Alexandrina

Just a heads up: this chapter and the next few include some of the heaviest scenes in the entire story. As always I'll put content warnings where applicable; I'd take particular care to check the content warnings for the next three or four chapters, where I will also mark the heavy scenes with a second content warning just before the scene in question.

Apologies in advance for this one. It's not easy reading.

"Holy shit."

I'm sat at my computer, still riding the high of figuring out who I am and now bogged down in the 'research' phase. Beth is right: I need to tell Mum, sooner rather than later. But I want to know what I'm telling her first. It feels like not enough just to tell her that I'm a girl, you know? Mum's the sort who is going to want to know exactly what sort of girl I want to be, and exactly how I plan to become her.

And I kind of want to know more myself, too. I'm new to being trans. I know, because I can see it in Olivia and because Beth has told me, that it's possible to change my body, to make it more feminine, but I don't have the faintest idea of what that entails or where I start.

Or at least, I didn't. I'm now an hour into my research and my eyes are a little bit moist. It's like a two-way mirror has shattered, and I am suddenly seeing all my dreams laid out before me, learning that they are and have always been just there. I'm already daydreaming of hormones. They're basically magic, by the sounds of it. I've seen a hundred pictures of dead-eyed boys--'boys', in inverted commas, because that's just what they were pretending to be—and every time they have blossomed into happy, radiant women. I see myself in those 'boys'.

Messenger pings. I break my eyes away from the latest aspirational before-and-after of a girl I'm profoundly envious of and switch tabs to Facebook, recoiling briefly at my profile picture. A reminder of my masculine form. I need to change it, eventually, but I just know that's going to be a whole thing and I'm honestly kind of dreading having to deal with it. I'm friends on Facebook with most of my year at school, a result of that kind of obligatory camaraderie that comes from being born within a twelve month span of one another and attending the same institute of education. For every one who, like Jessie, is kind, I bet there's a few who would love to mock me for it. "Hannah Carden, who couldn't handle being a boy so she had to become a girl instead." That's what they'll say. I can hear Eddie's jeers now.

Oh yeah, that's something my research has taught me. Turns out boys don't all wish they were girls. I didn't want to be a girl all my life because that's the natural state of being for all humanity; I wanted to be a girl because I am a girl. Most boys would be horrified at the idea of being a girl.

I'm rambling. Focus, Hannah. Facebook. New message.

From Jessie.

'heyyyy girl ❤️ sooo proud of u—its a brave thing to say who you really are!! thx for trusting me. do u want to come to mine this wknd?? girly weekend??? xx'

'What does a girly weekend entail?' I reply.

Jessie is typing...

'ok so basically u come to my place

and we stay up late watching chick flix n eating pizza

plus makeovers'

I'm not sure what I want. A weekend with Jessie sounds fun, and even if chick flicks aren't exactly my jam (a girl doesn't need to like 'girly' films, does she?) I can always go in for a pizza. But makeovers give me pause. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be made to look all pretty, but right now I really don't feel like I deserve it. Girl or not I am still undeniably a boy in body; it would be a waste of Jessie's make-up to try and make my wretched form look cute. And what if I don't enjoy it? Now that I've realised I am a girl, I'm filled with a fear that I won't enjoy anything about girlhood, and end up forced to choose between going back on my stated gender identity or living forever as an unhappy trans girl.

What if the way I felt as a boy was the best it's ever going to get for me? I'm scared to find out. Better to stay tortured by the anticipation of my future girlhood than to discover my destiny as a perpetually-miserable individual.

In the end, my infatuation with Jessie—being a girl and spending a weekend at Jessie's house are literally my two childhood dreams fulfilled—wins out. I type out a quick 'Yes I would love to' and we agree to discuss the details in English on Thursday. In doing so, I realise that I don't share a class with Jessie tomorrow. I don't want to steal her from the Girls for the second lunch in three—not when I still feel like the interloper in their group—yet I also really don't want to have to go a whole day without being able to talk about my newfound gender. It's all that's filling my mind: a full-on squee of excitement just bursting to break free.

I have to tell someone.

I glance at the sidebar of my Facebook page, to see who's online. It's a motley list of names of classmates I don't know very well. Even if I had the faintest idea how Charlotte Kennedy or Matilda Fenchurch might react to me telling them I'm trans, I don't know them nearly well enough to burden them with my issues. The biggest downside to four years of voluntarily social isolation is that when you decide you want to climb out of your pit and start engaging with the human race again, all of the handholds have rusted so hard you daren't put your weight on them.

Suddenly I realise the solution. Olivia. I don't believe we're friends on Facebook, so I type her name in the search bar (thankfully she's kept the same surname through her transition) and send her a friend request. When she doesn't immediately accept it, I catastrophise.

Calm yourself, Har—Hannah. She might not even be online right now.

I'm saved from the spirals of my own mind by Mum's voice from downstairs: "Beth, Harry, where are you two? The table's booked for 7pm and it's 6.45 already."

I didn't even know she'd booked a table. I still don't know where we're eating. That makes it hard to gauge what I should wear, and my hatred for literally every item of clothing I own makes it even harder. I briefly consider asking Beth if I can borrow one of her dresses—but Mum doesn't know I'm a girl yet, and even if she had literally summoned an ancient God to turn me into her second daughter because she so badly wanted me to be a girl, she'd still be pissed off if we missed out on a booked table because I took too long getting ready. And there's no way I'm confident enough to wear a dress unless I have personal assurance that nobody is going to read me as anything but female.

That means a shave, and make-up, and doing something nice with my hair. Fifteen minutes just isn't enough time for all that.

I rush down the stairs at just after ten to 6. Mum and Beth are already in the hall with their shoes on; Beth's got this really cute sundress on with puffed-out sleeves, and leather boots with a bit of a heel. Mum hasn't changed out of her work clothes, though she has done her make-up again. I'm underdressed in my jeans and an outgrown graphic t-shirt. Mum looks at my outfit with dismay, then sighs. "Get in the car," she says, "or we'll be late."

*

Mum's restaurant of choice is a place called the Sword and Scabbard, one of those establishments that's about six hundred years old and spent five hundred of those as a traditional inn, where Tudor knights and bloodthirsty highwaymen stopped to drink—and has spent the last century of its existence slowly selling out its character to a succession of chains. The last chain to own it went bust a few years back, so now it's independently owned again, except now it's an unholy Frankenstein's monster of a restaurant, neither cheap-and-cheerful nor imbued with that classic pub feeling.

The grub's good, to be fair. And honestly, character is overrated. Character, for buildings, means exposed beams. Which means spiders. I can do without spiders in my life.

We're escorted to our seat by a young waitress with pink tips in her hair and an infectious grin. "I'm Katie," she says, "and I'll be looking after you tonight. Can I get you anything to drink, or would you like a moment to look at the menu?" She leans across the table to hand out menus, and I notice the enamel pin she's wearing beneath her nametag. I recognise the blue-pink-white-pink-blue stripes well from my research this afternoon. It even has her pronouns on it in cute bubble letters. Beth, sat next to me, nudges me, and I nod to affirm that I knew why she was nudging. I glance over to Mum, to try and gauge her reaction, but Mum doesn't seem to have realised that Katie the waitress is wearing a pin. She's already engrossed in the wine menu.

We give Katie our orders—both food and drink; none of us ever strays far from our usual order when we come to the Sword and Scabbard—and she vanishes into the kitchen. While we wait, I mention Jessie's invitation.

"You haven't mentioned a Jessie before," says Mum.

"No. We weren't really friends before this week, more acquaintances." Read: I had a mild crush on her that was probably at least part gender-envy, but I can't explain any of that to you, Mum, because I'm not secure enough in myself to talk about my crushes with my own parent and I'm not ready to get into the concept of gender-envy, and why your fifteen-year-old 'son' would have gender-envy towards a girl, in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

Mum smiles. "I'm glad you're making friends."

"I've had friends before," I say.

"You've never been invited to a friend's house. Not for a weekend, not even for a day. And I don't think you've had a friend round since you were in primary school." Mum frowns. "What was that lad's name? Ol—"

"So it's alright if I go to Jessie's this weekend?" I blurt. I have the sneaking suspicion Mum wasn't about to use Olivia's real name, and I don't want to hear the old one.

Mum nods. "You're fifteen, Harry. As long as you tell me where you are, you can go anywhere you like."

"Thanks, Mum."

"This Jessie," says Mum. "She's the first girl I've ever heard you talk about. Is this a girlfriend?"

God, I wish. If I was a boy then maybe, but Jessie and I are both girls. "Just a friend," I say.

Mum raises an eyebrow, but doesn't push the issue. I'm glad of that. I'm double-glad when Katie arrives a few seconds later with our drinks; when Katie goes off again, Beth talks about something from a soap Mum likes. I don't watch soaps, and—judging by the amount of times Mum corrected Beth—I'm guessing my sister doesn't watch them either. But she gamely keeps the conversation going until Mum is bored of trying to hook me up with Jessie by the power of 'repeatedly calling Jessie my girlfriend'.

I, in return, decide not to tell Mum that the reason I've never mentioned a girl before is because the last time I did, when I was nine and talked about the fact that Sally Ives kissed me in the school play, she proceeded to embarrass me by implying young love, thus training me not to talk about anybody of the 'opposite' sex.

Dinner, when it arrives, is bangers and mash, a delicacy anywhere it's eaten but doubly so here because their onion gravy is on point. I'm too busy eating to engage in conversation, though Beth somehow finds time between mouthfuls of her own Thai green curry to talk about a pair of cute boots she'd seen while shopping this morning. "My friend Hannah would look gorgeous in them," she says, and I smile through a forkful of mash.

"Do I know this Hannah?" Mum asks.

"I'm pretty sure you do," says Beth, innocently. "I have a lot of friends. Most of them have been to the house at some point."

"Yes, while I was away on a work trip," Mum says drily. "Yes, Beth, I do know about that house party. It was a clever trick replacing the vodka with water, but you're supposed to put the cap back on the vodka bottle afterward."

I nearly choke on my mash. Beth glares. We both wonder whether Mum also knows that Beth and her friends only drank the vodka because they'd already consumed all the gin on previous occasions.

Towards the end of dinner, I find myself needing to pee. For the first time, I don't immediately get up to go; the men's room, where I've always previously gone and where, based on my appearance, I would be expected to go tonight, is the last place I want to be. I'd never been much of a fan even when I assumed it was the correct bathroom. Now, I'm seeing things in a new light. I'm a girl, a woman, and I feel sick at the thought of using gendered facilities not aimed at my gender. But the ladies' loos aren't an option. Any woman who I saw in the bathroom would take me for a man—understandably so, given my presentation tonight—and be freaked out. Even the best-case outcome would involve me awkwardly explaining to Mum, the pub management, and a poor unfortunate stranger, that I'm a trans woman and thus do belong in the women's toilets, even if my choice of dress made using said toilets ill-advised.

I decide to sidestep the issue of which restroom to use entirely, by holding it in and hoping for the best. I concentrate on my food, instead of the pressing on my bladder. Easier said than done. Luckily for me, dysphoria (yes, I learnt a word for the horrible feeling I always get when I'm reminded of my outer maleness) decides to rear its head; I'm too busy being distracted by that to worry about how badly I need to piss. My self-loathing brain decides to tell me that I'm eating my food in an unladylike manner. I tell my brain to shut the fuck up and shove the last mouthful of sausage into my mouth, then set knife and fork down on my plate. Katie the waitress is on the ball as ever, dashing over to take our empty plates as soon as we've finished. Mum, I notice, is watching her oddly, a tight smile on her face.

Beth notices too. No sooner is Katie out of sight than Beth speaks up: "Mum, are you alright? You look stressed."

"I just don't think the staff here should be wearing their politics on their uniform. That girl's pin is quite offensive, actually." Mum rolls her eyes. "She's probably not a girl at all. Seem to be a lot of men these days think they can put on a dress and call themselves women and the world's just got to roll with it. Well, I won't roll with it." I shrink away. I don't want to look at Mum, and I don't want her to look at me. Beth squeezes my hand beneath the table. It's the only thing that keeps me steady.

"Does it matter if the waitress is trans or not?" Beth puts. "She's taken our order and brought our food."

"She's lying to us," Mum says. "Or he, I should probably say."

Beth rolls her eyes. "First of all, Mum, Katie isn't trans. She was in the year below me at school. I even briefly dated her brother—you remember Charlie with the lazy eye—and I know for a fact that Katie is cis. So no, you shouldn't say 'he'."

"Cis?" Mum mutters, but Beth barrels on.

"Second of all, even if she was trans, she's very clearly presenting as a woman, so again, you shouldn't say 'he'. In fact, if you bothered to read, you'd see that her pin even says 'she/her' on it—so there's no question as to her pronouns. And that aside, all she's doing is showing support for a marginalised group that needs it." Beth is red in the face. Clearly angry. I want to join in the argument, but I'm too scared. Scared I'll let slip that I myself am trans. That might break Mum, right now.

Mum shakes her head. "What those transgenders need is to stop being pandered to."

"I don't believe I'm hearing this from my own mother—"

"Robert from the Accounts department came back from his sabbatical wearing a fucking skirt today," says Mum. "Sent a stupid email saying that he had 'transitioned' and his new name is 'Rebecca'. You asked why I was home early, Harry—I got sent home. Told not to come back into the office until things have calmed down. Because I said that just because Robert the transgender got his dick chopped off and started wearing lipstick doesn't mean he should be allowed to invade women's spaces."

"No." It's Beth's turn to shake her head. "No, I'm not listening to this. You—" She jabs a finger in Mum's chest. "—need to stop being a fucking bigot and get your head out of your arse."

"How dare you speak to me like that, young lady?"

Beth shrugged. "With all the shit that just came rushing out of your mouth, I figure you're not overly worried about basic respect. Especially since you're so keen to show the whole world just how much of a hateful bigot you are. I'm glad for Rebecca. I'm glad she works somewhere that has her back. And I'm glad I'm going to university in a few weeks, because it means I'll never have to see your bigoted face again."

"Bethany May Carden, you will apologise this instant."

"Oh, go fuck yourself." Beth gets up loudly from the table, still clutching my hand. "Come on, H. Let's go." I let her lead me out. I couldn't go anywhere off my own steam; my head's gone fuzzy, and my brain is whirling in circles. I can't process anything Mum has said tonight. I don't want to process. By the time Beth gets me to the car, I'm crying.