Have you ever heard the expression “trapped between a rock and a hard place?”

That handy euphemism was wholly inadequate to capture the distress of my current situation. Perhaps if the rock was Uluru and the hard place was the diamond at the core of Jupiter, it might come close.

You see, my father—or the person I’d thought was my father—had just come out to me as trans.

Probably.

The blushing parent before me had just asked which Starbucks I’d gotten my ostensibly illicit supply of estrogen from, seemingly so he could secretly obtain some for himself. And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how to deal… so I turned to the most readily available coping mechanism at my disposal.

I held up my finger in a shh-ing motion. “One moment please,” I told my confused parent as my thoughts began to race.

Record scratch.

Freeze frame.

Look at camera.

Brain, how did we wind up in this situation? I asked desperately.

Why, you wove a tangled web of lies about Starbucks force-fem to avoid a difficult conversation with your parents, my smug-sounding superego responded.

Thanks for stating the obvious, I replied drily. So is he actually trans? Did my lie cause some sort of realization in him? How do we react? How do we get out of this pickle?

Since I’m literally just you talking to yourself, I have no clue, I responded. You should go ask Dani these questions. She’s the brains, we’re the bimbo.

Of course! I exclaimed, mentally slapping my palm with my fist. I just have to stall Dad with a clever non-answer, then I can ask Dani for help tonight! Excellent plan, me! Thanks for my help!

Don’t mention it, beautiful, I responded. Go get ‘em.

I resolutely pulled myself out of my mind palace and returned focus to my parent, who was looking increasingly unsure of himself. Herself? Themself? I should probably stick with he/him pronouns until I knew for sure whether he was definitely trans; anything else would be presumptive.

“You’re curious about the estrogen Starbucks?” I asked him with gentle, downy-soft incredulity.

He nodded a little too eagerly. “Y-Yeah. You see, I’m performing a secret investigation on the insidious gay agenda for, uh, Qanon and Rush Limbaugh and… stuff.”

It took every last ounce of my mental energy to not roll my eyes then and there. “Isn’t Rush Limbaugh dead?”

He smirked and tapped his forehead, attempting (and utterly failing) to seem insightful. “Maybe. Or is that what he wants us to think?”

The urge to eye roll came back with a vengeance; I must have popped a vein on my forehead suppressing it. “R-Right, well… I need to, uh, reach out to my super-secret contacts in the Gay Agenda to discuss all this. In the meantime, what’s your cover story?”

He blinked. “My what?”

“You can’t just show up at the secret gay Starbucks blabbering about Qanon and Pizzagate, Dad,” I explained. “You need to have a cover story going in, or they’ll never believe you’re sincere. So what are you going to tell them?”

“Oh, uh…” As he trailed off, his eyes sank to the floor and his face veritably blossomed a delightful shade of cherry red. “W-Well… I could always tell them I’m t-t-trans…”

Aha, I’d snagged him. I just needed to tire him out a bit before reeling him in. “That would probably work, yeah. You can say the 5G waves from the cell towers feminized your brain.”

He nodded vigorously. “Y-Yeah! There’s a lot of 5G towers these days! One of them is bound to have zapped me with girl rays! I drank a lot of milk when I was young too, so I might be extra-susceptible!”

I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and I didn’t really want to ask. “That makes sense,” I said with an insincere nod. “So, do you have a name yet?”

He looked at me, confused. “You know my name. It’s Alex.”

Ah, there went the eye roll; it was a valiant fight, but I lost. “Not your birth name, goofus. Have you picked out a girl’s name yet?”

“Oh, uh, I…” he mumbled, blushing once more. “I have a few in mind, I just haven’t… uh… decided on one…”

“Consider this your homework assignment, then,” I said, reeling him in. “Choose a nice girls’ name for yourself. For your cover story.”

“Yeah! For my cover story… obviously…” he trailed off, eyes fixed to his feet.

I softened my tone a smidge. “Meanwhile I’ll work on getting you in, okay?”

“Th-Thanks, Sarah. I really appreciate it,” he mumbled as he pulled me into an awkward hug.

Somehow I’d managed to avert total disaster, and even given my potentially-trans parent a thread of hope. Now I just needed to consult with Dani. She’d know what to do next.

******

“Babe,” Dani said, planting her face in her palms, “what the fuck?!”

“That was my reaction!” I responded. “I never expected my own DAD to be trans too!”

Dani sighed and split her fingers, fixing her eyes on me. “I did try to warn you. Lying always has consequences, Sarah.”

I groaned with what I thought was the appropriate amount of shame needed to avoid a lecture. “I know, I know. Let’s think about the future instead of focusing on the past, okay? How do I help him out?”

She withdrew her hands from her face and looked me square in the eye. “One, come clean with him. No more lies. Two, you both need therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.”

“Okay, fair. But therapy takes lots of time and money, and I have neither of those,” I retorted. “Also, weird as it may seem, I think my lie gave him the excuse he needed to come out. He was raised thinking queer folk were sinful and bound for hell, just like me, but if he frames this as being force-femmed against his will, there’s no fault on his part. You see?”

Dani shook her head in disbelief. “Strange as that sounds, it does make sense. He has the exact same dense egg energy you displayed before coming out.”

I recoiled in shock at her slander. “What? I was never a dense egg! At least, not as dense as him!”

Dani sighed and whipped out her phone. A few screen-swipes later she showed me a DeviantArt comment I’d made some four years ago, underneath a transformation sequence of a generic dude being changed into a hot babe via magic. The comment said, and I’m quoting:

God I wish that were me.

“Okay,” I said, pouting, “that’s one example. But you can’t extrapolate a trend from only one!”

Silently she swiped her screen a few more times, then showed me a quote tweet I’d made three years ago of a similar TF sequence involving magical pollen turning men into dryads. This one said:

Where can I get some?!

I raised an eyebrow. “How many of these do you have, anyway?”

“Dozens,” she responded, smirking. “An entire bookmarks folder, actually. I kept them handy in case I needed them when I dragged your gay ass out of the closet. Wanna see some more? The FurAffinity ones are super spicy.”

I felt my face heat up. “No thanks, your point is well taken.”

She chuckled triumphantly. “Anyway, I’m just as confuzzled as you. On the one hand, keeping your Starbucks lie going might backfire spectacularly… but on the other, telling the truth might drive the poor egg so far into the closet he’d wind up in Narnia.”

She’d hit the nail smack on the head. “Yeah, I just dunno what to do.”

Dani shrugged. “Me neither.”

There was a few moments of silence as we both thought through it. Then a brilliant idea occurred to me and I snapped my fingers. “I know! How about we smoke some weed to get the gears of our minds going?”

She shot me a glare of deadpan frustration. “Weed does not improve your cognitive skills, babe. Quite the opposite; it only serves to magnify your inherent bimbo tendencies. That’s the whole reason you’re in this mess in the first place.”

I stuck out my tongue. “We’ll see. I bet the solution is just hovering there, waiting for my altered state of consciousness to grasp it.”

45 minutes later, after taking a long drag from my pipe, I looked at Dani’s scowling expression and burst into a fit of giggles. “Y-You know what? You might have been right,” I told her. “My brain is all… floaty…”

She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, before sighing in resignation and thumbing a lighter as I passed her the bowl.

“I told you so.”

******

Dad was never the most subtle person.

That’s the reason why, when I texted him a week later, I told him to come meet me in disguise; I wanted to see what kinda outrageous outfit he’d manifest. Sure enough, he didn’t disappoint… he walked up to my rusty Impreza clad in a full-ass trench coat, accompanying fedora and huge sunglasses that hid most of his face; he’d shaved away his beard this morning, if the razor burn on his neck was anything to go by. It was all I could do to avoid whipping out my phone then and there to snap a photo, for posterity.

Instead I whipped out my own pair of shades, slipped them on my face and rolled down my driver’s-side window.

“Hey,” I said conspiratorially.

“Hey,” he responded, breaking out into a goofy grin. He was clearly enjoying our little spat of secret agent roleplay.

“You got the stuff?” I asked him in a half-whisper.

He nodded, pulling aside his trench coat a bit to reveal a manila folder filled with his medical records and bloodwork results. “Yeah.”

I gave a curt nod. “Very good. Hop in.”

He slid into the passenger seat smoothly, and I was about to pull away when I noticed something off.

“Seatbelt,” I instructed, to which his response was an eye roll.

“Fine,” he grumbled as he pulled the seatbelt over his shoulder and clicked it into place. “You’re such a nag, just like your mother.”

Ah, the blissful gender euphoria of being perceived as a bitch. Much as I wanted to bask in that feeling for a while, it was time to get down to business.

“So, how’s your homework assignment coming along?” I asked as I pulled away from the curb and began to merge onto the surface streets. “Have you picked a name?”

“Y-Yeah, actually, I…” he muttered, face once again turning beet-red. “I kinda… you won’t laugh at me when I tell you, right?”

I crossed my heart. “I would never.”

He fidgeted with his hands for a while, then began speaking in a small voice. “So, I was thinking from now on I’d kinda like to be known as… Sadie…”

I raised an eyebrow, while keeping my eyes on the road. “Oh yeah? That’s a cute name. Why’d you pick it?”

“Uh… well, S-Sadie is etymologically a diminutive form of Sarah, and I’ve always thought it was cute when parent and child had related names. When you were born your mother was very much against calling you Alex Jr., so I figured this little undercover mission would be a good second chance to… kinda do that? Bond over that? Is that weird? Are those 5G waves making my brain too weird for you to handle?”

Hoo boy, did I ever have mixed feelings about that. I mean, I loved my dad to death, and he was clearly coming out as trans because of my example… but goddamn would that ever be embarrassing at family get-togethers. It was going to be a story he would tell doe-eyed relatives at Thanksgiving dinner. Gods, spare me that secondhand embarrassment. PLEASE.

On the other hand… she picked that name with the clear goal of fostering a fresh mother-daughter bond. She was reaching out to me over a shared experience, and I couldn’t say no to such genuine and vulnerable kindness. I could suffer ten times the embarrassment if it meant my mom was happy.

I realized with a start that halfway through that last internal monologue I’d stopped thinking of him as my dad and instead internalized her as my mom. I still wondered if I was being presumptive… but fuck it. The signs were there, and very strong. I had little doubt I was making the right call.

I glanced to my right and caught a glimpse of my neo-mom’s pleading eyes. “It’s not weird at all, Sadie. In fact, I find it quite touching.”

Upon being called Sadie out loud, her body shivered in obvious euphoria. “Th-That’s very kind of you to say, Sarah. On that note, I did a little bit of extra credit, too…”

She shyly opened her trench coat, revealing she was dressed in a cute blouse and capri jeans. She’d shaved her arms and legs too, and I had no doubt by the cut of the clothes this wasn’t the first time she’d tried dressing femme; everything fit perfectly.

“Damn, girl, you look adorable!” I gushed, quite sincerely.

“Th-Thank you…” Sadie responded, eyes glued to her lap. “I wasn’t sure if you’d…”

I smiled back warmly. “Oh, come now. I’m a fellow 5G bimbofication victim, right? Of course I’d approve of you dressing femme.”

She looked up at me, confused. “What’s ‘bimbofication?’”

“Oh, uh, I…” I stammered as my brain switched to crisis mode; I’d accidentally let my mother in on one of my darkest secrets. I desperately searched for a diversion. “I’ll tell you when you’re older?”

“I’m 46,” she responded flatly.

“A-And still so innocent!” I fumbled, resisting the urge to muss her hair. “A-ny-way… a-are you all ready for your introduction to the secret Gay Agenda?”

Her eyes shifted from suspicious confusion to genuine excitement. “Yeah! I can’t wait to… er, start investigating their malfeasance so I can bring down their operation from the inside. Yes, that’s it. So, are we headed to the Starbucks you mentioned?”

Secretly grateful she’d switched tracks so easily, I pressed forward with the conversation. “Nah, nothing so obtuse. We’re going to the headquarters of the Gay Agenda, the very heart of their sinister operation.”

She gasped, hand to mouth. “You mean…?!”

I nodded and grinned conspiratorially. “That’s right, Sadie. We’re going to Planned Parenthood.”

******

While our state had plenty of informed consent HRT clinics scattered about, Planned Parenthood ran one that specifically catered to marginalized communities and low-income queer folks like, y’know, college students. It was here I’d gotten my very first estrogen prescription, and now my mom would too. Poetic, right?

The Planned Parenthood was in a nondescript strip mall, wedged between an overpriced hair salon and one of those burrito places where the food fucks so long as you don’t get their carnitas… seriously, stay the HELL away from their carnitas. To the untrained eye, our local PP might have seemed like just another dentist office tucked away in the dehumanizing purgatory of suburbia, save for one little detail…

The protestors.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about: a bunch of rich white conservative folk with too much money and time, standing outside with uggo signs on posterboard. I won’t repeat the hate that was printed on those signs, but suffice to say it was stank-ass nasty misogyny and homophobia. I’d encountered this horrifying horde every time I’d gone to PP, and it was always a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

“SINNERS!” screeched one of the protestors as we exited my car and started walking towards the clinic. “Why are you here, young woman? For an abortion? Consider the life you would be extinguishing in direct violation of God’s law!”

The mouthy Karen, whose smile showed a frankly distracting amount of gum, beelined straight for me and began to shovel brochures into my arms. I let them drop to the ground, smushed them into the pavement with my shoe and flipped her off.

“Out of the way, bitch.”

The woman genuflected, then moved to block my path and thrust her face forwards so it was inches from mine. “Please, just let us save the life inside you! You are steeped in sin and promiscuity now, but the Lord Jesus is waiting to welcome you into His arms!”

I tried to go around her, but she kept side-stepping to block my path, spewing her nonsense the whole time. “You can’t ignore me, and you can’t ignore God! Abortion is murder, and if you go through with this you WILL go to Hell! Don’t condemn your soul to eternal damn-“

The protestor yelped in surprise as she felt the pressure of fingers gripping her shoulder. Her head swiveled around to catch the sight of Sadie, now in full protective-mother mode, grinding her teeth.

“My daughter told you to move,” she said with quiet fury.

“But…” the protestor protested.

“MOVE,” she veritably growled.

The protestor let out an “EEP!” and scurried back to her horde, who proceeded to glare and shout at us as we resumed walking. It was only once we were inside the PP’s front reception office that we both allowed ourselves a sigh of relief.

“What the hell was that?!” Sadie exclaimed.

“Conservative Christian protestors,” I explained. “They’re always here, harassing patients and spewing hate.”

“…Always?” Sadie said, her voice growing quite small.

I nodded. “One of the reasons I carry pepper spray, in case one of them gets a bit handsy.”

My mother stumbled backwards a step, resting her back against one of the walls. I looked at her with concern. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “What those people just said and did was horrible; it was almost like that one woman was physically threatening you. You have to deal with them EVERY time?”

I nodded grimly.

“A week ago…” Sadie said, her voice growing smaller, “I might have been among them, saying the same things they did. Now, I… I don’t know what to think. I shouldn’t even be here, huh?”

I shook my head vigorously. “Don’t sell yourself short, Mom. Everyone makes mistakes, but what’s important is how we learn from them and grow into better, kinder people. You have good intentions, and so you have just as much right to be in here as me.” I was conveniently leaving out the fact that her ‘good intentions’ involved a pretend Qanon plot but y’know, tomato toh-mah-to.

The pep talk worked; Sadie smiled slightly and stuck out her tongue. “You sound like your mother.”

I snorted. “Which one?”

She blinked as she considered my question, then let out a sharp gasp. “Wait… a second ago… you called me ‘Mom,’ right?”

Aha, egg-sign ahead. “That I did.”

“W-Wow… I… uh…” she stammered as she blushed once more, averting her eyes from me.

Oh no. I was not letting this go. “You like it when I call you ‘Mom?’”

“Y-Yeah,” she admitted, her smile involuntarily growing. “B-B-BUT! Only as part of the undercover op, okay?”

I returned her smile in full. “Of course, Mom.”

******

Doctor’s appointments are boring, so I’ll spare you that part. Suffice to say, Sadie got her first HRT prescription pretty much immediately, since she already had her medical paperwork in order and bloodwork completed. Not to toot my own horn, but it helps when you have someone on the inside track, eh?

And so Sadie started her hormones and I returned to the chaotic peace of my stoner college life. I got texts from her, of course, with the usual newly hatched trans girl gushing and excitement. One of them said:

OMG! I think I can feel my nipples tingling! My breasts might be starting to grow?

You ever had your mom text you about her nipples? It’s fucking weird. Still, Sadie didn’t really have the chance to discuss this kinda stuff with anyone else, as I was the only other trans girl she knew, so I just treated it like Grandpa’s prostatectomy story and bleached it from my mind… after sending a rote response, of course.

Wow, that’s great! TMI, but great!

Weirdness aside, I couldn’t believe I’d gotten away with tricking Sadie into coming out as trans via my wacky conspiracy plan! Could it be possible I was some sort of secret genius? Of course, there was still the problem of revealing all this to my other mom, Marianne, but if my own Starbucks coming out story went so swimmingly, surely Sadie and I could conjure up something similarly believable, right? No biggie.

Or so I thought. Ah, hubris.

Now, I wasn’t present for this next part, but I heard all about it after the fact. That said, let me relay events to you secondhand.

It was an innocuous Thursday afternoon, and Sadie was happily humming in the kitchen while mixing up a big ol’ pot of chili. That’s when Marianne walked into the kitchen with a grim expression on her face.

“Hello dear,” Sadie said cheerfully.

“Hi,” Marianne responded tersely.

Sadie looked up from her cooking and saw Marianne’s expression. “Dear, what’s wrong?”

In response, Marianne held up two bottles: one of spironolactone, the other of oestrogen. Sadie’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy, but no words came out.

“Alex,” Marianne said quietly, “I found these hidden in your dresser. I think we need to talk.”