Were some trans women lesbians, if that was the right word for it? The parental control software wouldn’t let me find out and I couldn’t ask anyone.

Things got better for Meredith soon after that: her dad finally accepted that she was really a girl, and let her start wearing skirts and dresses and un-grounded her. She started dating a boy at her school not long after that, though I didn’t learn about it until later — she didn’t mention it at church until she’d been on a few dates with him and they were steady girlfriend and boyfriend. And I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to chat with her for the next few weeks anyway; we didn’t go out to eat with the Ramseys for a while and there were a couple of Sundays when we or the Ramseys had to leave immediately after the service for some reason.

Meanwhile, I was brooding over that “trans” label Meredith had used for us. The only computer I was allowed to use, a desktop machine in the living room, was full of parental control software. I wasn’t sure if “transgender” was on the keyword list blocked by the parental control software, either built-in or things Mom or Dad had added, but if it was, they’d find out that I had searched for information about that and I’d get an interrogation about it within hours. Instead, after some thought, I searched indirectly using phrases made of common words that couldn’t be blocked, like “guys who turn into girls,” “why do some boys want to be girls” and things like that, and then mostly only read the capsule page summaries or the Google cache, only clicking on a search result if I was confident the site it was on wouldn’t be blocked.

What I learned was mostly either basic and oversimplified, or heavily biased against trans people. And without being able to talk privately with Meredith, or other trans people, I was left wondering if Meredith was wrong about me — about us — about thinking I was the same sort of person she was. I couldn’t find anything about people who wanted to be inhuman creatures of the opposite sex. If I was transgender, I was probably a weird fringe kind of transgender. An outsider even in a group of outsiders.

And when I learned that Meredith was dating a guy, I had further second thoughts; I couldn’t see myself doing that. I had been attracted to girls long before I realized I wanted to be one, and I still was. I was crushing on a girl in my homeroom, Elena, who probably didn’t even know I existed, and I was starting to develop a crush on Meredith, too. And a few weeks later, at the grocery store, I saw Jada, the girl who’d squeed over me when I was a cute little dragon, shopping with a girl who might be her little sister and a woman who might be her older sister — or maybe her mom, rejuvenated with the Venn machine. I recognized Jada at once, although she had gotten venned into a body with little pink snakes for hair that waved around sniffing with their forked tongues. Mom frowned at her in disapproval, and I had a hard time hiding my sudden erection from Mom and Jada both; I turned quickly aside so Jada wouldn’t recognize me, and told Mom I needed to go to the restroom.

Were some trans women lesbians, if that was the right word for it? The parental control software wouldn’t let me find out and I couldn’t ask anyone. Not then.

Tim, my only friend at school, seemed to notice I was distracted and more anxious than usual. But he didn’t have any better social skills than I did, and seemed helpless to know how to react. He responded by contributing more than his share of our lunchtime conversations, telling me endless plot summaries of the games he’d played and the anime he’d watched when he ran out of other things to say.

It was over a month after my talk with Meredith before we had another chance to talk privately, and then it was only for a minute or so. But she had a wonderful gift for me, which she slipped into my hand and said, “Use it when your parents aren’t looking.”

It was a USB flash drive which, when I had a chance to look at its contents without Mom or Dad around almost a week later, turned out to contain something called Tor Browser and a README file which was a note from Meredith. It was a tool for browsing the Internet privately and getting around local network censorship, such as Mom and Dad’s parental control software. And she’d suggested that I use it to set up a new, more private web email account as well as search for information about being transgender without parental control censorship. We could talk privately by email even if our conversations at church were closely chaperoned.

I had a near escape when Mom came home earlier than I expected, closing the Tor Browser window just in time and switching over to the word processor where I was working on a term paper, then ejecting and pocketing the flash drive. After that I got more cautious about it, using my limited freedom sparingly and allowing a large margin of error for when I needed to shut it down and hide the flash drive.

And so I learned that yes, some trans women were lesbians — a lot, in fact, probably more than half. And some wanted to be something other than ordinary human women, though they’d long since learned not to say that to the therapists whose approval they used to need for hormone therapy and surgery. That wasn’t an issue anymore with more and more Venn machines popping up all over, though school and employer approval were still a constraint for a lot of people. Trans catgirls and other “furries” seemed to be a lot more common than “scalies” like me, and regular human trans people more common still, but I wasn’t alone.

The more I read, both on the websites I found and in Meredith’s long, patient emails answering my nervous, naive questions, the more cut off I felt from my family. I was wrestling with new ideas, that for instance I’d always been a girl even if I hadn’t realized it until quite recently, and that led to other related ideas and systems of ideas. I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about that except Meredith, and the only way I could talk privately with her was via email.

And before long, email was my only connection with Meredith.

* * *

It was not long before final exams and Christmas break when we went out to eat with the Ramseys after church again. I knew something was wrong when Dad said to me and Nathan on the way to the restaurant, “Boys, I want you two to sit at the end of the table next to your mother and me. Not with the Ramsey kids.”

We got to the steakhouse a few minutes before the Ramseys and arranged ourselves with me and Nathan at one end of the table and Mom and Dad next to us, so when the Ramseys arrived, after looking at the setup in puzzlement for a moment, they sat down with the parents next to Mom and Dad and their kids on the other side. I looked down the table at Meredith and Sophia, wanting to talk to them and not daring to say anything.

“This isn’t how we usually sit,” Mr. Ramsey said. “Why not let the kids sit next to each other, like usual?”

“I want them to listen to us,” Dad said, “not get engrossed in conversation with each other this time. Justin, back in September we expressed our concern about how you were dealing with [deadname]'s... acting out. You explained your reasons for not forcing him to change back —”

(I’m going to use [deadname] to represent Meredith’s deadname, and when I can’t avoid it any more, I’ll use it to represent my own deadname. I gave Meredith permission to use a fake deadname for me when she wrote her memoir, since I didn’t come out to anyone but her and had barely started to figure out what name I wanted to use during the time she was writing about, but it doesn’t feel right to use fake deadnames here.)

“Her,” Mrs. Ramsey interrupted quietly. Dad went on as if he hadn’t heard:

“— and we figured we’d give you a chance to see if it worked. But it’s clearly getting worse, not better. You’ve let him talk you into letting him wear dresses and makeup and jewelry, and now I hear he’s even gone on a date with a boy.”

“Four dates,” Meredith said defiantly.

“Meredith,” her mom said, “I’ll let you have the floor. You deserve a chance to respond to that. But let your father and me answer when you’re done. He’s attacking our parenting here, too.”

Meredith, encouraged, continued while I listened in awe and terror. “Hunter is a great boyfriend. He’s fun to talk with, and affectionate but respectful — he’s never pushed me to do anything I’m not comfortable with or anything Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve of. Mom and Dad have met his mom, and talked with his dad on Skype — he’s stationed in Afghanistan — and I’m sure if you had a daughter, you’d be fine with her dating him.” At that, Mom and Dad winced, and so did Meredith’s parents a moment later, and so did I, for different reasons. And I realized that Meredith probably didn’t know about my sister Courtney, who’d died as a toddler before I was born — we never talked about her with people outside the family, so only people who’d known Mom and Dad for decades like Meredith’s parents knew about her.

Meredith went on, seemingly oblivious: “So why shouldn’t I date him? You don’t think I’m really a girl, but Mom and Dad and my therapist all know me way better than you, and they all eventually figured it out. Not to mention all the people it was obvious to as soon as I pointed it out, like Sophia.” She nodded at her mom and dad, and her dad said:

“I didn’t get it at first, but Meredith has shown me I was wrong. I’m so glad we gave her the chance to show us who she is, instead of forcing her back into a boy shell. She’s so much happier since her change, not to mention doing much better in school. Erin and I wholeheartedly approve of her choice of a boyfriend. Please, Peter. Let this drop, for the sake of our friendship.”

Just then a waitress approached the table with a stack of menus, but she backed away slowly when Dad spoke up, raising his voice:

“I can’t be silent and watch you make a terrible mistake like this. You’re endangering your son’s immortal soul by indulging him like this, and other children, too, by setting such a bad example.”

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Ramsey said, louder than before but not as loud as Dad had just been. “God has shown me how miserable my daughter was before, and how blind Erin and I were to it, but even I can see she’s far happier now. I understand where you’re coming from — I was there a few months ago — but you need to let this rest. If you want to bring it up with me and Erin later, privately, and talk about what the Scriptures mean by ‘God created them male and female’, we can do that — but please don’t do this in front of the kids or in a public place. You’re embarrassing all of us.”

When he said that, I noticed that some of the diners at the nearby tables were staring at us, too. I wanted to sink into the floor and disappear, but I knew rationally that if people were staring, it was mostly at Dad and Mr. Ramsey, and maybe at Meredith.

“Can we have a conversation about something else now?” Mrs. Ramsey asked. “And please, let’s move around so the kids can sit next to each other. This is absurd.”

“I don’t think so,” Dad said, and got up. “Let’s go, Kathy, boys.” Mom, Nathan and I all jumped up and followed him; when Dad, Mom, and Nathan all had their backs to me, I risked an apologetic glance back at Meredith.

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