Once more, I was woken up by sunlight instead of my alarm. With a grunt of effort, I got out of bed and stretched. In my barely awoken state, I started recalling the previous day’s events. After a boring and tedious entrance ceremony, I’d befriended an agender individual with a perception filter power they were keeping under wraps, and a pan speedster girl. And while the agender person clocked me, the speedster girl did not say a thing. Which gave me hope that I could really do this, that I could stealth through high school, with none the wiser about me being trans.
With that train of thought done, I got to starting my routine. Shower, uniform, breakfast. Standard stuff for a student. And with a leap off the landing, I was prepared to make my way to school. Of course, my landing was interrupted by Jessica standing there, waiting. Myself, her and Jamie had exchanged contacts and addresses after the café, so we could hang out more and check on each other if the need arose. “Hey there, Miss Birdcat, up for a little race to school?” she asked, and I smiled.
“How many cups have you got in you?” I wanted to know the odds.
“Oh, just two triple shots of espresso, nothing too strong. Undergrad’s Brew is for special occasions.” I raised my eyebrow at her mention of Undergrad’s Brew.
“What is Undergrad’s Brew?” I asked, hoping it was something completely harmless.
“Five Redbulls, five cups of espresso powder, a can of Five Hour Energy, plus a cup of crushed caffeine pills. Simmered down and mixed with an equal amount of simple syrup and drunk in a single gulp.”
“Jessica, that’s lethal, why would you ever do such a thing?”
“It gets me close enough to light speed where things start blue shifting.” She shrugged, and my jaw dropped.
“YOU TRIED IT ALREADY???”
“Yeah, when I was like ten years old at the beach, ran across the ocean and back in like, three minutes? Nobody timed me, so I don’t remember. My thighs were killing me afterwards, though, so I’m keeping it for emergencies.” I picked my jaw off the floor and respectfully nodded.
“Okay, Zoomies, let’s race.” I got into my leaping stance, Jess got into a running stance, and we were off.
For the record, she only won because I had to wait for gravity to get me down on the ground. And I was stopped from reaching the ground by accidentally bumping into Jamie, who had made their way to school imperceptibly. “Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting to catch a falling angel today.” They smirked at me and I just bapped their face.
“God, Jamie, no, stop, I don’t think you’re even my type.” I groaned while smiling and got off them, dusted myself off a bit, and starting making my way to the classroom, Jamie and Jessica in tow.
We ended up sitting like we had yesterday, me in the window aisle, Jamie in front of me, Jessica to my right. I didn’t know the names of the other students around me, but a girl sat directly behind me, with a guy next to her behind Jessica, who had a demon girl sitting in front of her. And from the quick headcount, I knew everyone was in attendance today. Fifteen students to a class. Very tiny number, but considering what we were studying, the schools really wanted to focus their efforts on smaller groups of students instead of having a huge number of graduates.
Plus having a ton of licensed heroes around risks property damage.
As the bell rang, we all waited with bated breath, surprisingly quiet for, you know, a class of future superheroes. The teacher who walked in was a middle-aged man sporting a sour look and a pair of ram’s horns. “Good morning, students, my name is Mr. Ram; I will be your homeroom teacher for this year. Now, before I do roll call, I would like to state that I expect only about five of you to graduate.” The classroom filled with angry sounding murmurs. “You all got into this school, so I know you’re all competent. What I doubt is if you have the heart for hero work. With your internships later in the year putting you directly in the line of fire, who knows how many of you will decide to quit and go for a safer career.” He scratched his chin. “Maybe switch tracks to the Support R&D track. But for now, focus on your studies, and do your best. Right, roll call time--”
I wasn’t paying attention to roll call too much, I was just thinking what a bad first impression he had made, demeaning his students. The fact we would have to tolerate him for the next year, possibly more, really did not spark joy. I managed to catch the names of the other students around me: The girl staring at my back was Amy, the guy next to her was Donovan, and the demon girl in front of Jessica was Cynthia. Now, it was my turn to be called.
“#### Ptakochka?” Mr. Ram spoke aloud, and all the blood drained from my face. My deadname was in the class roster. My deadname, which the school was explicitly told not to use a month before classes started. My deadname, which threw a wrench in the whole operation. My deadname, which I hoped against all hope I would only have to hear in court proceedings to change it once I could. “#### Ptakochka? I can see all the desks are filled, so I know you’re here. Do you want to be marked absent on your first day, despite clearly being here?” Mr. Ram asked, and I gulped, not audibly enough to be heard across class, but just enough that the students around me seemed to notice. Jamie was tensed up like a rubber band at Thanksgiving; it was painfully obvious they wanted to turn around and show me support. Jessica, meanwhile, clearly put two and two together in her head, and did a quiet hiss of pain towards the teacher. The other three were probably confused why I was the one to go pale, when I was sitting there in a girl’s uniform.
With a pained sigh, I stood up. “It’s--” I cleared my throat nervously. “It’s Andrea Ptakochka.”
Mr. Ram gave me a once over and a look of disdain. “Mr.--”
“Miss,” I interrupted him straight away; I’d already suffered enough misgendering during my short life, I would not suffer more.
“Mr.--”
“Miss,” I insisted, putting my hands on the desk, my wings folding into a pouncing position, my tail aggressively straight and puffed up.
Mr. Ram spoke his next words very fast, giving me no chance to interrupt him. “Mr. Ptakochka why are you wearing the girl’s uniform.”
I growled. I almost did property damage on the table with my talons. “Because it’s Miss Ptakochka. I’m a trans girl. We told the school a month ago, so as to avoid this. Exact. Situation.” I stared him down. “This exact situation, where I am outed by faculty, and put into a dangerous position with the student body.”
Mr. Ram huffed. “The student ledger goes off of your legal name, not some nickname you choose.”
I snorted and sighed. The class was engrossed in this. Good news for me, though, all of them looked sympathetic. Some looked pained, others angry at the teacher, a few obviously wanted to join me in defenestrating him. “Are you aware of the legal requirements and proceedings for a sex change, Mr. Ram?” I asked, tucking some loose hair behind my ear.
“Can’t say I am.” Good, he was at least humoring me enough. Time to shame him.
“To legally change sex, the individual requesting this process must have undergone surgical sterilisation through Genital Reconstruction Surgery. Only after that can you ask for a name change to a name fitting your gender.” I clenched my fist, saying the next line as clearly and as loudly as I could, without it being shouting. “And they won’t turn a fourteen year old’s dick inside out.” There were a few gasps from my classmates, at how brazen I was with my declaration. “If I get bullied because of this, it will go on your head. Imagine how tarnished the school’s reputation would be, for raising heroes that beat up vulnerable people.”
Mr. Ram was red in the face. “Fine. ANDREA Ptakochka?” he asked, finally getting it right.
“Present. And don’t forget to write the correction in the ledger.” He mumbled a slur under his breath at my request, which I of course caught with my sensitive hearing, and which I will not bother repeating.
After he got through the rest of the roll call, Mr. Ram spoke up. “Okay, class, that’s it from me, now wait for your gym teacher to show up for a fitness test.” He left the ledger and the room, leaving the class to our own devices.
Jamie immediately turned to me, and rubbed the bridge of their nose. “I can not believe that happened, Andrea. You’d really expect a hero school to be accommodating to all its students.”
Jessica joined the conversation. “Yeah, like, everyone who needs them is wearing oddity assistive devices, meanwhile all you want is to be treated as your gender. It’s dumb.”
“I just wanted to stealth, have a clean break, separate pre-transition me from current me, but nope, can’t have it. Jamie’s the only one who knew and that’s because they clocked me yesterday, since they knew what to look for from being agender.” I rested my head on the desk, sighing.
It was at that moment Donovan decided to stand up, and ask the entire class a question. “Hey! As a test, raise your hand if you’re cis and straight.” He raised his. And he waited. For a solid three minutes, with nobody else in class raising theirs. “Well, I hope that means none of you will be shitty to Andrea, or you’ll have to face me under the noon sun.” We all gave him a confused look, since that wasn’t really a saying. “I can alter my state based on whether I’m in light or darkness. Light makes me solid, darkness liquid.” He scratched the back of his head. “Well, I say can, but I’ve had to sleep with a night light since my oddity manifested.”
I smiled a bit at the silliness and shook my head. “I guess this is as clean a break as I can get. And I no longer have to be anxious about getting outed.”
The door was opened right afterward by an individual that looked like a tall muscular mix of a turtle and a dragon. Not how I was expecting the gym teacher to look. Although I can’t really say how I expected the gym teacher to look. It was time to see whether all faculty would be shit.
WOW, those laws are aggressively horrible. I had my name change and gender changed already, still waiting for a money miracle for any surgery. But at least here in California, all I needed was a doctor note for the gender change, name change in California has always been "if you want to change it" type of laws.
Actually the US is fairly good about Name and Gender changes, even if half the country is shit. Also, each state has its own laws on this issue. But as far as I know, getting GRS/SRS is not a requirement in the US, although some states want that for Birth Certificate changes. Which I still need to do, been lazy, as my Birth Cert is in Nevada, which is easy just costs money.
Yeah, plus the Informed Consent Clinic model that is in a lot of places accessible through local Planned Parenthoods for y'all, we don't have that in the Czech Rep, you gotta go to the doc that primarily deals with erectile dysfunction, s*x life counseling oh and therapy for pedophiles, and then convince them you're actually trans before they give you HRT. And the one f*cker I went to for a year as my second doc followed HBS standards. So definitely not a good place.
On top of that the European Court of Human Rights declared requiring surgical sterilisation before a legal s*x change is against the Universal Human Right of Bodily Autonomy and the laws should be changed to not require it in all member states.
The ruling was in 2017. The 17 states it hits haven't done sh*t since.
@Katie-the-Angel-Witch ow. Honestly, that's painful, but still having universal healthcare instead of the Insurance model here would have meant I would have finished my transition over ten years ago, instead of being forever forced to wait until the Veterans Hospital covers it. At least I get HRT through the VA, then and discounted name and Gender Change, being a Service Connected Veteran does have some perks.
It's the only reason why I'm still in the US honestly, as I was born dual national with the UK, which is only a little less messed up than the US, but nowhere near as nice as California.
I'm stuck in a situation where my options are live somewhere nice, where I have legal protections, and more than half the population has my back but only the bare minimum health care, thanks to serving in the USMC in the 90s, or move to where I'm hated but get free surgery, and be at risk of violence.
I
The worst thing is, this was the homeroom teacher. Someone a student should be able to talk to, someone who should be trusted. It should be somone a student should definitely not have as an antagonist.
Andrea can't have that anymore. :(
“It gets me close enough to light speed where things start blue shifting.” She shrugged, and my jaw dropped.
“YOU TRIED IT ALREADY???”
also, imagine having bowser as your PE teacher
I am tempted to retract my previous comment as it turns out the attractive force did not need much power in this case xD
Only one thing I want to point out that is rather abnormal if I read it correctly only one person there is cis that just wouldn’t happen
Specifically both Cis and Het. He's the token straight cis dude. The rest is different kinds of queer, Andrea and Jamie are the two trans people present in the class. At least the two that are inadvertedly out as trans.