“Alright, everyone, time’s up!” Patrick called out. “We’re done for the week. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

“You said that last time!” a voice in the crowd called back.

“Did I? Well, too bad, hire me a speech-writer if you don’t want me to repeat myself,” Patrick replied, causing laughter to ripple through the room.

“Oh, and before I forget,” Lena added, “we have something to tell the trans folks and enbies here, so if you could maybe stay here for a moment longer? It will take just a few minutes.”

Our small group – which, as usual, was made up of me, Nora, Anna, Vicky and Elanor – exchanged perplexed glances, but then Nora shrugged. “We’ll wait outside for you,” she said, and Anna nodded in agreement: they made their way out of the room, while I and the others gathered in the middle of the room, where Patrick, Lena, and Allie were waiting.

Lena waited until the hubbub had died down a bit. “Alright, I’ll make this brief. I have this friend – I met her through my sister, actually – who’s a vocal coach, and has quite a bit of experience in helping trans people find their voice. And she offered to come over here to Bradford McKinley, do a few group lessons for free.” She paused, and ran her eyes over the crowd, and then continued, “Then if any of y’all wanna continue training with her, she’ll give you a discount.”

There was a moment of silence; I turned her words over in my mind. “I’m sorry, what do you mean ‘help trans people find their voice?’ How’s she going to do that?”

“There are some tricks you can use to sound more feminine,” Allie replied. “Or more masculine, but that’s more rare because testosterone does a lot for transmascs. And then, once you learn the technique, it’s all a matter of training and practice, until you get it down, and your voice becomes… well, yours.” She shrugged. “It’s not that hard.”

“Huh. Okay.”

“So yeah, like I said,” Lena said, “Let us know if there are any takers, and we’ll set up the group lessons.” She smiled. “Alright, class dismissed. Go home, y’all.”

There was a murmur of assent, and we turned around and shuffled out of the room; our trio rejoined Anna and Nora, and together we started making our way towards our usual café, chatting all the way.

“So what did Lena want?” Nora asked, as we opened the door and went in.

“She said she knows a vocal coach, who can come over and give us some pointers regarding our voice,” I replied, sitting down at our usual table. “Asked if anyone was interested.”

“Hm,” my girlfriend mused. “Do you think you’ll go for it?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Voice training sounds like it’s very bothersome, to be honest. I think I’ll wait and see what effects I get with HRT.” I turned to the waiter who’d approached our table and added, “I’ll have the chicken sandwich with fries and a Pepsi, thank you.” Then I turned back to my friends, and saw that Vicky was giving me a weird look. “What?” I asked.

“Lily, HRT does nothing for trans girls’ voices,” she said.

I blinked in surprise. “It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t,” she replied. “Testosterone enlarges your throat, makes your voice deeper. Once that’s done, estrogen can’t turn it back. That’s why voice training is less critical for transmascs – they get a natural change from their HRT, while we, on the other hand, have to work for it. Allie said as much, earlier.”

I thought back and realised she was right: Allie had said as much. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

“That’s not what I’ve read,” I protested, frowning. “I did some research…”

“And where did you do that research?” Anna asked.

“On the Internet.”

“Well, there you have it,” she said.

Elanor and Nora both nodded in agreement. “You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, Lily,” Elanor said. “There’s lots of misinformation going around. Instead, you’d better ask people who know what they’re talking about.”

“Like us,” Vicky said. “I’ve been going through transition for two years now, so I’d like to think I know a few things.”

“Alright,” I nodded.

“Still, the question stands,” Nora said. “Are you going to do voice training?”

I looked around the table. “I don’t know, to be honest. I mean, I really don’t like my voice, but changing it seems like a lot of effort.” I looked at Vicky. “What about you?”

“Already done,” she replied. “On my own, even.”

I looked at her in surprise. “What? Really?”

“Really,” Vicky nodded. “What, did you think this was my natural voice?” She paused, and put a finger to her chin. “Well, it kinda is now. I’ve been using it for so long it comes naturally to me, I have to actually concentrate if I want to go back to a male voice. Which isn’t even my previous voice, it’s entirely different.”

“Huh,” I said in amazement. “Can you show me? Use your male voice?”

The answer was brief and curt: “No.”

I blinked. “No?”

“No,” Vicky repeated. “Using a male voice gives me a whole lot of dysphoria, I don’t do it unless I have to. Like when I’m talking with my parents, for example. So no.” She smiled. “Sorry.”

I smiled back. “No need to apologise.” I turned to Elanor. “What about you?”

Elanor shook their head. “No, I’m not going for voice training either. I actually like my voice, it’s deep and powerful. I see no reason to change it.”

I looked at them in amazement. Huh. I thought all trans people hated their voice. (And some cis people – I did, for one.) But apparently I’d been wrong.

“You know what?” I said. “I think I’ll go for it. The free group lessons, at least. To get an idea of what I can get out of it. Thank you,” I added, smiling at the waiter as he set the plates down on the table.

My friends all nodded. “And then if you need some help, I can give you some pointers,” Vicky supplied. “I mean, been there, done that, all that jazz. I know how to do it. A professional may be better, true, but friends are also good.”

I smiled at her in gratitude, reached across the table, and gave her hand a squeeze. “Thanks, Vicks.”

“Anytime, girl,” she smiled back. “So, shall we eat?”

“Yeah,” I said; I bit into my sandwich, and frowned.

“Something wrong?” Nora asked, her own sandwich halfway to her mouth.

“They got my order wrong,” I answered. “This is beef, not chicken. Ah well.”

I brought the burger to my mouth again, but Nora stopped me by putting a hand on my arm. “Excuse me!” she called, turning around and waving the waiter over.

“…Nora, what are you doing?” I asked.

My girlfriend turned back to me. “I’m having them replace the burger.”

“What? No, there’s no need to,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. I like beef, too.”

“But you wanted chicken tonight, didn’t you?”

I hesitated for a moment. “Well… yes. But–”

Nora shook her head. “No buts, Lily.” She turned to the waiter and said, “Yes, her order was wrong, she asked for chicken and got beef; can you have them make another one, please?”

“Of course,” the waiter replied; he took my plate, leaving the basket of fries on the table, and carried it away.

“See?” Nora said. “There’s no need to make a scene, it was an honest mistake after all. But you have to tell people when they get something wrong.”

Truth to be told, I’d never liked to make a fuss, except when someone really annoyed me. Like Joe had done when he’d brought his friends to our dorm room back in November, or when I’d found myself arguing with Anna in social studies class before that (even though I now recognised that, in that case, I’d been mostly – mostly – wrong). I’d never liked to cause a scene, I always tried to avoid confrontation instead, even if it meant backing down from something I believed in. But as I looked around at my friends, I saw that they were clearly in agreement with Nora, so I just nodded.

And after all, why not? Why shouldn’t I be a bit more bold? Not too much, of course, I didn’t want to be overbearing. But why should I always be passive, all the time?

As the waiter set the new sandwich down in front of me – along with another basket of fries, “As an apology” – I resolved to put my foot down more often.

And the chicken sandwich tasted really good.

-----

Joe was still awake when I returned to the dorm room. That, in itself, wasn’t unusual: he usually wasn’t asleep when I came back late, either after the GSA meetings or, on Fridays, after movie night with my friends (when he wasn’t out partying with his friends, anyway). What was unusual was that, instead of lying down in bed, reading a book or watching a video on his phone, he was sitting at his desk, reading through a textbook, notes scattered on the table surface. He’d been at it for quite a while, I realised – he’d been studying earlier that afternoon, when I’d left to go to the meeting, and he was still studying then, hours later; I was reasonably sure it was the same textbook, reading, so he’d been on the same subject for several hours.

Joe looked up at me and grunted as a way of greeting, and even in the dim light of his desk lamp, I noticed his eyes were red. “Evenin’,” I said. “Are you alright?”

He scoffed, and looked back down at the textbook. “Do you even care?” he muttered.

I bit back a snappy response, and took a deep breath instead. Relax, Lily. Don’t let him get to you. Don’t antagonise him.

“I do care, actually,” I replied. “You’re my room-mate.”

And you become incredibly cranky and outright insufferable when you’re upset, and you take it out on whoever’s nearby – most often me, I mentally added. So if I can nip that in the butt…

He looked back up at me, and locked eyes with me.

“What?” I asked.

He kept staring for a few moments, then shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied. He looked back down at his textbook.

I frowned. “Have you even taken a break since I left?”

He shook his head again.

I sighed deeply. “Alright. You’re done for tonight. Go to sleep.”

“No,” he replied, under his breath.

“Yes,” I said. “Joe, the human brain can only absorb so much information in a given period of time; and besides, you’re clearly too tired to retain any information. Go to bed, and start back up again tomorrow.”

Even though I couldn’t see his face, Joe seemed to hesitate; he stiffened up a bit. But then he sighed deeply. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It’s just…” He sighed again. “I’m being too stubborn, trying to wrap my head around this stuff. Physics can be maddening, and I missed the professor explaining this whole thing,” he gestured at the textbook, “so I gotta do it by myself.”

I nodded as he stood up from his desk, and looked me in the eye. God, he looked terrible, which was weird considering how much attention he usually paid to his appearance: this was the worst I’d seen him – eyes bloodshot, hair ruffled, unsteady smile; I’d never seen him so vulnerable, he almost looked like he was going to cry. Falling behind in his studies must have been getting to him a lot, even though it was almost completely his fault.

Joe held my gaze for a moment, then clapped me on the shoulder and walked past me towards his bed. “Thanks for talking some sense into me, buddy. Good night.”

Without even bothering to change out of his day clothes, he stuffed himself under the covers; he must have been very tired, because it took him only a few minutes to start snoring.

I shook my head, turned off his desk lamp, and got ready for bed.

-----

The next morning, as I got ready to go to class – changing in the bathroom as I usually did those days, because I didn’t want my room-mate to notice I was growing boobs – Joe was still asleep. That was unusual, too: he almost always woke up before me, he was an early riser by nature. And while I knew he didn’t have any classes on Thursday morning, so him not waking up wasn’t that much of an issue, it showed how tired he’d been the previous evening.

I felt a bit bad for him, actually; I wished I could help him somehow, but we had two entirely different majors: I was in education, while he was studying aerospace engineering, so there was no way I could even begin to understand the subjects he was studying.

Like this physics stuff. I glanced at his textbook and his notes, still scattered on his desk, on my way out of the door; I’d never been one to have a head for scientific subjects, so all these equations, these mathematical symbols, they…

I blinked.

I… I kinda understood that, actually?

I picked up a page of Joe’s notes and ran my eyes over it. It was a bit chaotic – dude really needed to learn to be more organised when writing down things – but I did, in fact, somewhat understand what was on it. It was almost as if…

I set the page back down on Joe’s desk, turned on my heel, and grabbed my laptop off my own desk, stuffing it into my backpack before heading out.

That morning, I paid very little attention to my classes: I could afford to, I was a bit ahead with my studies – ever since I’d stopped getting drunk each and every weekend (and some weeknights, too) like I’d done in high school, I found that studying came much easier to me. And maybe it was also the fact that the mild background noise, the constant buzz I’d felt my entire life, was almost gone now, so I could concentrate on things. And that meant that I could neglect my lessons for one day, and instead spend a few hours putting together several pages of notes – complete with diagrams and simplified explanations – for the subject Joe was studying: I’d looked up his class schedule, so I was pretty sure I’d gotten it right.

Just after lunch (which I spent, as always, hanging out with Nora and my small group of queer friends) I excused myself, stopped at the college’s computer lab to print out what I’d typed out, and made my way to the dorm room. As I’d expected, Joe was sitting at his desk, poring over his textbook and notes.

“Hi,” I said. “At it again, I see.”

He just grunted in response.

“It’s past one PM. Have you eaten something?”

“Had breakfast,” he muttered.

“This is for you, then,” I said, and placed a sandwich and a can of soda – which I’d bought earlier – on his desk. Joe looked up at me, surprise evident in his face. “What?” I asked.

“For me? Seriously?”

I sighed. “Joe, I know we’re not friends, not by a long shot, but like I said yesterday, you’re my room-mate. I care about you, if only a little bit.” I smiled at him. “So take a break and eat your lunch.”

He looked at me for a few moments, then nodded, grabbed the sandwich and began unwrapping it. “Thanks,” he said.

I nodded in response. “Also, I made this for you,” I said, pulling the print-out from my backpack and placing it on his desk, too.

“What’s this?” Joe asked.

“Read it.”

He took a bite of the sandwich and looked down at the sheets of paper, chewing pensively as he read.

After a few moments, he stopped chewing. He stared at the writing, apparently transfixed, for a few moments, then looked up at me and swallowed.

“This is…”

I nodded again. “Some notes on orbital mechanics, transfer orbits, delta-vee, engine efficiency, specific impulse. That kind of thing. I saw you were studying the subject, and thought you might use the help.”

His mouth fell open; he closed it, and opened it again, apparently at a loss of words. “I’m sorry, but… what the fuck?” he said, finally. “How do you even know this stuff? You’re in an entirely different major which has nothing to do with this! How…?”

I smirked. “I played video games a lot in high school. Still do, in fact.”

Joe was still staring at me like I’d grown another head, so I thought I’d better explain.

“You see,” I said. “There’s this game. You play as the manager of a space program, and you have little green men build rockets to try and get off their planet and explore their solar system. And while it’s a bit different from real life, the makers of the game made a point to put a physics system in it. A Newtonian physics system, do you follow?”

“I do, yeah,” Joe said, nodding.

I nodded back. “So you can try to fudge things a bit at first. To just point the rocket where you want to go, open up the throttle, and go at full blast. But because of the limitations, sooner or later you find yourself having to make plans. To study orbits, to manage your fuel, to balance efficiency with transit time – because there’s also stuff like limited life support to take into account.” Joe nodded again, and I continued, “So before long, you need to actually study orbital mechanics. Because otherwise you’ll get nowhere.” I smiled. “So that’s why I understand this stuff.”

Joe looked down at the notes I’d given him, and then back up at me. “Yeah, I see. Alright.”

“But don’t count on me for anything else,” I said. “What I’ve written down there is literally the extent of my expertise, if you need anything else you’ll have to study it yourself.”

“Alright,” Joe repeated, nodding once again. “Still, this is really very helpful. Thanks, man.”

I cringed a bit at him calling me ‘man’ – why couldn’t he just use my name? – but smiled at him again. “Don’t mention it. And now, sorry, but I have to go back out, I have more classes in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, I better get going, too,” he replied. “Thanks again.”

I waved at him, and turned around.

“Hey,” Joe said.

“Yes?” I answered, turning back.

“Think you can show me that game? It sounds interesting, I’d like to see it.” He smirked. “And maybe it’ll help me with my studies.”

“Yeah, of course. See you, roomie.”

“See ya.”

I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me, and started down the corridor, smiling to myself as I went. I’d actually managed to connect with Joe, if only a little bit. Maybe I could talk to him some more, and we could actually become friends?

And then I could maybe somehow convince him his attitude – especially about queer people and other minorities – was wrong? Perhaps? I could try, at least.

Maybe things were looking up.