After eating some delicious pizza I headed back to the dorm. When I arrived I saw Marcus heading out. "Oh hey, dude. I'm boutta head to an LGBTQ+ club meetup. You're welcome to join if you want"

"What's that?" I had never heard of this elle-gee-beety-queue-plus before. How much in this world was I blissfully unaware of and why?

"Yeah. Y'know, Lesbian, gay, bi, trans, quee-" 

"No...I have no idea what any of those things are..."

"Huh. Well you should come. I'm sure they'd love to meet you"

"I'm, uh, not good around people. Plus we just met why do you want me to go"

"Iunno, you just seem chill I guess, Plus these are some of the most accepting people I know. Tell ya' what, you come and if you want to leave, you're free to do so" I did come here wanting to find myself maybe these people can help me find myself or at least teach me more about the world that I seemed to be sheltered from for so long. 

We headed down to a small decorated in different flags from countries I'd never seen before. "Hey, uh what's the deal with these flags? I've never seen any of these countries but maybe I'm just bad at geography" Marcus tried suppressing a laugh but quickly devolved into a fit of laughter. Flustered, I hid myself in my hoodie and tried to be as small as possible. Marcus wiped the tears formed from the laughter and started explaining what each flag meant.

"This rainbow flag represents this whole queer community. This flag here represents trans people. People like me who's gender differs from their assigned gender at birth!"

"Wait so like you want to be a girl or something?"

He suppressed a laugh and explained "No I was assigned female at birth but being a girl was mentally painful so I decided to not be a girl so now I'm a boy. Of course some people will choose to be neither"

"Wow! You don't look like a-"

"Uhhh just an fyi you shouldn't talk like that. I know you seem to have not much experience so I'm not mad but many trans people hate being reminded of their assigned gender at birth, or agab. You'd be surprised at how well many of us pass as our correct gender" Something about these trans people seems so inspiring and cool. To almost reject your fate and turn it into something desirable. I kinda wish I was trans but I sadly am not. After I was introduced to the other flags and identities I decided to meet some of these people and was surprised to see the attractive lady from the pizza place. Great as if I wasn't already embarrassed enough in front of her. Unfortunately she noticed me and decided to say hi. 

"Hey, you were a customer at Mama Pizza earlier right?"

"Oh, uh, yeah...I was the idiot you thought was making fun of you"

"Hey no worries, you seem like a rather nice guy. Didn't know you were queer too. Name's Nora, she/they please." She...or I guess they said.

I introduced myself and added "uh... he/him I think?" I cringed at that "I dunno I'm new to this. My roommate invited me here. I'm a bit confused to be honest but I'm trying to understand."

"Hey that's something, many people don't even try, they just get angry and violent if I so much as hold hands with a girlfriend" She sighed.

"Oh...you're a lesbian. Omigosh I'm so sorry. I zoned out at the pizza place because I thought you were attractive I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable...I should go I'm sorry..." She giggled

"Hey no worries you can't really help who you're attracted to and while the staring was uncomfortable you clearly don't have bad intentions. Anyway you seemed not super sure of your pronouns if you want I can use they/them or she/her if you want" I blushed a bit at the thought ofbeing called she/her. Huh that was odd guess I'm just not used to that.

"Um they/them will be fine I guess. I don't really know what I'm doing to be honest."  

"Hey, if you ever wanna talk about gender stuffs you seem cool so we can exchange numbers if you'd like."

"Woah. Does this mean we're friends?"  She giggled and nodded. I excitedly blushed and we exchanged phones to type each other's numbers. I hesitated when it came to putting in my name and instead just simply put 'K' and handed back the phone. "Kay, huh. Nice to meet'cha, Kay" Something about the name Kay made me blush it fit me a lot better than my old name. I'd never had a friend who was a girl before so I couldn't help but stare blissfully at Nora's contact. I feel I'm getting closer to understanding who Ka- I mean I am.