I was furious but didn’t show any of it, I wasn’t sure why but I had to stay composed.

“I-I’m not saying that it isn’t true, only that it’s not that important in the end. Except maybe in certain extreme cases ?” My friend Gwen replied to me. 

He had a way of arguing that had always intrigued me, and that made us have many heated debates… but that had definitely always intrigued me.

He continued. “The thing is, we should try to step back a little and question the way we think about these questions. Why do we want so bad to be right about this? The earth is round, we are in agreement, but if someone shows up saying the opposite, I will leave them be.”

He always loved to step back a little, figure out things on a more meta level. I found this reasoning to be dangerous, fallacious even. But I didn’t tell him that, I didn’t want to poison the well. However I allowed myself to mention a point that should hit the mark: “This is a very emotionally loaded judgment, you’re just afraid to offend flat-earthers. But the scientific method is more important than that.”

Gwen frowned hearing my remark. I tried to soften my point. “I think – and that’s just my opinion – I think that ideally, we should debate flat-earthers in order to teach them the basis of critical thinking. This would probably be a good start.” Satisfied with my solution, I flashed him a little smirk.

Gwen chuckled, smiled and rolled his eyes. “Fine, you win, I don’t have the energy to continue. To be honest debating this with you is a bit like with flat-earthers, I don’t see why I care so much about convincing you. This isn’t even a topic where lives are at stake, like homophobia or transphobia.” Gwen gave me an intense stare.

I didn’t understand why he spoke about that. I was startled by this non sequitur. “I guess you have a point." I sighed. "Anyway, classes will resume in five minutes, let’s stop here… for now!” Gwen giggled.

I don’t have many friends, I never really found the energy to meet new people. I like to be in the back of the class, an NPC barely perceived. But Gwen was an exception, he's a childhood friend. And he was my game pal, we played together on a Minecraft server for years. Playing video games was one of the few distractions I allowed myself. In a way, from an utilitarian point of view, it is only logical to have a hobby, more fulfilling, better for the brain. 

And above all, Gwen is a skillful debater. Despite our differences in method, he always has interesting ideas, and I can respect that.

The history class was starting soon. I had taken out all my notes from the previous class, we were about to talk about the XIXth century – my favorite century! My grades in history are acceptable, like in most classes. The thing is, I had an interest in every class, you never know what will come handy later. It is only logical to learn as much as possible in order to be ready for the future.

But in tests, there was a permanent background buzz that prevented me from properly focusing. This buzz was only poking its head when there was nothing to distract my mind, when I was left to mercy of my own thoughts. Despite my pride in my logical capacities, I had to confess I made a lot of dumb mistakes. My teacher noted: “Has trouble thinking outside the box” in my report. I found that a bit excessive, but it remained a hypothesis worth considering.

I received a slight bump in my right temple. That didn’t hurt much but I couldn’t silence an instinctual “Ouch!” I turned back towards the origin of this distraction. Gwen was clumsily waving and pointing at the ground below me. 

Ah, indeed. On the ground was a crumpled ball of paper.

Gwen loved sending crumpled balls of paper. It was usually messages, usually frilled with cute drawings. Just what you need to make exchanges more exciting. I would have loved to do the same. I admired him being so carefree, he got to live new forms of experiences! Unfortunately it is highly likely that doing such a thing as a guy would get me negative judgment. I would never throw shade at Gwen for doing so, that would be prejudiced, a fallacious reasoning! And to be frank, it was very cute. But as far as I am concerned, I had to stay composed. So no crumpled ball of paper for me, I would answer with grimaces and messages on Discord.

I unfolded my classmate's crumpled ball of paper with a bit of excitement. 

'Hi! There’s something I should tell you, personal stuff. Can you come to my house after school to talk about it?” dotted with three little flowers. I turned back towards Gwen and gave him a slight smile.

Truth be told, for me it was already a huge smile. But I was told I wasn't smiling very much. Truth often lies in the middle, so I concluded that my smile is a slight smile despite all my best efforts to make it as large as possible.

Gwen wasn’t smiling. But he was watching me with an anxious mood and soft eyes. I gave him a little nod and sent him a thumbs up on Discord. I would’ve liked to add ‘with pleasure, i’m here for you!’ but that would’ve been too much outside my editorial slant. Besides, the teacher was already striking us down with their gaze.

Gwen sent me a crumpled ball of paper again. “Nice!! See you later!!!!”

Gwen lived a few houses down from school. Very handy when you want to reward a long day of school with a few hours on Minecraft directly after. Then it took ten minutes from there to arrive at my house. But I often ended up sleeping at Gwen’s, more comfy.

On the way back from school, I usually tend to let my mind wander. I liked crafting arguments against imaginary enemies. What would happen if I had to face a flat-earther? I had to prepare myself for this situation, I should have a thorough understanding of the subject. Gravity, the solar system and its inner workings, the history of space exploration… I pondered again at what Gwen told me about taking a step back. I should learn about the reasons why the flat-earthers think what they think. What are the social phenomena at play. Yes. Perfect. With that I would be ready to tackle the physical aspect and the social one! I had to deploy every scientific field!

“Hey hey” Gwen was making a little sound of a walkie-talkie. “Ground control to the Moon, do you copy ?”

Oh. I had completely forgotten we were going to Gwen's to talk about an important thing. “Sorry, I was thinking back to our discussion earlier.” I answered. I took a breath to steady myself. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Ah, if that’s okay, I’d like to wait to be home, there’s a lot of people here.” Gwen looked at me with kitty eyes, it’s impossible to say no to kitty eyes. Even I have a heart.

"Of course! Sorry, I probably didn't realise the importance of what you wanted to tell me.” I'm very bad at understanding people, I often feel like I'm missing a piece of the jigsaw puzzle, probably an edge piece at that, which doesn't help because I start all my puzzles at the edges. I'm afraid I'm not good enough for Gwen. Ah but here I was, I'd gone back to the Moon. There's no point in ruminating. And after all, we were arriving.

Gwen's room is a masterpiece, no wonder he's the one in charge of building on our Minecraft world. The ceiling was crossed on both sides by magnificent fabrics of all colors. The wooden bookcases were carefully arranged in an irregular pattern. Gwen had built a lot of his furniture himself. His mom is a carpenter and she taught him the tricks of the trade. He had taken the time to carve the edges of his bookcases to imitate the roots of a tree. I noticed a new flag in his collection on the opposite wall. I was not sure what country it was, but I thought I'd seen it somewhere before.

Gwen cut off my thoughts by letting out a long sigh. I barely understood what he was whispering to himself. “Come on, come on, get it together, you can do it.” He had sat on his bed, kicking his feet.

I decided to join him. “I’m not very good at this, but I promise I’ll listen to you.”

Gwen exhaled one last time and turned in my direction, he was still looking at the ground. “You know, earlier, I threw out the word transphobia. It… It was a little out of nowhere but the thing is… I wanted how you'd react.” So that’s what it was all about, I'd told myself that he had no reason to cite this particular discrimination. But if he was talking about it that meant that... that he…

“I’m trans.” Gwen finally looked at me, eyes wet. “I want to be a girl, no… I’m a girl… I think.” A silence ensued. I opened my mouth but couldn't think of anything to say. “I've known for a few weeks, I'm already out to my family and my queer friends, but I wanted to talk to you about it too. You are an important person to me.” He- 

No. 

She… 

She took my hand. I expected anything but that. I didn't know how to react.

“W-well done.” I don't know why I said that. “That’s great, I’m glad you shared this with me. It’s important to me that you do what you need to do to be well.” Perfect ! Support, acceptance, I ticked all the boxes of an appropriate reaction to coming out.

Querelle

This story is inspired by a silly late night joke a friend of mine made. I wrote it in two days. Now I'm slowly translating it to English because I love this site and wanted to share the fun!

Edit: Here's the French version! (on google docs for now)