These Words are My Own [Day 27: Language]
Words are not and never will be Ryder’s strong suit. He finally gets that Unique is a girl, but it’s the details of language that trip him up, the complicated subdivisions and qualifications and idiosyncrasies of The Transgender Umbrella. When they finally had it out and made up, he decided it was time to learn more about the girl he’d been unknowingly crushing on for months. Unfortunately for him, he feels even more confused now than he did when she was catfishing him.
“Okay, I don’t mean to offend you-“
“Ryder, you are going to say a lot of offensive things during this conversation, I can tell you that right now, trust. It’s fine.” Her tone is sassy, but her smile is sympathetic. Ryder releases a breath to center himself.
“Alright. So you’re a girl. I’ve got that one.” Unique blushes. “What, did I fuck up already?”
“No, it’s just nice to hear.”
“You’re not used to people believing you, are you.”
“No.” Her expression falls. “I mean, you know all the arguments. I’m just a boy in a dress, I’m sick, I’m confused, I’m a gay guy, I’m a drag queen. It’s rare that someone just, gets it. I was born with a male body but I’m not a man. I’m a woman.”
“A proud black woman,” Ryder supplies with a smirk.
“Preach!” she chuckles.
“Okay, so if you’re a woman, why do you always dress like a boy?”
“My parents seem to think they’re protecting me by forcing me to be a boy, but all it does is make everyone more confused and make me more self-conscious about my body.”
“So if you had your way…”
“I’d be turned out something FIERCE every day of the week.” She snaps once and Ryder rolls his eyes mirthfully.
“When did you know?”
“Regionals last year, but I mean in some ways I always knew, ever since I knew the supposed difference between boys and girls-“
“What do you mean, ‘supposed difference’?”
“Oh sweetie, you know ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ aren’t the only genders out there, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh Lordie,” Unique mutters, closing her eyes for strength. “Okay. So you know the difference between sex and gender, right? Like, you can have female men or female women, or male men or male women?”
Ryder thinks a second, “yyyyes.”
“Good, so what about people like Kurt? I assume he’s male bodied, and he identifies as a man, but his presentation is very feminine. He sings in the same range I do, he has fashion sense, doesn’t enjoy sports, hell I heard that he used to try to sing with the girls instead of the guys during mash-up week. What do you make of that?”
“Well, he’s gay isn’t he?”
“Pretend he’s not. Now what?”
“Well… he’s a… but he… umm…”
“Exactly. That’s what I mean by more than two genders. Masculinity and femininity are much more diverse than you think. But in other respects ‘man’ and ‘woman’ ain’t enough. They’re based on a cisgender model;”
“A what?”
“Cisgender. The opposite of transgender.”
“Oh, so like me?”
“Mhmm. So female and woman are assumed to be the same thing, just like male and man, which is why masculinity and femininity are so narrow. That’s why I brought up Kurt, because whether or not he identifies as some type of trans, he’s still left out of the ‘normal’ model.”
“So… there’s more than one type of transgender?”
“Well, there’s transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, intersex, drag queens and kings, bigendered, agendered, two-spirits, transvestites, feminine men, masculine women; all of them and more can be called trans depending on who you ask.”
She can tell she lost Ryder.
“Relax, I don’t expect you to up and get all this at once. You’ll get there eventually. I’ll have you talking like a tranny in no time, I promise! Although, don't say ‘tranny’, from you it'd be pretty offensive.”
“Noted,” Ryder smiles with effort. “I just, I don’t wanna mess this up. I wanna understand where you’re coming from.”
Unique tries another tactic. “How do you feel about me?”
“I thought we already settled that.”
“Humour me.”
“I care about you, a lot. I really like you; I think I might… umm…”
“That’s good enough.”
“No!” He shoots upright in his seat. “I want to say it. Just, give me a minute.” Unique watches him with caution and amusement, refusing to breathe in case it causes her to miss what he says. “You’re a really awesome girl. You get me more than anyone. You know all the right things to say and fix everything wrong in my life, and you just, see things that no one else understands. And I wanna be that person for you too, because I- I love you.”
Tears track down Unique’s happy cheeks, but her voice remains clear as glass. “That’s all I need you to understand, baby. You love me. Everything else is just words.” She pulls him into a hug and they just sit there leaving tears on each others’ shoulders.
“You scared?” she whispers.
“Petrified.” He kisses her anyway.