#dctransweek2024

DAY 1

"This isn't what it looks like."

bodyswap

magical mishaps

genderfluid

DAY 2

omegaverse

growing up

gender exploration

families of choice

DAY 3

science fiction/fantasy au

correct gender in the suit, not in civilian id

binder overuse

nonbinary

DAY 4

"You look beautiful."

costume modifications

top surgery

identity porn / identity reveal

DAY 5

supernatural creatures au

gender dysphoria

secretly trans

older trans character

DAY 6

royalty au

formal occasion

hormones

accidental child acquisition

DAY 7

transitioning in a long term relationship

date night

reflection

"This isn't what it looks like.” Tim tries to stay calm, but it’s not working. This was such a stupid idea, he shouldn’t have done this in the first place, he knew better.

There are footsteps coming up the hall and Tim panics at the thought of more people coming to see him. He doesn’t have time to change though, just a moment to flail around before there are more people in the doorway, all still and silent. 

He can feel their stares. The physical weight of their judgment. He is hyperventilating now.

“Tim, It’s fine, you’re not doing anything wrong.” Tim hears vaguely.

“What is he doing?” He hears someone else ask. Everything is coming from underwater now, voices drowned out by the waves crashing in his ears. 

They break through their shock at his panic and start to try and comfort him. “Tim, breathe.” “Can you tell us what you’re thinking? Maybe we can help.” 

“What do you do when there is no choice for you?” He asks everyone and no one. No one answers “I try so hard to be what I’m supposed to be. But there’s no one answer, never a right answer, because even though one option seems better some days the other option feels better the next?” 

He knows he isn’t being rational, he isn’t explaining himself well. He isn’t normally like this and he should calm down before he ruins everything. But panic isn’t rational, and he’s never truly calm because this anxiety-wrongness is always lurking in his brain. Always waiting to tell him That this, that, or the other thing is wrong wrong wrong. Wrong with him, because he isn’t a he, not truly. Not at the heart of him, the part that would be shared with anyone he let close enough, but never does. Never does because this mess at the center of him wasn’t meant to be seen. Wasn’t meant to be shared, because how could he expect others to understand and accept the things about him that he doesn’t understand either? 

He accepts them now, and that took work. Years of research and experimenting with clothes, pronouns, identities. Years to accept the fact that there is simply no answer inside of him. That for all he can fake it with the best of them, there is no option other than faking it. No way to live the way the heart beating inside of him is at constant war with his mind. The way his Body is somehow winning that fight in ways that make him sick some days and happy the next. But winning nonetheless through the sheer fact of its permanence. His body doesn’t change -can’t change- the way his heart and mind do. Like the beat of a metronome that’s impossibly unsteady, the swing of a pendulum that won’t ever still. Back and forth, one then the other. Brief moments in the middle where he thinks he should stay, but inevitably changing from that as well. Never one answer. Never this, that, never even both. 

“Everyone says that you have to choose, but my choice would be all and none at the same time. I don't know how to choose.”

He breaks down, fully crying. He can feel his family surround him, someone-probably Dick- is hugging him. They haven't left, and their not yelling at him. They allow him to process, and when he's done crying, they all sit down to have a discussion.

“This would be me going against everything I’ve been told since I was a child. I know what I was born into, what expectations people have of me. I’ve lived through society yelling and shoving me into a box. Telling me their constant opinions through tabloids and press. My parents telling me what I am, how to be, what I should be doing, how I should be dressing. They told me exactly how to appear to the world and they expected it. This is not something to be public with, it's private. I’ve long since learned, how you act in public and how you are in private are two separate things. It’s not a battle that needs to be fought, especially not one I need to force anyone else into.”

“Your parents shouldn’t have done that. But they’re not even here anymore, and you know that we don’t care! I mean, half of us are gay anyways. None of us would care how you identify. They would care that you’re keeping things from us, hiding such a big part of yourself for no reason!”

“Even those accepting of otherness sometimes don’t understand the answer ‘I don’t know’ or, even worse, ‘multiple of these things’. The world is binary, black and white. People don’t understand when they tell you to choose and not only do you not ‘choose’ but the answer is somehow ‘all of the above’. Even you, now, telling me it’s fine to ‘come out’. Come out as what? Unsure? Some secret third option, but not even I know what that is?”

“Sure, if that’s how you feel.” Kon is too calm about this, Tim feels. But he has run his anger and frustration dry and now just feels like crying. Or sleeping. Or crying himself to sleep. “Start with me. What pronouns do you want? Do you have a term or a label that you feel fits you, or do you prefer to go without labels?”

Tim huffs. Falls to the ground cross-legged. Kon comes over and sits down next to him. “Non-binary, I guess. Can’t really get more specific than that.” 

“Pronouns?” Kon encouraged after a moment of silence.

Tim just shrugs. “None of them, all of them. Honestly, they annoy me because the whole point of pronouns is to talk about someone while they’re not there. Just use my name.”