The next few weeks were a trial as I tried to adapt to this new situation of mysteriously being transported not only to 1991, but what amounted to a new body. The toilet became my personal torture chamber. Every visit, the same stark reality. I’d sit there, knees pinched together, staring down at the void between my legs where familiar parts once resided. It wasn't just gone; it was never there in this body. A deadness settled in my eyes, a silent witness to the cruel joke played by unseen forces. And every time I went, the punchline landed. It took the better part of a week before I stopped being obsessed about it, and was able to accept the mundane realities of my new plumbing. It may have been the first thing I thought about in the morning, but eventually it became the second.

  A great deal of the struggle was adjusting to the world of suburban Minnesota in the early 90s. For a time, I simply wandered around my old neighborhood. Everything was where I remembered it: the houses, the trees, even our old red station wagon in the driveway. The internet did not exist, let alone things like smartphones or flat-screen TVs, and it was fascinating to observe people existing in a non-digital world. People listened to radios, had roadmaps in the glove compartment, and kids played outside. Seeing all of the hairstyles and fashion felt like I was on some alien planet, yet it was all familiar.

  I tried to get my bearings by reading the only information source available: the newspaper. I would read through it after Dad was finished with it, though the information was practically useless to me in my current state. For example, how relevant is the Twin’s successful baseball season or the aftermath of Desert Storm to a ten-year-old? Even watching the evening news was fairly pointless. It was a much simpler way of living, in a world without constant social media It was very quaint, and certainly less hectic. But I was starved for information.

  Despite the pleasantness of a quieter world, it was tough navigating life as a child again. On the one hand, it was astounding at how energetic I felt. All of my old aches and pains, such as my bad knee from college and my sore neck, were completely gone. I could run around practically non-stop, and my brain had to force my body to slow down or to not let the flood of youthful emotion overwhelm me. Tim would occasionally pester me, and for an instant I would snap at him before reminding myself to not overreact. Often, I would find myself bouncing off the walls at the amount of stamina I had.

  However, this newfound vigor was curtailed by the realities of being ten years old. The most pressing was simply how much smaller I was than the world around me. In addition, the amount of restrictions imposed on me was suffocating. Granted, children needed the stability of a strict schedule, but how do I even begin to explain the forty-odd years of memories in my child-sized head? My parents dictated what I ate, when I slept, and where I went. School was even worse; I was stuck at my desk and unable to even stand up without Mr. Dolland’s permission. It didn’t help that I could easily finish the assignments, so I had literally nothing to do as I sat in the classroom struggling to keep my boundless energy in check.

  And of course, there was the matter of the change that had occurred with my body. I was constantly aware of it; every step I took, every time I sat down, I was constantly reminded of the gap between my legs. I was unendingly self-conscious about it, and it was stressful keeping it hidden from everyone. I would avoid using the bathroom at school, simply as a precaution. I was especially cautious about accidentally spilling my secret to my family, always carefully sneaking away if I needed to use the bathroom or get dressed. I knew that eventually I would have to figure out exactly what had changed, but I was at a loss for what I could possibly do about this vagina that had mysteriously appeared.

  Eventually Mom noticed that I was becoming more withdrawn. “You haven’t played with your friends in weeks, Matthew,” she asked me one afternoon as I paged through a book in the living room. “Are you feeling sick again? Are you okay?”

  My head jerked up, but I collected myself. “Everything’s okay, Mom,” I lied, plastering a smile on my face. “I’m…just sad about fourth grade ending.”

  Mom raised her eyebrow. “You’re sad about summer vacation starting? You’re a strange boy, Matthew.”

  Since I sensed that Mom was starting to worry and began monitoring me more closely, I decided to play the role of kid in earnest, and started running around with the neighbor kids. At the very least it was a way to burn off some energy. I would jump on my bike and ride around with my friend Randy and some of the other boys in the neighborhood. It was interesting playing with the boys again, as it had been decades since I had roamed the streets looking for something fun to pass the time.

  Playing old video games was fun; the boys were all pretty impressed that I suddenly was quite masterful at playing games. After all, I had years of practice in my previous life. However, when it came to playing outside, the boys liked to roughhouse a bit too much for my taste. I cautiously abstained of course, but in the pit of my stomach it just felt wrong. I didn’t want to wrestle or grapple with them as it just felt too aggressive to me. I vaguely remembered playing that way in my former life, but it felt repugnant to me now. I chalked it up to my adult mindset and left it at that.

  It was a few days after the school year ended and on that particular morning I was the last to get out of bed. As usual, the looming size of the room compared to my four-foot frame disoriented me, and the feeling of my thighs clapping together with nothing to get in the way reminded me of my loss. I was getting used to that particular feeling, but it still felt as if there was a phantom appendage there. With a yawn, I got out of bed sleepily and shuffled to my dresser. Usually I was careful to listen and make sure no one was close by when I changed clothes, but for whatever reason this morning I thoughtlessly stripped down as I rummaged through my drawers searching for a clean pair of underwear.

  In my sleepy haze, I didn’t hear the door open as my little brother barged into my room unannounced.

  “Matt, I can’t find my controller, do you know where – whoa!”

  I turned to face him, so groggy in sleepiness that it took a few moments to register that I was standing nude in front of my brother. His eyes landed squarely at my groin before I had the wherewithal to cover myself and slam my knees together.

  “Matt, where is your penis?” he asked.

  “Get out of my room!” I shouted, hastily covering myself with my pajama bottoms.

  But it was no use. He had seen. “Mom! Mom! Something happened to Matthew’s penis!” Tim shouted as he ran upstairs. I panicked as the thought of my family knowing what happened tore through me. I wasn’t ready!

  My heart racing, I scrambled to put on the pajamas I had just taken off. I heard heavy footsteps coming down to the basement as I braced myself. Mom turned the corner and stepped into my room with Tim following close behind.

  “What is going on, Matthew?” she asked me. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

  I winced as I folded my arms in front of my chest. “I’m fine, I’m fine…”

  Tim pointed at me. “Something happened to his penis, Mom!”

  “Shut up, Tim!” I shouted as I clutched my groin.

  Mom sighed. “It’s okay, Matthew. I’m your mother. You have no reason to be embarrassed. Let me see what happened.”

  I flinched. “Please don’t flip out.”

  Mom took my hand and led me into the bathroom. “Matthew, I promise I am not going to ‘flip out.’ Now show me what happened.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Mom proceeded to flip out about five seconds after I pulled down my pajamas in the bathroom. She wailed as she pulled out half the roll of toilet paper as if to stem bleeding from a missing appendage. There was no wound of course, but she had me hold the toilet paper to myself anyway as she shouted to my father, who by now had run inside to see what the screaming was about. To my embarrassment, Dad also saw me holding a crumpled roll of toilet paper to my naked groin, and immediately ran upstairs to get the first aid kit and ice.

  Mom was holding me, whispering to me that everything was going to be okay as she escorted me upstairs. She grabbed the rotary telephone on the wall to dial 911 as Dad slammed a bag of ice on my privates. Mom started stroking my hair as I was laid on the living room couch, and my vain attempts to assure them that I wasn’t in pain were ignored. Tim stood dumbly in the kitchen, while Janie sucked her thumb next to him. Minutes later an ambulance arrived and loaded me into the back, with Mom attending. Dad stayed with Tim and Janie as the ambulance sped off to the hospital.

  There was a flurry of activity in the examination room as Mom hysterically tried to explain that my penis had been torn off or something. It was humiliating as the doctors checked me, and were confused when Mom explained that I was a boy. Apparently they had to check my record and contact my pediatrician to corroborate. They confirmed that there was no trauma, but I had to undergo a full barrage of tests for the entire day. The doctors took blood samples, performed several closeup examinations (which I noticed they had female nurses perform) and even stuffed me into a massive machine for a series of scans. They had me stay overnight for observation despite my assurances that I was in no pain.

  For the next day a group of doctors peppered me with questions as I lay in the patient bed in my gown. I played dumb of course; the last thing I was going to bring up was the fact that alien beings of some kind transported me back in time and into the wrong body. The story I came up with was that it had been like this for a while – exactly how long I had no idea, of course – and I just didn’t tell anyone. Since it didn’t hurt and it was in my private area, it was reason enough not to say anything to anyone. The doctors seemed to accept it, as the fact that I was a child accounted for the sketchy details. I could hear the doctors whispering in the back of the room trying to come up with a theory about what had happened to me.

  It was another day of hospital bed rest before test results were collected and analyzed. Apparently my condition was of great interest to several of the doctors in the facility; after all, no one had ever heard of a case such as mine where they seemingly swapped genders. It was confirmed that I was in no immediate distress, but before I was discharged my parents and I were called into an office. The lead doctor was sitting behind his desk, conferring a small group of physicians. As we walked in, they welcomed up and gestured to the chairs facing them. All but one of the group, a pleasant-looking younger lady with a small bundle of folders, exited the room.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Peterson, Matthew, please take a seat.” The doctor nodded at the woman next to him. “I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Evelyn Walters, a clinical therapist who we’ve called in for this case.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” she said with a smile.

  “Doctor, can you tell us what is going on?” asked Mom as we took our seats. She put her hand around my shoulders protectively.

  He opened the files on his desk, looking at them carefully. “The long and short of it is that this is an extremely unique case. We can’t say exactly what happened, but what I can tell you that we ran several procedures. The blood work was fine; oddly enough, he has astoundingly low cholesterol levels and blood sugar. Obviously, Matthew has never had a DNA test, so we unfortunately have no previous samples to compare to. All we have are his previous records from his pediatrician visits, but the latest was several years ago.”

  He opened one of the folders, and flipped through several black and white images. “The MRI we took showed nothing out of the ordinary, as did the x-ray and the anatomical survey we performed.” He cleared his throat. “Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you are a prepubescent male. There’s no easy way to say this, but I’m afraid that every test we’ve taken concluded that Matthew is biologically female.”

  “I’m a girl?” I blurted out.

  “He’s a girl?” My parents echoed simultaneously.

  He folded his hands together and took a deep breath. “All internal scans showed everything normal for a prepubescent female. Ovaries, uterus, vaginal canal…all present and all within normal developmental stages of a girl at ten years. In addition, hormonal levels are within normal ranges, and the DNA test confirmed the presence of two X chromosomes. This all verifies that Matthew is, in fact, a biologically healthy female of his – her – age.”

  I had thought that perhaps, everything was the same with my body except for the obvious area. That perhaps my body had been remade with one glaring omission. I did, after all, look near identical to what I remembered I looked like at age ten. But this was the proof; I had been transformed into a female version of myself. The weight of the realization hit me hard, and my childish body reacted viscerally as I started sobbing into my hands. Mom reached over and hugged me close as I cried into her chest.

  “How is this possible?” demanded Dad whose voice tinged with shock.

  “There have been various conditions that resulted in altered external gender characteristics. For example, there’s a condition called Swyer syndrome which causes a fetus with an XY profile to develop in vitro as a female, but this is not the case since Matthew’s DNA is XX. It would also cause them to be born as indistinguishable from a female, and Matthew had been the opposite.” The doctor leaned back into his chair. “There are also conditions in which an individual exhibits external traits of the opposing gender, which were once known as hermaphroditism, but are now designated as ‘intersex.’ For example, a person may be born with external features of one sex, but internal organs of the other. I will say though, it has never been documented in this way. There’s no indication that Matthew has ever had any male features at all.”

  “So our son just suddenly transformed into a girl?” asked Mom. “I assure you, he was born a boy! I changed his diapers! He was circumcised!”

  “The only thing we can surmise is that, at birth, Matthew had a superficial scrotum and penis. There were no testicles to descend, and likely no blood vessels. Just skin and tissue. As he got older, it’s possible that they slowly diminished over the years until eventually atrophying completely and exposing the vagina. I can only assume that you didn’t notice?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen Matthew naked since he was a toddler,” Mom muttered, trailing off into thought.

  Dr. Walters chimed in. “It likely happened so gradually that not even Matthew noticed. There’s no way she could have known. When asked, she said she doesn’t even remember when this could have occurred. And she would have had no way of knowing it was unusual.”

  It stung that I was referred to as ‘she’ so casually, but I was slightly relieved that they found a way to scientifically justify what had happened that didn’t involve godlike aliens. I mean, the evidence was clear from their perspective. Better than anything I could have come up with. I dislodged from Mom, with my head hung low. I could feel Dr. Evelyn appraising me.

  Dad sighed. “So what should we do now? Just go about like nothing happened? That we just start dressing our son like a girl!?” I wailed again.

  Dr. Walters shook her head. “Let’s not be too hasty. I think that with summer vacation starting it will give yourselves some time to think. However, this will be a difficult transition not just for her, but for your entire family. I would like to begin by scheduling a few sessions with not only Matthew, but for both of you starting this week. In fact, it would be best that I meet with Matthew starting tomorrow.”

  I covered my face in shame, and Mom put her hand around my shoulders once again. Dad nodded solemnly and thanked both of them. My parents and the doctors made the arrangements and signed the discharge papers, and then we exited the office. Mom’s arm was still around me as we walked past the groups of specialists who had been waiting outside.

  As Mom escorted me out, I felt their curious eyes on me. Appraising me as a specimen, or a scientific curiosity. I just felt like a freak. I was more isolated than ever before, and more vulnerable than I had ever been. As we drove away, not even the relief of getting out of that stuffy hospital room wasn’t enough to lift my mood.

  The drive home was quiet, though Mom assured me repeatedly that everything would be alright. They ended up taking me to McDonald’s for lunch, but the novelty of early 90s prices for hamburgers was lost on me. I joylessly shoved french fries in my mouth as Mom and Dad regarded me with sympathy.

  I crawled into bed once we got home, and when I curled up under the covers I could hear Mom and Dad upstairs sitting at the kitchen table having a serious discussion. I lay with my face in my pillow, morose that some cosmic prank had been pulled on me. Worse, there was no way out. I was not only stuck in the past, but I was stuck as a girl. Not a boy with a vagina, as I originally surmised, but a complete female. The weight of my situation had finally hit home, that my previous life and everything I knew was erased. Between fits of sobbing the reality of losing everything closed in and I passed out from sheer exhaustion.