Yesterday I started to ponder something I decided to call Chronological transvestism. We all know that ordinary transvestism is when someone wears the clothes of the opposite gender – in common parlance, it usually refers to men dressing up as women. Chronological transvestism is completely different: it refers to boys dressing as men and girls dressing as women. When you think about it, it is from some perspectives justt as profound a subversion as ordinary transvestism, yet for some reason, I noticed yesterday, I find it very irritating.

Chopper and I had another of our stupid days yesterday. I might have known I was in for one of those when I rolled up to his place, just after noon; the first thing he did was offer me a beer. Mind you, this one was better than last time, as later Lyn came and joined us in the pub, and we had a fairly good evening. Anyway, earlier, on our travels around south-east London, I had seen a boy who can’t have been mire than twelve dressed as many of the older lads around here do: he was in the padded sleeveless jacket, tee-shirt and cap of a guy in his late teens or twenties. I know this is reverting to stereotype, but that look is associated with the violent, drug-filled culture of the urban male. The way in which this boy was seeking to emulate that look irritated me, although I’m not sure I can fully explain why. Of course, the boy just wanted to be like the older boys around him, but what does he know of that culture? What does he know of drugs and guns? It sort of felt like he was intruding on adulthood, pretending to be something he wasn’t.

Reading that last sentence back, it sounds silly, and indeed almost hypocritical. Yet part of me thinks that kids should be kids and should stop pretending to be more grown up than they are. After all, that kind of urban male culture is no place for a child. Replicating that culture, almost glamorizing it, perpetuates it, and, unlike the harmless donning of skirts and dresses, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.