The end of the final day of classes before a longer weekend break would usually be something that someone like me would celebrate. After all, all that free time could be spent hanging out with my girlfriend, Annie, or my friends, Jean and Chris, or most likely, just playing games on my personal computer and generally not doing the studying I should be doing to ensure my bright future. However, every time the cruel life, or the crueler education system, handed you such a gift, there was a reason for it, and this time, the reason was not something I was looking forward to.

The prom. Something that most of the students were excited for. Something that my friends and girlfriend were excited for. Something that I couldn’t really care less about. Don’t get me wrong, I was going to go, after all, my girlfriend cared about it a lot and saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity, even if she acknowledged there were far more notable once in a lifetime opportunities out there.

For me it was simply a matter of there not being anything that interested me much, outside of potential amusement of people seeing my girlfriend take the lead role in dancing, as if she wasn’t very loudly queer and also a head taller than me… Dancing was alright, but it’s not like I had practiced it since the mandatory lessons all the way back in the first half of elementary school, and the rest of it… I disliked crowded spaces on principle, and this was also formal, which meant I’d have to wear a stiff suit that probably won’t fit my body that well at all, bar a miracle.

Regardless, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so as much as I would sit this one out if it was up to me, both my girlfriend and my friends wanted me there, and so be there I would.

Speaking of friends, me and my girlfriend were about to meet them in front of the main building to go home together, but seeing them in the distance, there was something wrong… They were… scheming…

“Hey, you’re here now, good, you’ll back me up on this, right?” Chris asked, as soon as I was within the asking range.

“I don’t like where this is going…” I mumbled.

“Don’t worry, it’s not bad!” he added, as if it would convince me of anything. “So, we all agree that the dress code for the prom sucks major ass, right?”

Oh, right, the dress code. I personally didn’t care much about it due to the fact that I didn’t see much chance of them letting me wear my regular oversized hoodie no matter what the dress code was, but it was still controversial among many students, especially queer students like my little friend group (me excluded) for being rather archaically gendered. Basically, boys were only allowed suits as expected, and girls were only allowed dresses, and not suits. Someone could raise the complaint about double standards of girls being deprived of the choice that only they and not boys would have had, but Jean was the expert on this manner of things, being the only transfeminine person in our friend group, and they always said that transmisogyny was a bitch, something I always tried to recognise as a good ally.

“Yeah, of course,” I answered honestly. “Even if I wouldn’t make much with more freedom, I’m pretty sure my girlfriend would, as well as many other girls. It’s sexist and it sucks, what’s new?”

“Don’t you think someone should do something about it?” he asked.

Ah, so that’s the angle. Unfortunately for Chris, I could read him like an open book, the result of years of experience.

“Yeah, I think someone should, it sure as hell won’t be me though.”

“Oh, come oooon man!” Chris groaned.

I simply rolled my eyes.

Jean approached their boyfriend and snaked their hand around their shoulders.

“Not gonna be me either,” they said. “Loathe as I am to reinforce heteronormativity, I’ve always wanted to wear a dress for this. Not that it would work either way. They took me to the side after announcing the dress code and said it hadn’t said anything about non-binary people, so I could choose what I wanted anyways.”

“Yay, privileged by exclusion!” Annie gave a weak, sarcastic cheer.

“I know, right?” they said. “So, now that my boyfriend’s non-plan has been shot down, let’s get to talking about normal shit.”

???

I’d never liked shopping for clothes. All the physical movement was exhausting, and ever since I grew out my hair, it keeps getting in the way and getting messy, despite asking my mom and girlfriend a million times to reveal to me the feminine secrets of keeping one’s hair in check, receiving nothing more than advice to purchase hair ties and hair pins. Usually, there was at least the saving grace of the fact that I generally hated close fitting clothing, so it was easy to simply go for ones that were slightly too big (or, in case of hoodies, way too big), now however…

“Ugh, I hate this!” I exclaimed. “What is the point of trying on five different suits if they’re all going to be cut practically the same!”

“Please don’t shout honey, you’re going to spend all the way back home in a self-loathing spiral again if you do.” My mom, as was often the case in life, was right, of course.

“I know, I know, it’s just… Look at this,” I started, putting my arms on my waist, right where it narrowed, and where the suit quite notably did not narrow. “There’s so much empty space in there. The shoulders are the same, and they’re shaped like this is a Minecraft block cosplay outfit! And that’s not even mentioning that every pair of pants we find is either way too loose, or it hurts my hips. It sucks.”

I was well aware that I wasn’t shaped like most guys were. Not only was I small, my waist looked like what you’d expect from a girl, and my hips… existed. They were pretty small, objectively speaking, but at my height they made a huge difference. Most people didn’t know that, of course, because I loved how comfy my baggy clothing was, but my girlfriend did and tended to comment on it sometimes when we were in private. My body’s features, combined with my fairly androgynous face, long hair, and my voice not really getting hit that hard by testosterone, made it easy to see something else when looking at me if I was exposed enough.

Most guys probably wouldn’t be too happy with my body, I was well aware, but as far as I was concerned, I’d won the genetic lottery as much as a guy could. I wasn’t only at peace with the shape my body was, I was proud of it, which was why…

“Listen, I know I complain a lot about not being able to wear my baggy clothing, but if I have to wear something that fits my body so closely, I’d rather it at least actually fit my body, you know?”

“I know sweetie, and I’m sorry,” my mom said. “I know you don’t like shopping, but I’m sure we’ll find something in this store that will fit.”

She spoke highly of this specific store. I could see why, there were a lot of choices that seemed good quality to my untrained eyes, the prices were apparently fair (it all seemed four times too expensive to me, personally), and the staff was really nice and helpful. I understood why my mom shopped here for the suits she needed for work.

Wait.

“Wait, this is the store you always shop at, right mom?” I asked, suddenly feeling reinvigorated.

“That’s right, yes, why are you asking?” she answered.

“That means they have women’s cuts, right?” My voice was starting to get a bit excited.

At that point, the friendly lady who was helping us shop had returned and stood next to my mom outside the changing room.

“You don’t mean you want to… crossdress to the prom, do you?” my mom asked, incredulously.

I rolled my eyes, hoping that the friendly staff lady was actually friendly and not secretly queerphobic.

“I want to get the exact same kind of clothes that I was already going to get, but in a cut that will actually fit me,” I stated firmly.

My mom looked like she was about to say something, but she hesitated long enough for the clerk, who looked like she was deep in thought, to say, “With your measurements… Yeah, this would totally work! Give me a minute, I’ll bring something right away!”

Just before she turned away, I noticed a little trans pride pin next to her nametag. Which meant she was most likely sane about clothing. I had a good feeling about this.

???

I supposed that traditionally, one of us would have gone to the other’s place to pick them up and drive to the prom together. Maybe even get some fancy flower thingie that I never knew if it was real or not. Unfortunately, neither me nor my girlfriend were that fancy or had an available adult with a car, and we also lived opposite directions from school… But it didn’t matter because it was a leisurely ten minute walk to get to school at most, so it wasn’t actually a problem – we simply agreed on the spot to meet up.

An advantage of that was that I got to surprise my girlfriend with the close fitting, sharp suit I’d gotten, one which actually accounted for and accentuated my more feminine features, in private.

“Omigosh, look at you, you’re so pretty!” She exclaimed.

I could feel myself blush, the confidence to show off to her instantly evaporating in face of the compliment.

Of course, it wasn’t anything new for her to call me pretty; we’ve both long since settled on which compliments worked the best on the other, even if some of them were less than perfectly heteronormative. That suited (heh) us just fine.

“Do you like it? I-I thought it’d be nice if, you know… it actually f-fit me, and stuff…” I said.

She used her right hand to cup my cheek before saying, “Babe, you look absolutely incredible. So good it might cause us trouble in fact, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

I felt almost too warm and fuzzy to notice her ominous comment, but as we hooked arms and made our way towards the gym, we found out just how right she was very soon.

There was a male teacher I didn’t know with a list of names quite literally gatekeeping the prom, and he looked like he was just itching to find something wrong, even from a distance, which I couldn’t make up even if I tried.

Since I was worse at talking to random people, and each one of us could bring a plus one either way, we thought that was enough, but, well… I swore I saw Mr. Stick-in-the-butt actually smirk before assuming his previous expression.

“I’m sorry girls, but I’m afraid I can’t let you in, given the blatant dress code violation one of you is committing,” he commented, in an almost monotone manner that nevertheless conveyed the threat of authority.

It actually took me a couple seconds to process what he’d said before I could defend myself.

“But… I’m a boy!”

He looked upwards from under his glasses.

I was well aware that my voice was on an androgynous side, but to my ears, it always sounded rather boyish – not anywhere good enough to pass for a girl voice. However…

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”

I swore, this dude was insistent on stunlocking me.

Luckily, I had a foolproof answer to his nonsense – just in case, I packed some important things, including a little bit of money, and, more importantly, my student ID. Our student IDs came with pictures that had to be updated each year; that would show him.

“Here you go, that should do it,” I said, as I handed him the document.

To his credit, he first compared my name to his list of students before comparing me to the picture, which should hopefully lend me some credibility.

He sighed and then looked me in the eyes.

“While I admit that the resemblance is uncanny, I’m afraid that if you wanted to pass for your brother, young lady, the least you could do would be to wear clothing that actually did anything to obscure your figure,” he ‘explained’.

Annie finally spoke up after that. “Okay, as funny as this was to watch, could you please get another teacher that can confirm our identities so we can actually go and dance?”

The teacher sighed, and his expression shifted to boredom as he did as we asked. I recategorized him in my brain from ‘actively malicious’ to ‘bored and will make it your problem’. I supposed my non-crossdressing must have been a nice change of pace.

After a couple of minutes and a couple of students entering the gym passed, we finally saw a familiar face – our biology teacher. She was stern and thorough, in the ‘students are dreading her classes even if there’s no tests or homework’ kind of way, but at least she also paid great care to actually memorizing faces and names of all of her students, so I couldn’t bring myself to dislike her.

The unidentified guy teacher explained what was going on in a surprisingly unopinionated way, before we finally could get on with the business.

She sighed and tried to correct her glasses, only realizing during the fact that she was not, in fact, wearing any at the moment.

“Yes, I can confirm that he is, indeed, my student, and, as far as I know, male. With that resolved however, I must conclude that the clothing he is wearing is in violation of the rules.”

“I am wearing the exact types of clothes that were listed in the rules we were handed out. The only difference is that I got a suit in a cut that actually fits my figure, as you can see, instead of getting something square and uncomfortable. How is that in violation of the dress code?” I asked, genuinely.

“I, umm, well…” she stumbled on her words. “While I admit that you are not going against the letter of the law here, you’re definitely going against the spirit of it, and that can simply not stand. The whole reason this dress code was chosen was to keep male and female clothing choices strictly separate, and you are very much not doing that, do you understand?”

I slouched forward and let my hands hang down and sighed in resignation.

“Is the principal here? She has authority to resolve disagreements over the rules, right?” I asked.

Cue another five minutes of waiting, and three minutes of everybody recounting their sides of events.

“...and at the end of the day, if I had to wear tight fitting clothes, I wanted to wear ones that actually fit me.” I finished recounting my side of the story.

The principal, who was quite literally making a thinking emoji hand as she looked thoughtfully in my direction, nodded.

“Well, I must admit those clothes do fit you rather well,” she said.

“Thank you!” I answered.

“You’re welcome. I’m going to be honest, I don’t see any violations of the rules here.”

“B-but what if this is, I don’t know, some sort of protest?” the guy teacher asked, as our biology teacher already started walking back to where she came from.

From his expressions and changing tone over the course of the whole thing, I concluded that he was actually just extremely bored and wanted anything to happen. Poor guy.

I mean, he was a pain in my butt, but at least he wasn’t a stick in the butt I mistook him for at first.

“Well, first of all, if this was a protest, Jared, then you would have done most of the work in it, drawing so much attention to this. Second of all, I voted against the silly dress code, I don’t know what you expected from me,” she explained.

The teacher whose name was apparently Jared deflated, and admitted defeat.

“That is fair, I apologize.” He turned in my direction. “I apologize to you too. That was uncalled for. Sorry for wasting your time kids.”

Stunned at the admission, I simply nodded, as we finally proceeded to the gym-turned-dance-floor.

“Is it just me, or are people looking at us more than usual?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m keeping track actually. You are stunning, but I don’t think that many people want to steal you from me,” my fantastic girlfriend responded.

“I know you’re joking, but didn’t we have the poly conversation, like, months ago?”

“Shush you, let me act protective of my date for once.” She gently bapped me on my head.

We eventually arrived at where Jean and Chris were standing, only to find them not-quite-literally slack-jawed for some reason.

“What’s up you two?” I asked them.

“You look…” Chris started.

“Stunning.” And Jean finished.

“Yeah. Wow…” Chris added.

Bi disasters, both of them.

Annie’s hands went on my shoulders as she closed the distance between us.

“My cutie! No stealing!” she said in a mock-aggressive tone.

“By the way… Do you have something you want to share with us?” Jean asked.

“Nooooo… Why?” I responded with suspicion.

“Because there’s a decent number of people here who have been watching you and think this is your way of coming out as trans…” they explained.

“Ughhhhhh!” I grumbled, my face in my hands. “Now we need to walk up to everyone and nip this in the bud before I can go and embarrass myself by not knowing how to dance!”

“Or you could… you know…” Chris said in his scheming tone. “Just let it go, live it out, for just one night. It can’t be that bad, and maybe you’ll discover something new about yourself in the process…”

“Actually…” I made a show of thinking over.

And then I bapped him.

“There’s no fucking way I’m doing something like that. The sooner I explain the situation, the better,” I explained.

???

“...and in the end all I wanted was just clothes that actually fit my body, and, uhh, that’s it basically.” I finished explaining to the last group of people.

“Oof, that sucks,” one of the girls responded. “I’m trans, so I know how bad it can be to be mistaken for another gender, and a trans girl on top of that, that’s its own whole set of baggage…”

“Eh, I just wanted to avoid a misunderstanding. Honestly, I take that part as a compliment.” I shrugged. “Anyways, I have a girlfriend to fail at dancing with, have a nice prom, bye!”

I finally let myself start experiencing the music in the background as me and Annie went to find a relatively empty spot to avoid collateral damage.

We finally stood still, and just as rehearsed, my right hand went in her left, with my left hand going on her shoulder, and her right hand going on my waist.

I always appreciated the ways in which she knew how to make me feel small.

“You’re overexaggerating, you know?” she said. “I’m taking the lead today, and we won’t be doing anything fancy, so it’s going to be just fine as long as we don’t trip on each other, which I doubt will happen.”

“O-okay then,” I responded, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“There is something I’ve been wondering, actually.”

I wasn’t sure how much she was genuinely starting a conversation, and how much she was trying to distract me from leg moving, but I welcomed it.

“And what’s that?”

“So, I think all three of us went through it when Jean first came out, and I know you said you didn’t think you’re trans in the end, but… I’m curious as to your thought process. For someone who’s a guy, you certainly don’t mind doing all the emasculating things under the sun, you even enjoy most of them, after all.”

Despite it being a theme of the evening, I hadn't really expected that question, so it took me a bit of thought to answer.

“I guess for me it’s less about being okay with being a guy, and more about being okay with being the kind of guy I am? Like, if I was more masculine and stuff, I’d probably mind it a whole lot more, but as I am now, it’s just kinda… eh.” I shrugged gently for emphasis.

“Wait, but… that doesn’t make any sense. You’re not thinking in terms of your gender at all, just in terms of your body as it currently is. And your body is still going to change.”

“Eh, I’m eighteen, so it’s not like I have any growth spurts waiting for me, so anything that’s going to happen probably won’t be that bad.”

“Just because nothing is going to happen quickly doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Your body will still slowly change, influenced by testosterone, for decades more, and you just admitted you think of that as a bad thing.”

“Umm… Uhh…”

She got me there.

“And besides, there’s still your voice.”

“M-my voice? What about it?” Worry entered my tone in full force.

“Well, I don’t know much about that stuff, but it doesn’t exactly sound like an adult man's voice, it’s still gonna, like, lower and eventually set and stuff…” she explained awkwardly.

“B-but…” My voice trembled, any semblance of confidence.

Annie sighed deeply. “It’s okay sweetheart, I won’t drill you on this any more, but please, give it some thought, okay?”

She lifted her hand from my waist and into my cheek, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear, which served to calm me down significantly.

We stayed in the moment, looking into each other’s eyes, for a relatively long amount of time. I couldn’t tell how long exactly, but I also couldn’t tell if my legs had been moving during that time, so it didn’t say much.

Eventually, we got interrupted by Chris of all people.

“Hey guys!” he said as he ran up to us.

I didn’t know what I expected when I turned to look at him, but him wearing a beautiful dress was not on my list.

Wait, was that makeup?!

“What’s up?” Annie asked, as if this wasn’t a wild and unexpected happenstance.

Meanwhile, I looked around to see a couple more boys (and people I assumed to be boys) wearing dresses, most of them seemingly fancier and/or better fitting than most of the girls. Most of the ones I was close enough to to see also had some make up on.

“The protest, of course!” Chris responded.

“Wait, that’s actually a thing?” I asked, turning towards him again.

“Well, duh! You didn’t think I’d try to organize something as big as this with just me and you, did you? It actually wasn’t even my idea, a shame really, but oh well, I can see a genius idea when I look at it and I knew I had to jump on this one!”

“That’s… huh…” I responded.

“I’m actually here to ask if you wanna join. I know you initially rejected, but despite violating the dress code protest dress code, you do certainly look the part, and so we wanted to give you another shot.”

I did actually think it over this time.

“Nah, I think I want to get in all the dancing I can before y’all get the whole prom shut down,” I said.

“Alright, very fair. Okay then…” He turned away from me and raised his voice. “He said no! We’re good to go now!”

“You heard him guys!” a guy I didn’t know responded. “Charge!”

“CHAAAARGEEEE!!!” A chorus of voices sounded across the gym as they all began to run as fast as their footwear (often heels) allowed.

“What are they charging at?” I asked incredulously.

“From the looks of things? The guy at the entrance that was a dick to you earlier,” Annie answered.

“Well, he was desperate for something interesting to happen, hopefully that suits his needs…” I smiled.

“Wait, were you seriously thinking generously enough about that guy to actually pay attention to his needs? Fuck, it’s adorable just how soft you are…”

“I, umm… I just do what comes naturally…”

“Well, if it comes naturally to you too, I’d be more than happy to be in lesbians with you.”

I let out a pathetic noise that could be called an approximation of a squeak.

“Well, that was an adorable noise, I can’t wait to make you make it more. Probably a hint towards something gender related, huh?”

“M-maybe…?” I let out, my voice still high pitched from the noise incident.

She did genuinely end up omitting the topics of gender after that. Not that the rest of the prom lasted super long, what with the protest, but we did manage to get half an hour more of awkwardly shuffling legs romantically in.

???

Coming back to school for the first time after prom was nerve-wracking to say the least, especially given that my mom tended to work fast, and all the school side of my new presentation was done before the weekend was over. Luckily, Annie was being a wonderful girlfriend as always, and agreed to wait for me outside and accompany her freshly minted girlfriend inside. There was just one problem…

“Why aren’t people staring?” I asked, confuzzled.

I had no doubts the new, higher voice I was using would not last a whole day, at least not in this form, but I still wanted to practice. Now that I’ve accepted that things better than what I already had were an option, I suddenly had a rather intense desire to get them, who knew?

“Isn’t that a good thing?” she responded, naturally.

“Yes, but… everybody was so interested in my suit they made up a whole coming out about it, and now I’m here on my way to the actual coming out, nobody seems bothered…” I explained.

“I feel like the whole mass protest incident has desensitized people, and it’s a good thing too, because I know for a fact you’d be dying of anxiety if there were stares, if the way you’re squeezing my hand is anything to go by.” She laughed.

I loosened my grip on her hand, a little self-conscious blush making its way onto my face. I guess it’s a nice change of pace from the constant blushing over gender stuff (and things I in retrospect realized were gender stuff).

“Holy shit, they’re multiplying!” Jean exclaimed, notifying me of the fact that we arrived at our usual friend group meeting spot when I was busy looking at the floor.

“Yeah, so it turns out I’m trans after all…” I shyly admitted. “The prom still wasn’t a coming out, not even retroactively, but yeah…” 

“Why do you mean by ‘they’re multiplying’, by the way?” Annie asked.

“Oh, right, neither of you have seen the protest group chat,” they commented. “Turns out that while the whole plan might have come from the right place, the execution and the amount of effort gone into it wasn’t the most cisgender thing to do, so… There’s a whole lot of retroactively-not-crossdressing going around right now, isn’t that right honey?”

“Y-yeah… I might be trans too… As are a lot of people previously assumed to be guys… It’s a whole thing, really embarrassing…” Chris (did she still go by that?) explained.

“That being said, do you go by she/her now too?” Jean asked me.

“Yeah, I’m sorry to disappoint but I’m a normie in every way other than not being bisexual in this friend group,” I confirmed.

“Well then, how come Little Miss Perfect Start didn’t realize she was trans for so long despite having an excellent role model such as me?”

“Well…” I trailed off, before explaining the extent of my gender conversations with my girlfriend.

“Wait, so…” Chris started. “You mean to tell me that the reason you didn’t all this time was because you had too good of a start to have major dysphoria?!”

“Yeah… And I likely would have remained blissfully oblivious until a source of strong dysphoria would emerge, were nobody to bap some sense into me beforehand… It’s quite embarrassing…”

“And now that you do realize you’re a girl and just how good of a start you have, you’re choosing to just… wear the exact same baggy stuff except with a skirt?” Chris asked, incredulously.

“Excuse me, this oversized hoodie is from the women’s section of a clothing store!” I defended myself. “You can tell because it’s softer and even comfier!”

“And she’s also doing the voice training,” Annie added helpfully.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but… really? Do you know what kind of styles you could pull off even just now?” Jean asked.

“Eh, those are either too much effort, not really my style, or both. What I value most is being comfortable and not needing to spend ages keeping up my appearances to some unrealistic level; being a girl doesn’t really change that,” I explained.

“But don’t you think it’s a waste–” Chris started.

I put my foot down firmly. I didn’t really know if it’s something you were supposed to do literally, but it was loud enough to get the point across.

“My body, my choice. Want someone to wear fancy fashion, do it yourself. I saw how you looked at the prom, you could pull off anything you think I can because of my figure or whatever,” I said.

Chris blushed at that. Oh, right, she wasn’t used to being complimented in a way she liked.

Cute.

The conversation didn’t last much longer before the classes, but that was okay, we got all the biggest cats out of the bag. I ended up accepting the third invitation to the protest group chat which was no longer about protest and instead about realizing you’re a girl suddenly and without any net to catch you.

Turns out that while nobody else was as quick as me in presenting fem at school, a lot of people already came out to at least some people they knew, which desensitized a lot of people and made my coming out a frictionless experience, with the exception of a couple of people who apparently already thought I was a girl due to my feminine charms and gender neutral deadname.

The next while ended up being a fun rollercoaster for sure, given that I let my mom know about the group chat, to which she had a perfectly normal response of taking nearly two dozen freshly hatched girls under her wing, promising she’d help smooth over any bureaucratic processes at school, as well as handle any less than accepting or confused parents. If I were to be entirely honest, I had no idea where she got the energy to do all that she did even before that, but helping people clearly made her happy, and so I was happy for her in turn.

In the end, I remained the exact same low energy self that the world knew, but with a cool obsession for intermingling venus symbol trinkets, much to my girlfriend’s amusement. I also eventually ended up conceding that going to that prom might have been a better idea that I gave it credit for.

I still joked about not being sure about it though.