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Gaty swung her legs absentmindedly on the couch, looking up at the cloudy numbers displayed in the sky. About 12:20…
“You know, 20 seems pretty weird too.” She begins. “It’s not really a time you’d want to set up, it's not that long but it’s also not really short.” She looks down at her legs, watching them swing back and forth. “It feels like… 15 and 30 are the most known choices right? So everything in-between feels kind of… awkward.”
Two looks at her and doesn’t mind her stimming, as they start stirring the spoon in their glass a little. “I like 20…” They drone off, a little upset.
“Oh, no offense to you at all by the way. 2’s a cool number.” Gaty smiles at them. “It’s just.. when it's divisible by 10 like that, it seems kind of weird. Why would you make it 1/3 of an hour? …I think I’m talking too much. Am I talking too much?”
Two waves a hand at her. “Oh, you’re fine! I quite like the company, actually. Also, uh, I wanted to talk to you about something earlier.” They start.
“Hm? What’s up?” Gaty hums.
“You said you liked… choosing your girlness? Something along those lines.” They fumble with the spoon in their milkshake and scoop out a bit, holding the spoon in their mouth for a little while.
“Yeah! It’s a part of me I really like.”
Two took the spoon out. “What exactly did you… mean by that, if I could ask? I know ‘girl’ is one of those… gender label things… but I have no idea what gender actually is.” They giggled, gesturing to the air in front of them with the metal spoon. “I’ve never heard of the word till I came here. And from what I know, aren’t you guys born with it?”
“Ehhh…” Gaty looked off in the distance, uneasy. “Not exactly. Kind of. Yeah. Whenever we’re born we’re assigned two genders.. based on very tiny details of our appearance. And most of our lives we’re forced to stick to the gender given to us.”
Two puts their hand to their chest. “That sounds horrible! You have to be the gender you were given? You don’t get a choice?”
“Well, you don’t *have* to, but a lot of people would say you do. People are pretty harsh about it too.” Gaty shrugged. “Like me, for instance. I wasn’t always known as a girl to people. And yet I still knew that I was a girl. But no one seemed to believe me back then, and kept addressing me wrong and stuff.” She grabbed her mug from the table next to her, pausing their conversation and taking a sip. The sweetness of cocoa filled her senses.
“Hey, by the way, did you make this?” She points to her mug, the best she can with her remaining foot.
Two nodded.
“It’s really good. Like… REALLY good. I’ve never had hot cocoa like it before.” Gaty gazes into the cup.
Two brightens, “Really? Aw, thanks… Maybe I should make stuff like this more often… maybe I should pick up baking! That could be another ‘me’ thing I do!” Two points to themself excitedly.
“I better be the first to try some of your sweets.” Gaty remarks.
“You bet you will!” Two nudges her.
Gaty sets the mug back on the table, and despite their change in conversation, she directs it back to where it was before. “So, yeah. Overtime I got fed up and I decided to make a change for myself. Choose to be who I was. And who I was, was a girl. I gave myself a periwinkle coat of paint, and I made a few changes to myself to feel more like… me!” She smiles. “The proper term for this is transgender, but I don’t really mind labels. I just like feeling comfortable in my own wood.”
“I see. Then can I ask what the other gender is?”
“Male. Also known as boy, man… there’s a lot of terms for it. Uh… Eraser’s one of em. And so is Pen. And Coiny, and Donut..” She starts listing off a few of the boys’ names off the top of her head.
As Two listens to her, they feel more and more… disconnected. They interrupt her name-calling. “So… now that I’m here hosting you guys… do I have to be one of those?”
“Oh, oh no, of course not!” Gaty quickly responds, shaking her head. “You can stick to whatever you’re used to! Plus, uhm- male and female aren’t the only genders to exist here, they’re just the ones everyone is assigned when they’re born… For some reason.”
Gaty looks around, and spots Winner walking in the distance to the new Recovery Center. “Like Winner, for example! Winner’s not a boy or girl. Winner is winner! Or, that’s how they describe themself. They don’t like choosing labels, really. Come to think of it, this was a bad example to describe other labels…” Gaty trails off, but then remembers another person. “Oh! Price Tag! Duh!”
“Price Tag?” Two questions.
“Price Tag!” Gaty repeats. “They’re non-binary! And they wear that label pretty proudly too. Non-binary is a term for.. any gender identity that isn’t strictly male or female. ‘Out of the gender binary’.” She explains. “It’s also an umbrella term for a bunch of other identities. Meaning you can use it to explain some other, smaller genders that fit into its label.”
Two listens more intently now. “Non-binary, huh..? I… kind of like that, actually.”
“You do?” Gaty looks over at them, an eyebrow raised. Not in a bad way.
“Yeah! I don’t feel like either of the ones you explained earlier. But this non-binary thing seems a lot more like how I’ve felt my whole life. Would you.. care to explain it further?” Two asks.
“Sure thing!” Gaty sits up more properly, as she realizes she’s been slouching, and starts explaining more about it. At least, how much she knows about it herself. She realizes a few faults in her knowledge as she talks, and makes a mental note to ask some of her friends about the things she doesn’t know. Two listens to her the entire time, their focus completely on their conversation. In fact, Gaty had to stop when she noticed the timer finished and fell to the floor. Two was too caught up in learning to notice it.