Be Myself! - 26. Friendly Advice

“So, this is it. Wish me luck.”

“I’m here for you. Whatever happens from now on.”

“Thanks.”

Oli and I were sitting near the rugby fields. It was morning break on the day after my talk with his parents. We could see our other friends approaching from the distance. Jean came first, almost dragging Henry with his enthusiasm. Hannah and Helena were being pulled by Ariadne, one on each arm, like the younger girl was trying to make them finally get along. Edward followed everyone else at a slower pace, accompanied by his little sister. Earlier that day Oli had announced there was something he needed to tell the rest of the LGBTI Club and called a meeting. We decided it was not necessary to invite Charlie and Luce, though, because it would be nothing new to them.

“So, what is it? You guys getting married? Jean asked, laughing. “I will fuck the groom as a wedding gift1”

“No, that’s not it!” Oli shouted as his face became two shades lighter than his hair colour. “I don’t want to get married, and even if I did, I wouldn’t…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind. I want to tell you something about myself that I realised during Charlie’s speech.”

“What is it?” Ariadne asked. Oli looked at me, as if asking for emotional support, and I nodded. He took a deep breath before speaking.

“I’m a guy. I mean, I’m a trans guy. I don’t like being a girl, and it would mean a lot to me if you understood that.” At first our friends were silent, slowly processing Oli’s words. Jean furrowed his eyebrows, scrutinising my boyfriend’s body in such a way that made even me feel uncomfortable, but the first to speak was Emma.

“Cool, so you’re a guy now.” It was not a question, but a statement. “Does it mean you’re gay? Did you change your name too?” Edward looked at his little sister like she had grown an extra head, but Emma acted as if Oli had just announced something as obvious as the fact that his favourite subject was Spanish.

“Er… yeah, I’m gay, but I haven’t thought of a name yet. It’s all so new and…”

“Are you sure about this?” Hannah interrupted, looking at Oli the same way Jean did.

“Yes. The things Charlie said on her first day awoke something in me. I did some research and finally realised why I always felt so uncomfortable with the way I am. It’s not just about not liking girly things; it’s about not being a girl at all.” Oli tried to smile, but it looked obviously forced. Hannah’s hard stare did not wane.

“If you’re sure it’s not just you trying to find a way to belong to the LGBTI Club…”

“It’s not! I’m sure of it! I already felt included here before; I have no reason to do that.” Hannah eyed Oli for a couple more tense seconds. She seemed to be analysing my boyfriend’s sincerity. When she finally spoke, her mouth took a shape I rarely saw on her: that of a true smile.

“Well, then, welcome to the LGBTI Club, my friend the gay trans boy.”

“Thanks, Hannah.” Oli blushed even more, becoming two shades redder than his hair. Henry and Ariadne smiled too, though Jean and Helena were still frowning.

“I’ve been calling him ‘Oli’ for now,” I said, hoping to help the others get used to the change quicker. I thought that if they knew how to address my boyfriend, it would make it easier to speak to him and ask questions.

“So Oscar already knew about this?” Helena asked, and for a moment I thought she was going to jump down my throat. Why did she hate me so much?

“Yes. He was the first person I told about it,” Oli answered, looking into Helena’s eyes with the most defiant face I had ever seen on him. He probably sensed her hostility too. “He’s my boyfriend, after all.”

“You’re still together?” Jean asked, raising his eyebrows. “Ha, I knew Oscar was really gay!”

“I’m bisexual, actually…” I mumbled, though everyone somehow heard it.

“Ah, so you’ve finally decided to identify as queer! It was about bloody time!” Hannah beamed, or got as close to beaming as someone like her could. “So Oli’s coming out made you change your mind, or what?”

“I kind of realised that I was able to like girl’s bodies and still enjoy things with Jean, and that I like Oli because of the person he is, not because of his gender.” Hannah was smiling at me. The experience was so surreal that I kept talking, paying little attention to what I was saying until the words were out. “Oli pointed out to me that it probably meant I was bisexual, then said his parents were bi too, and I talked to them and I realised that I’m happy with that label for now.”

“Wow, welcome to the club then, Oscar,” Hannah laughed, patting me on the back. She was stronger than I imagined. “So I guess it means this club has representatives from all the LGBT letters now. Not bad, not bad.”

“What about us?” Edward asked, pointing to him and his sister.

“You tag along because you’re my boy-toy of convenience,” Jean answered without skipping a bit. “And Emma is here because she likes me.”

“I’m not a boy-toy!” Edward protested, but Jean just laughed it off, then proceeded to try approach him. Edward quickly ran between Ariadne and Helena, and Jean sighed in frustration. A second later he was back in Henry’s arm.

“I think we’re getting distracted,” Ariadne pointed out, standing in front of Edward in an oddly protective stance. She was much shorter than him, but it made little practical difference. “We were supposed to be talking about Oli’s coming out.” She turned to my boyfriend. “I’m glad you decided to tell us, Oli. Are you going to tell anyone else?”

“Not for the moment,” Oli answered. “This last week has been very stressful for me, and every time I think of telling someone I feel really nervous and scared. I think I’ll need some time to recover from today before I’ll have the energy to tell more people.”

“I don’t know how much it helps, but I think if you tell my mum she’ll do what she can to make sure you can transition at school.”

“Thanks. I guess it helps, but I’m still not ready.”

“No problem.”

“You seem to know a lot about this stuff already,” I noted, nodding to Ariadne. By speaking of transitioning at school, she implied that she already knew stuff that I had to research for hours to understand. The way the others looked at her suggested they shared my feelings.

“Well, when Charlie asked to come to our school it was not just mum that he educated,” Ariadne answered, grinning with the kind of self-assurance I had come to expect from her girlfriend or Jean. After Hannah’s smile, this was another unnerving sight.

“Ah, I see…” Oli said, looking at Ariadne like he was really seeing her for the first time.

“Have you spoken to him, by the way? About all this stuff?” Ariadne asked Oli. “I bet she can tell you about transitioning at school and coming out to family and all that.”

“Yeah… I got some help already…” Oli’s uncertain tone suggested to me he was trying to hide something from her. Only much later I realised he was probably trying to avoid mentioning Luce and outing her in public. “But I’ll speak to him again; I guess it can’t hurt…”

“Go for it!” Ariadne smiled again, this time the cheerful kind of smile that I associated with girls like her.

“I’m not convinced yet,” Jean suddenly announced, approaching Oli and looking pointedly towards his chest. “It’s all fine to call you Oli and switch pronouns if that’s what you wish, but you still don’t look like a guy to me.”

“Then someone has to learn that there’s more to being a guy than just having a penis,” a voice suddenly announced from behind Jean. We turned, surprised to find Charlie and Luce coming towards us. Jean immediately jumped on Charlie, trying to grab his lower region, but Charlie dodged him right on time. He fell on Luce instead and immediately retreated, screaming something about being tainted by a girl’s touch. There was some cruel irony in all of this.

“You’ll have to convince me,” Jean challenged Charlie.

“This is something you have to learn on your own,” the gender-fluid person answered. He and Luce approached Oli. “If you want to talk, Luce and I will be at the fifth-floor toilet during lunch.” He winked, and Oli blushed. “I advise you to ignore Jean for the time being and concentrate on the acceptance from your other friends.”

“Ok…” Their timely intervention done, the duo returned to their walk around the rugby field.

“Oscar, come have sex with me! I can show you what real boys are like!” Jean jumped on me as soon as he saw Charlie and Luce retreating. Fortunately, they were still within earshot, so they immediately came back. Oli’s face and neck burned and his eyes filled with water. I did not think about what I did next, my actions and words just came to me instinctively.

“No.” I pushed Jean to the side, so hard he fell on the ground. “Oli is a real boy. I don’t want anything to do with you if you try to have sex with me just to make a point about invalidating my boyfriend’s identity.”

“He’s right!” Luce came to my defence, standing in front of the still-fallen Jean with her hands on her hips and a face typical of a scary matriarch. “Oli doesn’t need your cissexist bullshit. Actually, no, scrap that, none of us do!” She grabbed Jean by his tie and forced him to stand up again. Luce was another person who was apparently a lot stronger than she looked.

“What was that word you said?” Edward asked.

“Which? Cissexist? It’s the word we use when something happens that excludes the realities of trans people. It’s like heterosexist, but with trans people.” Luce noticed that Edward still looked confused, so she detailed her explanation. “Heterosexism is when something or someone forgets that gay and bi people exist too. So, like, when the school says they’re calling the father and the mother of students instead of ‘parents’ they forget that some students might have two fathers or two mothers. In this case, cissexism would be the school calling all ‘expectant mothers’ for some activity, not realising that some trans men are very happy to get pregnant too. There is such a thing as ‘expectant father’, but the school did not realise it.”

“’Cissexism’ comes from cisgender, which is the opposite of transgender,” Charlie added. “It’s a person who never felt their gender identity differs from the one they were assigned at birth, that is, most of you here.”

“You mean normal people, then?” Jean asked, still secured in Luce’s grip.

“The word ‘cisgender’ was created precisely to avoid using this kind of language. There is no such thing as ‘normal’, and it’s about time the majority realises we need labels to refer to them too.”

“You’re making me confused,” Edward confessed. He did seem lost in the conversation.

“There isn’t much to be confused about,” Charlie answered. “’Cisgender’ is just a word created to give a name to something that didn’t have one before. With this we can now talk about trans people and cis people in a way that doesn’t make it seem like one is right and the other is wrong. It seems odd for you now because as a heterosexual cis guy you’re not used to people labelling your identity the same way you label ours. I assure you that you can get used to it very soon, and that no harm will come to you once you do so.”

“Ok, then…” Edward still seemed confused, but he probably gave up trying to understand things. Most of the others seemed pretty happy with the explanation, though, including Emma.

“Argh, whatever.” Jean also gave up. Luce let him go, but only because the bell rang and we were forced to make our way to the main building. As we walked, I noticed that Jean and Luce lagged behind the rest of us for a bit. Straining my ears, I caught a bit of their conversation.

“I think I get what you mean,” Jean admitted, walking very close to Luce. “I smell a cock coming from you, but you’re such a girl I will have nightmares if I try to imagine you fucking my ass.”

“Well, if that’s the only way you’ll understand it…” Luce sighed, though she sounded like she was not completely annoyed by the comment. “As you can ‘smell’, it’s not my cock that defines who I am.”

“Go away, girl, you’re getting your pretty perfume all over my clothes.”

“I sense intense misogyny coming from you, but I’ll have to deal with it at some other time. For now I’m glad that you at least understood what we were trying to tell you.” Luce definitely sounded happier. I felt relieved too.

“Ok, whatever.” Jean’s footsteps became louder and quicker, and soon he had caught up with Oli and I. “Ok, Oli, Luce convinced me that I can flirt with you. If you keep your boobs away and find a decent fake cock, I’ll take you to the sex toilet and make a man out of you.” He winked to Oli, sent me a flying kiss, and ran to Henry. Unsure of what to think of Jean’s change of mind, we ended up laughing all the way to class.

(...)

As Luce and Charlie had promised, they were at the fifth-floor toilet during lunch. Oli had decided to accept their offer to ask questions about coming out, and so we made our way there. They greeted us warmly and we sat under the broken sinks to chat. The floor was not very clean, but the others (even girly Luce) did not seem to mind, so I said nothing and silently prayed that mum would not ask how I got such a huge stain on my school trousers.

“You know, I was thinking…” Luce said as soon as we sat down to talk. “How about you change your name to Oliver? It’s just a couple letters different from your old name, so it won’t be too difficult for people to get used to it, and you get to keep the nickname Oli, which I find really cute.”

Oli and I exchanged glances. From my cisgender perspective (I figured I could use the term too, since it had been created precisely for this kind of discussion), it seemed like a sensible option, but of course the person who had to like and accept this was Oli.

“I guess… I guess it’s not a bad idea. Oliver. Oliver Viñas.” He started to practice saying the new name, using various tones and pitches of voice. The rest of us had to make an effort not to laugh out loud, though I had a feeling Oli would not mind if we did. “Hi, my name is Oliver Viñas. Oliver, from the olives, that well-known Spanish food. Not that I hadn’t been named after them in the first place. But still. Oliver. Oliver. Yeah, it sounds cool. Thanks, Luce.”

“Hehe, you’re welcome, Oliver,” Luce replied enthusiastically. Oli made a weird face at being called his new name, but soon smiled too.

“Should we all call you that now?” I asked. He shook his head.

“Not yet. I need to come out to my parents first, and maybe to the school…”

“The Headmistress knows about me,” Luce said. “It’s one of the reasons I came to this school, because she could help me stay here as a female. I think she’ll find a way to help you too if you ask.”

“I’m still a bit overwhelmed by everything, but I guess I will sooner or later…” Oli agreed. I tried to call him Oliver in my head, but it would take a while to adapt to the new name, strangely more than it took to adapt to new pronouns and nickname.

“How about you two come to my house tomorrow after school?” Charlie suggested. “It’s the day my parents don’t go to their office, so if you want you can talk to them about coming out to your family.”

“And since Charlie and I are neighbours, you can talk to my parents too, if you like,” Luce added. “Or even better, we can get our parents to talk to your parents once you tell them!”

After a few more enthusiastic encouragements from Luce, Oli agreed to visit them the next day. He made me promise I would go along, though I had wanted to do so before he asked. I felt kind of honoured to be accompanying my boyfriend through all of this. I was the only cisgender person in the group Oli had chosen to help him. Luce, Charlie, and Oli shared a reality and a way of life that I would never be able to fully understand, because it was something I would never experience myself. It was probably like how Luce would never understand racism because she was white British, while Charlie and I had darker skin and Oli was part Spanish. But in the same way that it did not prevent Luce from fighting racism (as long as she was doing it the way we told her to), being cisgender did not prevent me from helping Oli and doing something for him. I would have to make sure I only did things he asked me to, and that I learned as much as I could with him, but I could do it.

I was just beginning to understand that I would literally do anything to make Oli happy. And I did not yet know that it was true for him too.