mother missed the pretty pink girl they used to be, denying that they had changed at all. “This is just a phase,” she exclaimed, “You’ll grow out of it in no time.” They didn’t want that to be the case. They hated being a girl. They cursed at the now retired Hello Kitty backpack sitting in the corner of their room; the only remaining reminder of every way they couldn’t express themself. Because being pink and pretty meant you’re a girl. Lord knows you’re anything but that.

He yearned for the color pink. The mask of sports and male-fronted punk bands influenced others’ perception of their still feminine figure and high-pitched voice, but it was never satisfying. He was still quiet and weak; days were still spent nose deep in a sketchbook in the corner of his queen-sized bed. His love for pink never truly changed. He picks at the painted-over sticker residue of the previous Hello Kitty stickers that remain on the wall, forever a reminder of who he once was. The tan paint peeled back, revealing the hot pink that used to cover the walls of his bedroom.

A part of him wishes he could express that he sometimes misses the lace-covered skirts and pink costume jewelry. The cheap tiara, now greasy and dusty, was missing at least half of the plastic gems that decorated it. The empty space on his shelf where his old collection of Hello Kitty figurines that are now long gone into a landfill was a cold reminder of what he left behind. But that would mean going back to the delicate baby girl who was expected to stay quiet and compliant. That would mean the “I told you so's" and the “It was just a phase” allegations, because expressing femininity can’t exist without being a girl. Maybe his hatred for pink was manufactured by what the color pink represented. Maybe he just didn’t want to be a girl. He still liked pink and skirts and lace, but what would that make him? A girl who’s just pretending to be a boy? A confused little girl who just wanted to be different? Is that really the case?

Could femininity and masculinity co-exist within a person? Could he just be?

He cleaned off the layers of dust and grime on the Hello Kitty backpack that had stayed in the same place for the past decade, staring at him from the same corner of his room. It might be ready for use again.

My favorite color used to be pink,
Hopefully, one day, without the judgment and harassment, it could be my favorite color once again.

Kio Wallace
​he/They