In the picture is the girl on a summer holiday at the age of 6-7. She loves the picture, it shows her favourite Szarik trousers, the bike helmet, and the belt she loved. She looks like a boy and she played like a boy. This is the only photo she has that shows that spirit of gender-fluid expression.

She was often thought of as a boy when she was little. Her mother kept her hair short in the belief it would help her body concentrate on growth (she was, still is, very short).  So people would say, ‘what a pretty boy!’, which of course annoyed her because it wasn't true.  But she was a tomboy. Played with boys, played football, got into fights with some boys, and generally never became a girly girl, even after deciding that she would grow her hair and be a girl.  She was actually quite masculine in many ways. That, interestingly, never was a problem under communism, as in the 60s and 70s gender identity for children was not marked with great expectations. She did play football, clothes were pretty unisex, and noone ever expected her to wear a dress against her will.  In fact, she enjoyed the twice a year experience of smart outfit: first and last day of school. Later, as an early teen, adults communicated to her that her behaviour needs to reflect her gender but that was later.  In the 60s and 70s, where she grew up, the absence of consumerism made her childhood pretty free to explore how to be ‘me.’  And she did experiment with peeing whilst standing up, too…