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This wasn’t exactly Kukui’s favorite topic to teach but it was an important one nonetheless. Part of his students getting a more rounded education on everything pokemon, he told himself. And besides, it wasn’t a long lesson. Just show a few examples, hope the kids remembered them well enough to keep an eye out for any differences in the future.
Gender differences weren’t really any professor’s specialty. There wasn’t a lot to research, Kukui figured. Human males and females looked different. Why not pokemon? Of course, that could raise the question about how not all pokemon species had gender differences and how some pokemon didn’t have genders but Kukui didn’t care much about that. If someone wanted to know, they could ask Professor Elm. He probably looked into it at some point, studying pokemon breeding and all.
The students found the lesson interesting though, which he supposed was to be expected. They were sort of at that age where they were more aware of their own genders, with their changing bodies and growing sense of identity and all. Or so he assumed. He didn’t study humans, what did he know?
Most of them hadn’t been around a very wide variety of pokemon though. It made sense they’d be surprised to know that not all pokemon looked the same. He supposed that would be exciting.
Kukui started off with the easy ones. There were no Alolan pokemon with gender differences so he pulled up some images of some from Kalos. Pyroar and Meowstic had quite obvious gender differences. That caught the students attention pretty quick, letting him move on to the more specific ones, all the way from Combee to Pikachu to Croagunk. That was a bit amusing, the whole class whipping around to look at Pikachu’s tail. Probably a bit embarrassing for the little guy but he was a good sport about it.
He didn’t test the students on it. It seemed sort of pointless. Having them write about it felt like a lot of unnecessary memorization and getting pictures would be a waste of ink. Most of the differences were so miniscule even he could hardly tell the difference most of the time. Besides, his students deserved an easy lesson once in awhile so he ended the lesson early and left the class open to questions.
He got some expected ones, some clarification on the differences and that sort of thing. But it was Lana of all people who asked the question that would leave him scratching his head all week.
“If pokemon have genders,” she asked, “how come we call them all it?”
Kukui tried not to react physically but he felt his body lurch a bit in surprise. “Pardon?”
Lana, suddenly nervous, stumbled a bit on her words. Thankfully, Mallow seemed to catch her drift. “Hey, yeah. You’re right. We call humans he or she if they’re a boy or a girl but we call pokemon it. Why’s that?”
“Well most pokemon don’t have gender differences…” Sophocles started but trailed off, doubt on his voice.
“But if we don’t know a human’s gender, we call them, well, they,” Kiawe jumped in, rising a bit in his seat. “A lot of humans use they instead of he or she. How come we don’t call pokemon they?”
“Um…” That was a pretty good question.
“But we don’t call all pokemon it,” Lillie spoke up, saving Kukui from answering the question. “Ash calls Pikachu he, Kiawe calls Charizard and Turtonator he, Mallow calls Steenee she, and Sophocles calls Togedemaru she… Oh but Sophocles calls Charjabug it? And Togedemaru and Steenee sometimes too…”
“I called Pikachu it when I first got him,” Ash muttered, half to himself, as he scratched his face. “I’m not really sure when I started calling him a him. I mean, Pikachu’s a boy! It feels right to call him that.”
“Pika!”
“Okay, I think I can answer this one,” Kukui told them, waving his hands to try to bring back some order to the classroom. “I think this is more up Professor Oak’s ally but I think the problem here is that I made a bit of a mistake when I was explaining.”
“Oh no,” Sophocles whined, slumping over his desk. “Are we going to have to do the lesson all over again?”
Kukui chuckled. “No, no. Nothing like that. See, we use the word gender for pokemon when we really mean sex.”
Someone gasped. He tried not to sigh. Really, he should’ve seen that coming.
“Not like that. See, sex refers to the body, the physical characteristics that tell us if someone’s male, female, or something else,” Kukui explained, hoping the students were following his point. They were nodding along so far but he sensed he’d lose them soon. “Gender is something else. Gender is more of a… social construct. Something we made up. It’s still very real but it’s more how we think and how we see ourselves than something tangible.”
“But how come there are different words?” Ash asked and Kukui wasn’t surprised. “If someone’s a girl, don’t they, y’know, have girl parts too? Or if they’re a boy, y’know, have boy parts?”
“Not necessarily,” Kiawe told him and Kukui let him take point on this one. “I’ve got a cousin who we used to think was a boy but we found out is a girl. Nothing changed, she’s just a girl and we didn’t know it for awhile.”
“And you said earlier that a lot of humans use they instead of he or she,” Mallow jumped in. “I had a friend who moved off to Unova that told me they didn’t really feel like a boy or a girl. They still used the girl’s bathroom with me but they don’t like it and wanted us to use different words when we talked about them.”
“I think that’s called gender dysphoria but I don’t know a whole lot about it,” Kukui told them a bit regretfully. Sure, it wasn’t about pokemon but it could’ve been a good learning opportunity. “Ask your friend and your cousin if they’re comfortable telling you about it if you want to know more. But that makes sense, doesn’t it, Ash?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah.” Ash nodded and it looked pretty genuine. Kukui was relieved. Not because he thought Ash would say something hurtful. Ash didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He just knew some people had a harder time understanding it than others and he didn’t think that a school setting was a good time to break through those preconceived notions. “Kind of like how we didn’t know Mr. Mime is a fairy type for a really long time and we didn’t think steel type moves were super effective or anything like that but then we checked and turns out Mr. Mime really is a Fairy type this whole time even though we didn’t know. Or how we call Mr. Mime a mister even though sometimes Mr. Mime is a girl.”
Not quite what they were trying to get at but Ash had the right idea, he supposed. Kukui would talk to him more when they got home, maybe look something up online to make sure they had all their facts straight. But Ash had something going there.
“I think that answers your question, Lana,” Kukui said, returning to the original question. “Words, like gender, are just something humans made up. Sex is what’s physical and gender is more about how we socialize and since socializing for humans includes talking, we came up with gendered words.”
“But how come with pokemon-”
“I’m not done yet. Gender is… well, it’s a human concept and pokemon aren’t humans so it takes some Acrobatics to fit them in. Sometimes it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense so we just use whatever words come to mind.” It really felt like he was on a Rollout here. Kukui could feel the puzzle pieces in his mind starting to figure it all out. “Since pokemon aren’t humans, we use nonhuman words to talk about them but some people see their pokemon differently so they use different words to talk about them.”
He heard some thoughtful murmurs around the room as his students pondered his words and then a, “I’m still sort of confused.”
Kukui smiled apologetically. “I know. We humans don’t know how pokemon see gender so I don’t think we’ll ever really be able to see the full picture. But that was a good talk, yeah? What do you say we have an early lunch? You guys deserve it after doing so much thinking there.”
Some whoops sounded and the students were scrambling out of their seats, grabbing their bags and lunches in excitement. Kukui chuckled, waving them out, and that was the end of that.
Or so he thought.
He was not expecting to come into class the next day and see a Meowth dangling from the ceiling by a rope tied around his waist. How did- Nevermind. He didn’t want to know how his students pulled this one off.
“Hey! Let me go!” Meowth complained and struggled but only succeeded in getting enough momentum to slightly rotate himself. “Once I get my paws free- oh, you twerps are in for a Scratch of a lifetime!”
Kukui came to a stop in the doorway and pinched his brow. “Kids…”
“Professor Kukui!”
“Why do you have Team Rocket’s Meowth in my classroom? Tied up?”
“Hey, I’ve been asking the same thing,” Meowth complained, wiggling so he spun around to face the newcomer. “They just nabbed me out of nowhere! The new twerps are making the old twerp crazy!”
“Pika pika!”
“Oh shut up!”
Kiawe and Lillie at least had the decency to look embarrassed but the rest were completely unabashed. Ash seemed excited, even, bouncing up to Kukui like nothing was the least bit odd. “So you remember yesterday when you were saying how humans don’t really understand how pokemon see gender?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” This again?
“So we were thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to know? I mean, we just assume pokemon like being called it but what if they don’t? Or- or- what did you say again, Mallow?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Mallow said, waving him off. “We live side by side with Pokemon, right? We thought it’d be a good idea to try to understand them better.”
“And you thought the way to do that was to kidnap Team Rocket’s Meowth?” Kukui asked, fearing the answer. He was getting too old for these antics. When he got home, he was definitely going to lie down for a bit. Or a while. Or forever.
“Meowth’s the only pokemon we know who can talk!” Ash responded indignantly. “Other than Rotom but Rotom doesn’t have a gender and it’s a ghost type so it doesn’t really get it.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Kiawe responded, somewhat sullenly, “and I’m regretting it even more every minute.”
“Enough to let me out?”
“Not a chance.”
“Ugh.” Meowth groaned, ceasing his struggling. “I don’t know what you twerps are yapping about but if I answer your stupid questions will ya let me go?”
Ash got all starry eyed. “Oh would you?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Now hold on,” Kukui interrupted, putting up a hand. “You can’t– by the Tapus I can’t believe I have to explain this– you can’t just kidnap people just to ask them questions.”
“But Meowth is a bad guy.”
“And I’m not a people.”
“I’m on your side here, quiet,” Kukui told the poor pokemon. Meowth shut his– it? Their? He didn’t even know anymore– mouth and let him speak. “ I’m going to let Meowth go. If it wants to stay and answer your questions, I’m going to be the one asking them until the… however many of you there are settle down. Got it?”
“Got it,” the class mumbled, finally having the decency to sound sorry for what they did. Really, what in the world made them think this was a normal thing to do? But he had to admit, asking Meowth was a good idea. This wasn’t his area of study but that didn’t mean he couldn’t write a paper on it… No, resist the temptation, Kukui. Let Meowth go first. Let him decide.
The knots were pretty good but not great. It didn’t take much for Kukui to maneuver Meowth’s paw so he could get his claws to tear through the rope. The pokemon yelped a bit as he fell and Kukui caught him on instinct, momentarily forgetting this was a hostile pokemon with very, very sharp claws. Thankfully, Meowth was grateful enough that he wasn’t face down on the wood floor that he retracted his claws and spared Kukui from his wrath. He seemed pretty miffed still but he seemed a lot calmer, though miffed could just be his eternal state of being. Kukui didn’t know and he didn’t really want to know.
“I guess it doesn’t hurt to educate a twerp. It’s not like they’re smart enough to figure out how to use their brains,” Meowth mumbled as Kukui set him down. He looked up and shrugged. “Eh, why not? What have you got for me, prof?”
Kukui tried not to smile and crouched down so he wasn’t towering over the pokemon anymore. “Yesterday in class we were talking about the differences between genders of different pokemon.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Lana here asked that if we know pokemon have genders, why we call them it instead of he, she, or they, like we do with humans. And then that sort of led into a conversation about how gender and sex are different and how we don’t know how pokemon see gender. And that’s what my students wanted to ask you.”
“How pokemon see gender?” Meowth repeated, putting his paws on his hips. “That’s an easy one. We don’t.”
“What?”
Kukui wasn’t really sure who that came from but he waved a hand behind him, telling whoever that was to be quiet and let Meowth talk.
“Gender is a human thing. See, you humans are pretty dumb. You’re confused all the time. You need words to understand who you are. But pokemon, we know who we are. We don’t need names and words and pronouns and genders or anything like that to understand ourselves,” Meowth explained. “Our sense of identity comes from- from the forest. And how it connects everything inside it. Or- or the pokemon we grew up with. Or how it feels to have the wind under your wings or how the ocean feels different the deeper you go or the fire that roars in your belly before a good meal. Or the battles you’ve won and lost. Where you go when you want to be alone. Or who you want to share your happiest moments with.
“But gender? We don’t care about that. Your genders and words are limiting. Pokemon are meant to be free. A lot of pokemon take pride in being different from humans because of that. But a lot of pokemon like being around humans and want to fit in better. It’s really only if pokemon have been around humans for a long time that humans stop calling ‘em it and start ‘em he or she. And that means all sorts of things for different pokemon. Just depends how a pokemon fits into your human society.
“Like that twerp from the Indigo League. The other one with the Pikachu,” Meowth went on and suddenly Kukui didn’t know who Meowth was talking about but it didn’t seem like Meowth cared. This wasn’t just for his ears. Ash’s, maybe? Or Pikachu? Or maybe Meowth even? “He was real close with his pokemon and his pokemon had names and genders and everything. And then there are pokemon like the ones that the big twerp has. They really love the big twerp but they still really value what it means to be a pokemon. They don’t care all about all that human junk. But then pokemon like me and Pikachu are sorta between.
“Neither of us want a name. I’m just me. I don’t need a name. If you gotta talk to me, Meowth’s just fine. Same for Pikachu. But we spend a lot of time with our humans. Some of that junk is bound to rub off. I don’t like it, really, but at this point it feels sorta weird to say I’m not a boy or to call myself it. I mean, I’m not a human and I think all that gender stuff’s silly but it’s been so long that it just sorta feels right. Or not right but wrong to say something else.”
“Pika pika pikachu.”
Meowth snorted but didn’t bother translating. “Gender’s such a weird thing. I don’t really get why you humans make such a fuss about it. I mean, it doesn’t really matter. Just do what feels right and if you gotta use words, just pick ones you like.”
That was a beautiful sentiment, one that Kukui thought a lot of humans could learn from, himself included. But Meowth disrupted the moment soon enough.
“So can I get going now?” Meowth asked, crossing his arms, looking bored. “Don’t think Beware will be able to find me up here and I don’t want Jesse and James worrying more than they have to.”
“Wha- Oh, yes. Of course, “ Kukui told him quickly. “And sorry my students kidnapped you.”
“Eh, we do it all the time. Guess we had to start evening it out at some point.” Meowth shrugged and headed for the door before pausing to look over his shoulder. “Now you twerps stay in school! That’s just about the only consistent thing around here. James’ll start tearing out his hair off that pretty head of his if Jesse has us make another gizmo to chase you around all over the place again.”
The students remained silent. Kukui wasn’t quite sure why but Meowth left without another word, leaving everyone to think about what he’d said.
He really should’ve done this a long time ago.
He felt sort of bad that his pokemon weren’t getting the action they used to, back when he was still challenging gyms. Battle Royals were wonderful fun but it really couldn’t compare to the league battles they were trained for, not to mention not all of them were built for those kinds of brawls.
He still trained them, of course. And made sure they got time out of their pokeballs, even though it was harder with Ash around. He still trained them, though a lot of that time was spent studying their moves. Kukui couldn’t help but feeling that bond that was once so strong had faded.
He never treated his pokemon like soldiers but Kukui was starting to think he’d still failed them as friends.
“Everyone, come on out!”
Six pokeballs flew up in the air, six pokeballs burst open with a flash of white light, and six pokemon appeared beside the professor on the sandy beach. Braviary, Lucario, and Incineroar stood at attention, ready for action, while Venusaur, Empoleon, and Magnezone looked around in confusion. Kukui had to feel a bit guilty about that. Half his pokemon expected to only be let out for battle while the other half were let out so little that they didn’t understand what was happening when they were? That had to change.
“We’re not battling,” he told them , sliding his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to talk to you guys. Nothing bad! Promise! I’ve just- Well, I’ve been thinking.”
Braviary cocked its head, peering at him curiously. “Brav?”
Kukui rubbed the back of his neck, a habit he’d picked up from Ash. “So… We call pokemon it. Because you’re not people. And some pokemon, um, embrace that. But we’re also teammates. We should be equals. So wouldn’t it be more, uh, respectful to use the same words we use for humans? I don’t really know so I thought I’d ask.”
Kukui pulled a few index cards from his pocket, prompting a few murmurs from his pokemon. In retrospect, he probably should’ve gotten full sheets of paper, or even poster board. Index cards looked pretty small next to his team of fully evolved pokemon but this is what he had so what could he do?
Taking a few steps, he stuck the index cards into the sand a few feet apart and began reading them out loud. “This one says he/ him. That one’s she/ her. And this one is they/ them. That one over there says it/ its. I want you guys to tell me what you want me to call you. Or if you don’t want to or don’t like these options, don’t pick one. I can’t make you. But I want to be better and I think this would be a good first step.”
His pokemon didn’t move for a moment. Kukui knew pokemon processed things differently than humans and that he couldn’t rush them, or even expect them to understand the concept of standing by a sign, but something little and tiny in him clenched, hoping he wouldn’t be disappointed. In himself, not them. He could never be disappointed in his pokemon. It was him who’d done them wrong all these years.
Magnezone was, surprisingly, the first to move.
Magnezone was Kukui’s only genderless pokemon. Or maybe it would be better to say sexless. He didn’t really know. He wasn’t sure if Magnezone knew either. Maybe he could get Meowth to translate if they ever ran into each other on good terms…
Magnezone’s eye shifted between they/ them and it/ its, the two most neutral options available. It made sense, Kukui supposed. Magnezone still seemed stuck though. “You can pick both if you want. Or I can ask you again another time.”
Magnezone glared at him and buzzed angrily. Kukui took it as a sign it wanted to pick one. It just didn’t know which yet. Kukui could sympathize with that and let the pokemon be. Besides, Lucario and Incineroar were on the move.
Lucario picked the he/ him option without much difficulty and barked like he was happy with his decision. Incineroar, on the other hand, looked even more confused than Magnezone. Kukui could hear the pokemon muttering small sounds under its breath, as if trying to decide which sounded best. Kukui didn’t think Incineroar would be making a choice anytime soon either.
In the meantime, Empoleon had made a choice. She/ her, which sort of surprised Kukui considering the pokemon was male. But gender, sex, and pronouns didn’t have to match in the way that made the most sense to him and he wouldn’t tell Empleon no, especially considering how nervous she looked. He offered her a slight smile, one usually only reserved for his students, and she visibly relaxed.
Braviary eyed Empoleon then Lucario, who was starting to look bored. Kukui started to wonder if Braviary was like Empoleon but Braviary hopped toward Lucario without even a beat of hesitation and that was that.
“Ven.” Venusaur groaned and began ambling forward, pausing in the middle before moving to stand next to Empoleon. She didn’t seem all that enthusiastic and plopped herself down lazily, wiggling her feet in the sand.
Magnezone and Incineroar still seemed to be having a hard time but Magnezone seemed to be much farther ahead in the decision-making process than Incineroar. After another minute. Magnezone floated over to the card labeled they/ them and lowered themself down in the hand, buzzing happily. Kukui was somewhat surprised but Magnezone looked so happy that he didn’t spare it a second thought.
And that left Incineroar, who seemed even more confused than before. Kukui took a few steps towards it, slow as to not snap the pokemon out of its thought process. “Do you not like any of these?”
“Incin.” Incineroar shrugged and gestured loosely around with one paw, looking frustrated.
“Do you want a set of pronouns? It’s fine if you don’t.”
Like Magnezone had before, Incineroar looked annoyed. “Incineroar!”
Kukui chuckled. “Easy, easy. If you don’t like these ones, we can look online. Maybe you’ll find one you like more.”
Incineroar’s eyes lit up. “Cineroar!”
“I’m taking that as a yes?”
“Cineroar!” Incineroar shouted excitedly, throwing its arms up in the air.
Kukui matched the pokemon’s grin and laughed. “Alright, alright! We can do that when we get home. You guys want to race me back? It’s been awhile since we’ve done anything like that.”
He was met with a series of excited shouts and his pokemon took off like rockets, stumbling and shooting over the sand in a desperate attempt to get a head start on one another. Kukui’s grin shifted into a softer, warmer smile as he hung back, picking up the signs in the sand as he watched his pokemon run off, squabbling and bickering just like old times. An old, familiar wave of affection washed over him and for the first time in awhile, Kukui felt like he’d done something right by his pokemon.