I was the only boy in the pageant. My mother let me go onstage

Before I told my mother, I rehearsed the moment in my head. I was seven years old, standing at the edge of something I didn’t yet have the language for. My class teacher, Miss Joy, had selected me to be the only boy alongside six girls, taking part in the school’s beauty pageant. What I couldn’t figure out was how to explain the part that mattered most, that to compete, I would have to dress like a girl.

In the close-knit neighborhood in Niger State, Nigeria, where I grew up, my softness rarely felt like a problem. I slipped into my sister’s clothes, traced my face with makeup, and moved through the compound with an ease that came from familiarity. Home, in that sense, was safe. I could not entirely say the same for the missionary school I attended, though. There, I was suddenly singular, the only effeminate boy in my class, and perhaps what might have been in the entire school. My name, “Samson,” disappeared quickly, and in its place came nicknames that were repeated so often they almost lost their derogatory intent, “boy girl,” “woman wrapper,” among others.

So when I stood before my mother on that afternoon after having been selected as the only boy in the pageant, it was not rejection from her that I feared. It was what her acceptance would mean, that suddenly I would have to stand before the whole school, that they would have to witness the acceptance my “home” had always shown me on the big stage. I feared what might happen if that safety were unsealed, packaged, and handed to the world. How would the world respond to witnessing a love it had not quite learned to give me?

In spite of my trembling as I broke the news to her, my mother, Suzy Benz, said yes, of course. She was excited, and she didn’t flinch. Instead, her eyes sparkled with so much joy, all the encouragement I needed. I started dancing in the parlour, and she let me. “Make sure you win o. You have to win,” she said.

For the eight weekends leading up to the contest, my mother and I rehearsed. Each Saturday, she pulled a different wrapper and blouse from her wardrobe. They hung loosely on my small, seven-year-old frame, but I wore them anyway, and she let me. I was proud, proud of how I looked, prouder still that she was the one teaching me. My pride came, in part, from how much I felt like her in those clothes. On those weekends, I became Suzy Benz, with a blouse and wrapper to prove it, no one could tell me otherwise. And there was nothing I wanted more than to be my mother, Suzy Benz. It didn’t matter that some neighbors who were my friends disapproved, or that a few teachers insisted the contest was inappropriate. My mother believed in me, and so did my father, even from afar, away for work but unmistakably on my side.

I felt comfortable in my mother’s clothes, so comfortable that I knew I would wear them on the day of the pageant regardless of their size, as I did even during rehearsals at school. A night or two before the event, my mother called me into the living room and handed me a bag, and although she often bought us clothes for Christmas, I sensed immediately that this was something else.

Inside were a blouse, a wrapper, a headtie, and a pair of shoes, all made for me, measured to my small body in a way her clothes never had been. She had sewn me an outfit for the pageant that mirrored her own, only scaled down to fit me, and she had included the same brown powder she used on her face, and every accessory I would need. I began to cry as soon as I understood what she had done and embraced her so tightly. Here was a woman who had gone to the market, bought the materials, and had her tailor sew the entire attire for me without my knowledge. A pink lace, with a navy blue George – an Igbo traditional material– and a gele paired with gold accessories. I would be stunning, and I knew it.

And on the day of the pageant, here was myself, the only boy among six girls. I walked the field, dressed as an Oriaku, a true Igbo babe. My makeup was done exactly how my mother had taught me, my George and gele tied in the way we practised, and I walked down the field in the way she’d shown me. I was Suzy Benz’s son, and it couldn’t have been clearer than that day. I felt a sense of pride and confidence that I’d never felt before, and my mother — as though aware of this — cheered so loudly, the whole school turned to look.

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She cheered when I, in a bid to change hastily, walked out with my earrings stuck in my blouse, she cheered when that earring fell off, when it became the defining factor among the judges about whether I should win or not. It spilled into an argument, how could my earring fall off? Did I even need one in the first place if I was a boy, another teacher argued in my defense.

The judges brought it up too as they gave final remarks before announcing the winner. Then they announced me second place, to a protest from the crowd. If my earrings hadn’t fallen, they said, then I would have won. This disagreement over the winner stretched on, back and forth, until the judges changed their minds. This time, they called my name.

I thought first of my mother, my Suzy Benz. I searched for her in the crowd, and when I found her, I ran, pulling off my headpiece as I moved toward her, the noise of the crowd rising around me as I reached for her arms. I won, I won, I won, as she wanted me to. I was proud of myself, but more than anything else, I was proud that my mother was proud of me.

I am 27 now, and I design clothes of my own, but when I think back, I return to that first evening, to the feeling of standing in front of my mother, unsure of how to begin. Time has passed, and both of us have changed, but the posture of that moment has stayed with me, the way I learned that I could stand before her with whatever the world was about to ask of me, and that she would listen, smile, draw me close, and quietly begin to prepare me for what was coming. Even now, I know that if something slips or comes undone along the way, I will look up and find my Suzy Benz there.