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In April, she realises she’s trans.
She’d been happy as Tommy, perhaps not as happy as she could have been, but happy. She’s scrolling mindlessly through Youtube, and letting whatever her thumb landed on play. The video that comes on is by a trans Youtuber, and she was transfixed. Once the video ends, she sits, unmoving, until her phone switches off and she catches sight of her gaping face in the black screen. Before then, she’d never been bothered by her square jaw, her masculine face. But staring at her own reflection, she feels a disgust she’s never felt before rise from deep in her stomach, until she feels the hot prick of tears at the corner of her eyes. Why, she thinks, does she have to be so masculine. Why can’t she have a soft face, with long hair falling around it in golden waves. Why can’t she have pretty lips and pretty eyes, and a curvy body, and -
Ah. Contrary to popular opinion, she’s not stupid, and she knows what those feelings are pointing towards. Wikihow gives her twelve steps to see if she’s trans. Wikihow says she is. Just to be sure, she checks the NHS website, and - yep, okay.
In May, she tells Tubbo.
Just Tubbo. If it all goes wrong with her dad and her brothers, she’ll need Tubbo.
She’s pretty sure that Tubbo won’t be upset, pretty sure he’ll accept her. He’s never even hinted at having a problem with this kind of thing in the past, but she can’t help herself from panicking. Yes, it’s one thing being alright with trans people in theory, as a distant concept, but she knows first-hand it’s a whole other thing when it becomes personal. She should know. She always supported trans rights, why wouldn’t she, always thought that lesbians were a lovely bunch, until it all came crashing down around her.
After school, they always walk as far as Tubbo’s house together, and then she turns around and runs as fast as she can to get home. She’s not scared, but she likes to get the energy out. On this particular day in June, she asks Tubbo if he wants to stop by the park on their way back. They walk past it almost every day, but if they don’t want to be late to school or late home, they can’t stop.
“C’mon, Big T. If there’s a van, I’ll get you an ice cream.”
Tubbo can’t turn down free food, and soon they’re sitting on a bench, 99s in hand.
She breathes in. “Tubbo. I have to tell you something. I’m just gonna make it quick, and you can say whatever afterwards, okay. Just remember, I’m still the same, okay? I’m still- I’m still Tommy.”
Tubbo looks towards her, eyes wide. “Tommy, have you killed someone?”
“I’m trans. Girl trans, that is.”
Tubbo is still staring at her.
“Tubbo? Tubs, your ice cream is melting.” It’s dripping down his hands, but he doesn’t move. “Tubbo?” She feels tears form in her eyes. “Tubbo, please say something.”
“Don’t cry!” he shouts. She jerks back. He leans forward to comfort her, and their heads smack together. “Well, I guess you didn’t get any more dainty.”
“I’m plenty dainty, bitch!”
“Sure,” says the boy licking melted ice cream off his arm.
In June, she tells her family.
They’re sitting around the dinner table, like they always do on a Friday. Phil brings home a takeaway on his way home from work and they sit and eat it like civilised people. They do not scream and grab at each other’s food over the table, because that is how animals behave, and they are not animals. Well, that’s what Phil tells them anyway.
They’re cramped around the table, which isn’t really big enough for all of them, and Techno catches her in the side.
“Ow, bitch. You just elbowed me in the boob!”
Wilbur immediately begins laughing. “Tommy, you don’t have boobs. Are you feeling okay?” He reaches out a hand to mockingly take her temperature, but she flinches away. The reminder that she doesn’t have the body she longs for wasn’t intentional, but it still hurts. She steels herself, and bats Wilbur’s hand away, rejoining the banter.
She doesn’t realise her upset has been noticed by her dad, so she isn’t prepared when he takes her aside once they’re clearing up, Techno and Wilbur having already dashed into the living room. “Toms?,” he begins. “You alright, mate? You didn’t seem too peachy at dinner. Was it-” He cuts himself off, and she gulps. Does he know? Is he mad? “If I’m way off, then I’m sorry, and you can laugh at me later, but I want you to know if I’m not wrong, then I love you, and you can tell me whatever you want to. Was it what Wilbur said? About- about the boobs?”
She wants to cry. He does know. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Even though he’s just said he still loves her, she’s too scared to say it. She can only nod, and she collapses into his arms when he opens them.
“I just wanna check. Is this you saying you’re, um. Trans? A girl, that is?”
She nods against his chest, and he tightens his arms around her even more. “My baby girl, it’s okay. I love you, mate, you know that?”
She’s crying now, properly. Ugh, she never used to cry this much. Must be the being a girl that’s doing it to her.
Phil whispers into her hair, “d’you want me to tell Wil and Techno? It must be hard, baby girl, I don’t mind if you want me to do it.”
She nods again, and after one last tight squeeze, he disappears into the living room. She hears quiet mumbles, interspersed with awkward silences. What are they saying?
Wil and Techno come shuffling into the kitchen, and before she knows what’s going on, she’s sandwiched between her brothers.
“I’m sorry for elbowing you in the boob.”
In July, she gets a name.
“Mate? Any thoughts on the name situation?”
It’s been a rough month, speech wise. She can’t stomach going by Tommy anymore, but thankfully school is done for the summer, so she doesn’t have to hear it. But it’s been a month of ‘mate’s, ‘champ’s and ‘baby girl’s (and on one occasion a particularly awkward ‘tiger’ from Techno).
She twists her hands together. She’s had a lot of thoughts on the name situation. She’s spent hours trawling through baby naming sites, but anything she tries for herself sounds forced and stilted. She checked a bunch of different trans resources websites, and some of them recommended what she’s about to try.
“I thought, maybe. I thought I could ask.” She trails off.
“Gonna hafta speak up, baby girl. I’m getting old, my hearing’s not what it used to be.”
Phil hates it when they tease him for being old, she knows he’s saying it to cheer her up.
“I thought maybe I could ask you to pick one. ‘Cus, like. You didn’t get to choose my old name, but maybe you can choose this one and it would be like. Like I was your real daughter. Or something.”
She’s instantly wrapped up in a soft hug. “You are my real daughter. But I would love to pick a name for you.”
A week later, the newly christened Clementine is ready to hit the streets.
In August, she gets new clothes.
Now that she has a name, it all feels more real. She knows who she is now. She’s not that strange girl, in between Tommy and not-Tommy. She’s Clementine now, and she’s so pog. She spends almost every day of the summer holidays with Tubbo, but one Friday, Wilbur wakes her up early.
“Get up, gremlin. We’re going out.”
“Mbleh?” she says, eloquently.
“Mbleh, exactly. Come on, chop chop.”
Dressed and ready, she goes downstairs to find Wilbur and Techno waiting for her in the hallway. They refuse to tell her where they’re going until they’re on the bus, almost at the last stop. She knows where this bus ends, but she doesn’t dare get her hopes up. After they get off, Wilbur reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, plastic rectangle. “We’ve got Phil’s credit card, and all day to use it. Let’s hit the racks, sibs. We’ve got shit to buy.”
Clementine giddily drags them into every shop she can find, Techno getting weighed down with more and more bags. She isn’t even pretending to hide the fact that the clothes she’s buying are for her, too excited to feel the kind of fear and shame she normally does when she thinks about going into a women’s clothing shop and buying women’s clothes. Part of her fearlessness comes from the fact that she’s so excited, and Wilbur is hyping her up even more. The other part is coming from the fact that Techno is built like a brick shithouse.
Once they get home, Wilbur and Techno get to see everything again as she shows them all off to Phil, beaming the whole time. She tries to neatly fold away all her lovely new things, but they end up getting stuffed in drawers the same way her old clothes did. By the end of the evening, her wardrobe is full of new clothes, and she’s got six big bin bags to take to Oxfam.
In September, she gets a new school uniform.
Over the summer, Phil spent many frantic hours on the phone with her school, asking and pleading, shouting and raging, until they finally agreed to let her come back to school as Clementine.
Her new uniform is a lot like her old one, but her skirt is pleated and hits just above the knee It’s not supposed to, but all the other girls roll theirs up, so she will too. Every bit of wind that chills her knees is a joy, and her shiny black Mary Janes reflect her smiling face all day. On the first day she feels self-conscious, looking at the girls in her tutor group who have their hair up in ponytails, or tied back with plaits, but Tubbo points out that some of the other girls have pixie cuts, or short bobs.
At lunch, she sits with Tubbo and his new friend Ranboo in the canteen. She listens to them chat as she stuffs her sandwich in her mouth. She’s almost delirious with happiness when Tubbo mentions something he saw over the summer, and Raboo replies “I don’t know! I don’t have any siblings. Ask Clementine, she’s a girl.”
Ranboo’s the first person who’s only known her as Clementine, and she loves him a bit for it, even if the rest of him’s a little bitch boy.
In October, she paints her nails for the first time.
The nail polish was on sale at the tills in Boots, and it’s kind of a crappy colour, but it’s sparkly. She puts it with the painkillers she’s buying for Techno, and the woman at the till asks “do you have a topcoat for that?”
Clementine blinks. “A what? No. This is. Um. This is the first time I’ve ever painted my nails.” The woman’s face softens a little, and she smiles. “C’mon, pet, I’ll show you what to get.”
Five minutes later, Clementine is properly equipped with the basics of nail painting. She had no idea it was so complicated, but now she has coats, both base and top, a nail file, and a non-sparkly, non-crappily coloured nail polish as well.
She gets home and spends what seems like an unreasonable amount of time on her nails, and they come out hideously messy. Her right hand looks more like a smurf died on it than anything else, but she feels good.
In November, she’s mastered nails (more or less), and she’s ready to move on to actual make up.
Wilbur ropes in the only woman he knows who wears makeup, and Clementine finds herself at the makeup counter in John Lewis, staring at something called setting spray.
“Why would I want to spray something on my face?”
Niki giggles. “So your makeup doesn’t all slide off.”
Clementine is horrified. “It slides off?”
Armed with more palettes than she probably needs (she knows she has more than she needs), a foundation that more or less matches her skin, and a multitude of brushes, she sets to work. Niki, and the woman in the shop, had given her a crash course, and she’s watched about a gazillion tutorials online, so she thinks her first attempt could have turned out worse. Crease just about cut, lips shakily lined, she gives herself the seal of approval. She needs to practice more, though, and she’s just lamenting the lack of victims when she hears what is unmistakably Techno coming in the front door.
Oh, hello.
By the time Wilbur and Phil get home, Techno has been made up, with a foundation that absolutely does not match his skin tone, and eyeshadow that looks like it's making a break for his hairline.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing, Wilby. You’re next.”
In December, her economics class does a group project.
It’s the same stupid thing every school does. You get a group, you have to make a product and pitch it.
Her teacher puts her in a group with three boys.
“I think we should be called the Business Boys!”
“We can’t be the Business Boys, Clementine’s a girl,” says Deo.
It’s so stupid and small, but she can’t stop thinking about it.
They end up being called Business Bay instead. They win.
In January, one of the girls in her tutor group invites her to her birthday party.
“I’m having a birthday sleepover. Just us girls!” She hands Clementine an invitation.
It’s on Saturday, and Clementine turns up to the girl’s house ten minutes late, as usual, in her favourite outfit. She’s never really gotten to know the girls in her tutor group that well, just sticking to Tubbo, but they’re nice to her. She was scared it would be a big joke, that they would invite her and then laugh at her when she actually showed up.
But they paint their nails together, and one of them says she’s impressed by how good Clementine is if she only started recently. She blushes, hard, and she’s mortified, but no one mentions it. When Wilbur picks her up in the morning, she can’t shut up about how much fun it was. He pretends to be annoyed, but she can tell he’s happy for her.
In February, Phil takes her to the doctor to talk about the prospect of transitioning.
Her GP has known her since Phil adopted her, years ago, and he’s a decent bloke. He explains that the process for transitioning in the UK, if you’re under sixteen, is tricky.
Once he explains it, she decides it’s worth it though, and he refers her to a specialist.
What’s easier is legally changing her name, and Phil promises to pick up the paperwork from the local council on his way home from work on Monday.
By the end of the month, she’s on puberty blockers, and she’s legally Clementine Craft.
In March, Wilbur introduces her to his friend Fundy.
“I know it’s not the same, but I thought he might be able to answer some questions. If you have any.”
Clementine looks at him blankly. “Why?”
“Well, I just thought you might have some questions that you don’t want to Google, or you can’t find answers for, and Fundy might be able to help you.”
“But why Fundy?”
Wilbur pauses. He stares at her like she’s missed the point entirely, which, judging from this conversation, she might have. “Fundy’s trans too, idiot.”
Her face lights up. “What, really? Oh my fuckin’ god, I never knew that. That’s so cool! Can I meet him? Can I talk to him now?”
Wilbur just laughs at her, but it’s the kind of laugh he does when she does something cool and adorable (which is always, because she’s poggers).
Fundy is a kind of nervous looking guy, but he answers all of her questions, even the really stupid ones. She’s thrilled to talk to someone older than her, who’s been through all of this before. He seems happy just to talk to someone who isn’t calling him a furry.
In April, her hair has finally grown long enough that she can do something with it.
It’s grown to about chin length, but it’s wavy, so it falls a bit higher. One of the girls in her English class says she should use a roller brush when she dries it, so it gets straighter and looks longer. She tries it, and it looks good. Better than she thought. She remembers a year ago, when she was just working this out about herself. She had been so desperate for long hair, and now she has it. Well, it’s not long yet, but it’s longer, and definitely looks girly.
Techno buys her a packet of hair bobbles from the supermarket, and throws them at her face, which she knows is his way of saying that he’s happy for her. Wilbur is always sending her posts for hairstyle inspiration. Phil asks her if she wants to get her hair done, so it has a more feminine style. She readily agrees, so he takes her to some place she’s never been before.
“How did you even find this place? I didn’t take you for a hairdresser expert.”
Phil chuckles, his face turning pink. “Ah, I’m not. I asked one of the women at work for a recommendation. Kristen, I think I’ve mentioned her before.”
Clementine laughs at him until she chokes on her coughs. “Oooh! And did you tell her, ‘oh, Kristen, I need recommendations for my adorable and not-at-all troublesome daughter! Being a single father such as I, I know not of such things, being without a woman in my life. Oh, Kristen, oh Kristen’? Is that what you said?”
“That is absolutely not what I said.”
The day after she gets her new haircut, she’s walking home with Tubbo and Ranboo.
“C’mon, let’s go to the park. If there’s a van, I’ll get you an ice cream. Not Ranboo. He’s on his own.”