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Anyone here remember their annual school physicals?

To this day, I still cringe at the memory for various reasons. Back in Ridgewick Elementary, we used to have at least one every year (two if you count the annual sports check up). Ours could be really embarrassing, because they were usually unannounced and we often had to take our medical in the same room as the boys.

It always started out the same way. First, we were ushered in two lines into the gymnasium, where the nurse divided us into two groups; 'girls' on the right side and boys on the left. This was where things started to get kind of weird. The boys only had to remove their shirts and singlets, but we had to strip all the way down to our panties.

I'm not exactly sure why this was, but I can hazard a guess based on the guidelines and protocols governing the treatment of transfeminine students. I think there must have been an unofficial policy to examine the tranzies more closely. And as we'd all been born male, the school board couldn't have us fraternizing with the 'real' girls.

There was no partition in the room at that time, so the boys got to see us undressing on the other side of the gym. After we'd taken everything off, we had to fold our clothes in neat piles and leave them on the wall-side bench. It's hard to describe how embarrassing it was, standing there in nothing but our undies, waiting for the doctor to call us into the clinic. All of my friends agreed it wasn't fair that the boys got to keep their most of their clothes on, while we had to mill about in our panty-knicks.

When the Doctor was ready to see us, the boys sat down on the left side while we were told to line up and wait their turn. The "clinic" was at the far end of the gymnasium; a brightly lit space with a table, some chairs and a set of scales. There was also a folding screen next to the doctor's chair, in case anyone needed a more "thorough" examination.

Like most of my friends, I was blushing to my hairline and trying to hide my underpants by crossing my hands in front. A couple of girls picked up their vests and tried to hold them around their waists, but the nurse told them to stop being silly, and made them wait with their undies on open display.

By now, you're probably wondering what kind of panties we were wearing. Back in those days, thongs and g-strings were banned by order of the school board, so most of us were wearing plain cotton full briefs. The majority wore pastel-colored knickers with elastic waistbands, while a few of the "cool" girls had floral prints with a little pink bow at the front. I was wearing white cotton pants, the kind that come all the way up to the belly button (yeah, if I'd known the medical was that day, I would've worn something different).

One of my friends – Helena – had on a pair of bright red nylon briefs that shimmered under the lights every time she moved. Naturally, she stood out amongst the crowd, and was the subject of schoolyard discussion for the next few days.

Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the Doctor called us up to his table one by one. When my turn came, I walked up to the scales in my snowy white panties, feeling every eye in the room on me. My tummy was fluttering with butterflies, and for a while I felt like I was watching myself from a different perspective (this used to happen to me a lot when I was young). Stepping up onto the scales, I held my arms up in the air while the nurse weighed me then took my measurements. My heart was literally pounding against my chest, because my entire body seemed to be completely on view, as if I was stark naked. I wasn't really, of course, but that was how it felt.

After the nurse had finished with me, the Doctor asked me my name, then checked it off on his medical form. I instinctively went to cross my hands in front again, but he told me to hold them by my side while he checked my breathing (it's odd how a stethoscope always feels cold, no matter how many bodies it touches).

He asked me numerous questions during the examination, mainly about my family and general health, instructing me to turn round while he examined my spine. I practically fainted on the spot, knowing that I'd be facing my entire class at that second. It's strange: I suspected that worse was yet to come, but seeing everybody staring at me in my fresh white knickers was embarrassing beyond all description.

For some reason, my examination went on much longer than anyone else's. Completing the preliminary physical, the Doctor got me to perform some flexibility exercises. I must have been blushing from heel to crown by that time, knowing that my panties had been viewed from every possible angle. When he instructed me to spread my feet as wide as possible and place my palms flat on the floor, my pristine white bottom went on display to the whole wide world.

When he finally finished (after what felt like half a million years) the Doctor made another note in his report and sent me back to the girls' line. Walking across the room in my bare knickers, that strange, disembodied sensation swept over me again, twice as strong as before. My belly seemed to be melting with warm, liquid heat. It seemed so terribly unfair; none of my friends had spent so much time in their panties, parading about before half the grade.

I brushed shoulders with Helena at the half-way mark; it was her turn with the Doctor, and she looked even more reluctant than I'd been ten minutes before. Her bottom jostled along in tight little circles, highlighted by her glimmering scarlet panty-pants. I wondered how long she'd be under the stethoscope, breathing a sigh of relief that my ordeal was over.

Well, not exactly. For some inexplicable reason, we weren't allowed to get dressed again until the last girl had been examined. There were at seven more girls to go, meaning that the free show would continue for at least the next twenty minutes (if not more).

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Question: By definition, does a transgendered story absolutely require transgendered characters? Could it simply be a story in which the male reader adopts a female character's perspective; ie becomes the girl in the story?

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