Winning Cheer | Get In Formation

How far would you go to make a point?

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“Logan, front and center, girl!”  He jumped to his feet when his name was called, skipping to camera as his squad screamed.  His high ponytail swished as he skipped, the uniform’s tiny skirt riding up his smooth, toned thighs.  “Strike a pose, team captain!”  Hand on his hip, Logan scanned the squad’s smiling faces until he found the annoyed expression of his older sister, Kelly.  The beautiful boy leaned towards her, their eyes locked together as Logan posed, blowing a kiss her way.  The camera flash flickered and Logan switched poses, never breaking eye contact with Kelly.  He had long beaten Kelly but it was so fun taunting her until she looked away in defeat.

If Logan had it his way, he and his sister would have been the best of friends. Even now Kelly’s resentment towards her brother made little sense to him.  Always the perfect picture of femininity, the privileged first born Kelly had the world wrapped around her finger.  The girly-girl saw Logan as a distasteful annoyance and never passed an opportunity to let him know it.  

“You’re such a pain,” she would tell him.  “Everyone loves me so there isn’t any room for a sloppy boy like you.” Despite his kindness, Kelly terrorized her younger brother by breaking his toys and getting him into trouble.  Her innocent looks kept her from trouble and she never showed remorse for her actions.  It all came to a head when his sister let it slip he had a crush on one of her friends.  Kelly’s group of friends teased him endlessly until Logan had decided the only way to get back at her was to hit her where it hurt the most.  

His mother thought it strange when Logan asked to take up dance and cheer-leading, but she enrolled him in the same classes as his sister.  Night and day he practiced the routines while he studied makeup and tutorials on YouTube.  Acting camps and drama club came next, then came the big day when he showed up to 7th grade wearing a skirt and heels.  He had anticipated the teasing and was long past caring. His only focus was beating Kelly.

Logan had long decided he didn’t want to simply emulate girls, he wanted to embody femininity so wholly that no one could see him as anything but female.  Voice lessons softened his speaking and singing until he was a mezzo soprano.  He adopted different diction and vocabulary, mannerisms and fashion choices until most thought he was prissier than his sister.  The more people compared him to his sister, the more he immersed himself within the trappings of femininity.  

The beautiful boy was long past proving himself a cheerleader by the time his sister acknowledged him as a threat.  He never missed a step in practice or competition and he didn’t shy away from the stringent appearance requirements for the girls. He wore the same bows in his long hair and had identical makeup to the other girls. And he had learned long ago how to hide his secret under his skimpy uniforms so that he was as smooth as the other girls.  By 9th grade, the teasing had stopped.  The girls had accepted him as one of their own.  Logan was invited to the same parties, sat at the same tables and was privy to all the same privileges as one of the popular clique.  The girly-boy’s charming personality helped him gain popularity while his sister’s status stagnated.  He won the female leads in the school plays while Kelly was his understudy.  He was helping choreograph routines for the cheer squad while Kelly was pushed to the back.  

The true shift in power came when Logan was voted team captain as a Junior earlier in the year.  The pretty boy began getting work as a model and had been voted to the Homecoming court.  Logan had tears in his eyes when they put the queen’s tiara on his head while Kelly looked on with envy.  Then came the state and nation cheer competitions.  Kelly watched in awe as her brother led them to victory both times - a dream she had long held.  As a junior, Kelly’s pretty brother had stolen everything she ever wanted for her senior year.  What was worst, Logan had another year to improve on it all.  

In becoming a better version of his sister, Logan’s revenge was almost complete.  He had beaten her at the one thing Kelly took pride in, her femininity, by becoming the feminine ideal.  In the beginning he only saw it as sacrifice but in the end he discovered his true self.   He didn’t expect to like this life but he now couldn’t see himself any other way.  In a way, he should thank his sister for driving him towards perfection. Logan would accept nothing but the best and he hoped his sister understood when he went to prom with Kelly’s boyfriend, Eric.  Weeks ago Logan has proven to the handsome stud that he was better at a few other things than Kelly and it was time to let his sister know as well.