Chapter Text
“Hey honey, how was school today?” Steve asked.
“It was fine, Dad” Rachel replied in a bland tone before slinking off to her room.
Steve had noticed a change in her recently. She seemed to be doing fine in school and had a few good friends, but she had been increasingly withdrawn the last few months. At first he wrote it off as some kind of teenage moodiness, but it wasn’t getting any better. Sam had suggested that she might be suffering from depression, and while Steve didn’t want to believe that it might be true, he also wanted his daughter to get whatever help she needed.
Steve knocked gently on his daughter’s bedroom door. A few second later he heard a quiet, “come in.”
When he entered the room, he saw Rachel hunched over on her bed, wearing a baggy sweatshirt that he recognized as Sam’s over her jeans and t-shirt. She had cut her hair over the summer, and she looked boyish with the short cut. She pulled her legs up on the bed, huggin her knees.
“Rachel, you know you can talk to me and Papa about anything, right? You will always be our daughter, and there is nothing you could do that would make us stop loving you.”
Rachel nodded, and after a moment she said, so quietly that Steve almost missed it, “What if I don’t want to be your daughter? What if I want to be your son?”
Steve had no idea what to say to that, but he leaned forward and embraced his daughter son, tears leaking from his eyes.
When he was able to formulate words again, he pulled back enough to look his child in the eyes and said, “I will always, always, love you, no matter what. If you want to be my son, then you will be my son.”
They embraced again, and Steve felt a damp patch forming on his shoulder. Apparently he wasn’t the only one crying.
Steve didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but eventually they separated, and he asked, “So, do you think you can explain this to your old man?”
His son took a steadying breath and said, “Have you heard the term ‘transgender’?”
“I’ve heard of it. It means someone whose gender in their head doesn’t match their body.”
“Yeah, that’s about it. It can encompass a lot of different identities, but that’s the gist of it. I just haven’t really felt right about my body in a while. I thought it might just be general teenage body-related angst, but I’m pretty sure now that it’s not. I hate my periods, and while all my friends were wishing they had bigger boobs, I just wanted mine gone. I could probably deal with that if it weren’t for the implications in the way people perceive me and the assumptions they make. I have boobs, so I must be a girl and like pink and wear makeup and skirts. And that’s not me.”
He paused before continuing, “In one of my classes someone mentioned something about trans identities and it just clicked. I did a lot of research at the library, and I started trying out thinking about myself differently, using he/him pronouns and the name ‘Ryan’. And it felt right in a way I haven’t really in a long time.”
“Okay, Ryan, what can Papa and I do to help?”
Ryan practically attacked Steve, clinging to his dad and sobbing. “Can I get some new clothes?” he choked out.
“Of course. We can go shopping this weekend. And maybe we can get you a haircut too. It’s getting a little shaggy.”
Ryan just nodded, still clinging to Steve.
The moment was interrupted by a soft knock on the door followed by it creaking open to reveal Sam.
“Hey Rae, you alright?”
Ryan met Steve’s eyes looking unsure how to proceed, but before Steve could say anything, he took a deep breath and said, “C-could you… Could you call me Ryan?”
“Okay, Ryan, care to explain?” Sam said, clearly a little confused.
“I’m trans.”
“Oh. Alright. I guess we should start looking into doctors and what the price of hormones and surgery are. We should probably start saving now…” he trailed off as Ryan and Steve stared at him.
“One step at a time I think,” Steve said. “Let’s order some pizza for dinner.”