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Proud of Who You Are

Summary:

Witober Day 31 - Longing
As a trans man, Hunter was raised to believe that being accepted was something he had to earn. Luz teaches him how wrong this truly is and shows him that he can be proud of his trans identity :)

Notes:

This is my final work for Wittober 2025 (which you should check out if you haven't already, I wrote a lot of other Hunter fics!)

Work Text:

Hunter was grateful that his uncle was willing to tolerate the fact that he was a guy with a girl's body. When he first told his uncle about it, he was willing to accommodate this and do his best to raise Hunter as his son, but he learned quickly that this was a privilege to be earned. Whenever he messed up on a mission, Belos would demean Hunter for "letting his woman's body bog him down". He would remind Hunter that the last Golden Guard had a man's body and that he would have to work extra hard if he wanted to be as good as he was.

Still, Hunter was grateful that Belos would always refer to him with male pronouns and that he let him bind his chest. He would supply elastic bandages for Hunter to wrap around. It hurt a LOT and made it a lot more difficult for him to train and move around, but he managed to get by. Besides, it helped him get rid of the awful feelings he had about having a woman's chest

Despite all this, Hunter longed to be surrounded by people who treated him like a boy/man without all the caveats. He wished there would be a less painful way for him to make his chest flat and he wished people won't bring up the fact that he was born a woman every time he messed up.

When Luz first learned that Hunter was born a woman in the Human Realm, he learned that these things might actually be possible. Luz found out when she saw some discarded elastic bandages in the bathroom trash. She confronted him about it and was horrified to learn that Hunter was using these bandages to bind his chest. Hunter freaked out and apologized for using her mom's resources for something so mundane, but he was shocked to learn that this wasn't what Luz was upset about. Apparently using elastic bandages to bind your chest was really bad for your body and was not the proper way to chest bind. Hunter had no idea and was admittedly quite mad at Belos for making him use this improper method.

Luz introduced Hunter to something called a "binder". It was like an undershirt that helped to compress the chest. Luz sometimes wore one and let him borrow one of hers. He was shocked how much more comfortable it was! From there on out, Hunter would always wear a binder instead of chest binding with elastic bandages. He ended up purchasing a binder of his own and Luz showed him how to take care of it so it would stay in good condition.

On top of this, Luz told him that it was really awful that Belos would say were extremely rude. Specifically she told him about the word "transphobic", which was when people said awful things about a trans person's gender. (Hunter learned that the proper term to describe himself was "transgender male" too.) She told him that whenever someone talked to him that way, he should call them out if he felt comfortable, or that he should tell her and she would make sure they'd never do again. Hunter really appreciated the support. It felt nice to be so accepted and protected by someone.

Hunter's favorite part about learning about the term "transgender" was learning that there was a flag associated with celebrating transgender people called a "pride flag"! It was really nice and had blue, pink, and white stripes. He eventually ended up buying a transgender pride flag of his own, as well as a few things with the trans pride colors on it. These items made him feel so loved and he was proud to show them off.

For so long, Hunter longed for acceptance of his trans identity, but believed such thing wasn't even possible. Now, thanks to Luz, he could be proud of who he was as a trans man. It made him feel so happy to be proud of who he was!

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