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Her parents try to take her out of school when they find out. They shout all sorts of horrible things at the Professor that aren’t true – about how he’s sick in the head, about how he’s corrupting their son, about how he’ll be fired if they report him to the NYSAIS. Jean wants to protest that the Professor has only ever helped her understand who she is, but it’s difficult to form the words when, in her own head, she can hear all the things her parents aren’t saying.
Need to cure him, need to find him a good shrink, her dad is thinking, because he doesn’t want his only son to end up a fairy, like that fucking queer of a Professor. Jean’s mom, meanwhile, has a death grip on her shoulder, and is busy figuring out whether she knows anyone at the county offices who could help them shut the Professor’s school down.
Abruptly, Jean starts to cry. It’s all too loud; the Professor is in her head, trying to project reassurance at her, but it’s so hard to hear when her dad is shouting so much, when her mom has wrapped her in a tight hug and is whispering in her ear about how it’s okay, we’re going to fix you, everything will be alright, John.
Jean doesn’t mean to do it, but she just wants her parents to understand who she really is and it’s so easy to make them.
“Jean, please stop,” the Professor says quietly, and he looks anguished – feels anguished – and she starts crying all over again.
Through the haze of her tears she feels the Professor reversing things, and when she looks up at her parents they don’t say anything, simply stare at her with wide, shocked eyes. They’re afraid of me, she realises, and she can feel the truth of it in her head.
Nobody says anything else after that. When her mom and dad leave she climbs onto the Professor’s lap and clings to him, burying her face in his shoulder as he gently strokes her hair. Beyond the mansion she can hear her parents’ thoughts gradually quietening, becoming ever distant murmurs as they resolutely drive away.
--
She is born John Frederick Grey, to parents Jim and Elaine, and when she is nine years old they introduce her to a man with an English accent and a wheelchair.
My name is Charles Xavier, the man says, without moving his lips. What’s yours?
John, she replies shyly, and doesn’t understand why he frowns.
--
Most of the kids her own age think it’s weird. The boys have stopped inviting her to play baseball and the girls have stopped talking to her. None of them call her Jean. Some of the younger kids don’t seem to mind quite so much though and she takes to helping them with their homework in the afternoons. She spends a lot of time with the Professor too.
He’s the only one who’s ever consistent about it; most of the teachers have been accepting, if a little awkward, but even so they all seem to find it hard to put theoretical knowledge into practice. Dr. McCoy calls her John more often than he realises, and even when he gets it right, in her mind she can hear him struggling. But the Professor never, ever slips. He knows her mind inside out, and to him she’s always Jean, because that’s what she is to herself.
She feels more grateful towards him than words can ever say.
--
“It’s a wonderful story,” says the Professor, handing back her work book with a smile. “You have a very mature writing style.”
“It’s not…” she hesitates. “You mean, I didn’t do it wrong, then?”
The Professor frowns. “Why would you think you did it wrong?”
“It’s just… Mrs. Li seemed confused that it was from a girl’s point of view instead of a boy’s,” she says, keeping her eyes focused on the desk.
“I see,” the Professor replies, after a short pause. “Well, that’s nothing to worry about. You can write about anything you like, and if you think you’d like to write about being a girl then that’s absolutely fine.”
--
“You can’t influence the children like this. It’s not right.” Jean knows she should keep walking, but Dr. McCoy’s voice sounds angry and frustrated through the door to the Professor’s study and she’s morbidly curious.
“I’m not influencing her in the slightest,” the Professor replies calmly. “Jean knows her own mind.”
“He’s just a kid, Charles!” Jean suddenly realises what they’re arguing about, and semi-wishes she’d never stopped to listen. She’s not sure she can handle rejection from Dr. McCoy, who’s always been so nice to her.
“Be that as it may, that doesn’t change who she is.”
“That’s not–” Dr. McCoy breaks off and takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again it’s noticeably softer. “Look, I know you’re interested in men, and you’ve told me before that it isn’t a choice, but you can’t go around telling children that they–”
“That has absolutely nothing to do with it,” the Professor interrupts, voice sharp now. “Frankly I’m astounded you would think such a line of argument reasonable when there’s no logic to it whatsoever. Jean has always seen herself this way, and that has nothing to do with me. The two things are entirely different, and the way Jean feels isn’t sick or disgusting – don’t look at me like that, Hank, I know your subconscious thoughts better than you do. It isn’t sick, it isn’t wrong. It simply is.”
In the silence that follows, Jean marvels at how amazing it feels to have herself laid bare like that; the Professor’s acceptance is always there in her mind, but hearing him say it aloud is somehow entirely different.
Eventually, after a prolonged pause, Dr. McCoy lets out a weary sigh. “The rest of the world doesn’t see it that way, Charles.”
“Probably because they can’t read minds,” the Professor retorts waspishly, but then he sighs too. “The rest of you will understand some day. For now, how about you open the door and let Jean in. You can listen to what she has to say about it rather than arguing with me.”
--
The first time they ever enter the astral plane she gasps in surprise to see the Professor standing up. He doesn’t call her on it, simply gestures at her and says, “You look different here too.”
She looks down at herself, and to her astonishment she finds that he’s right. She has longer hair, for one thing, and there’s a peculiar weight on her head that she thinks might be a hairband. Her jeans and shoes seem pretty much the same, but the top she’s wearing is yellow and hangs low off one arm, revealing her shoulder.
“This isn’t what I look like,” she muses aloud, examining a colourful bracelet around her left wrist. “This is–”
How I see myself, she suddenly realises.
She doesn’t finish the thought aloud, but from the way the Professor smiles over at her kindly she thinks he heard it anyway.
--
By the time Scott arrives at the academy she’s learnt how to alter the way people see her. She doesn’t invent too much, just softens out the lines of her face and widens the curve of her hips, and no one realises that it’s not actually how her body looks. It’s exhausting to keep it up all the time, and it’s certainly not the same as looking like that in the first place, but the idea that people can see the Jean she wants them to see makes her feel more confident.
In Cairo there’s a moment where she slips, where she can’t concentrate on that many things at once and her control over herself just vanishes. For one panicked moment she thinks her new friends might have seen the way her face has become masculine and sharp, the way her flight suit hangs more loosely over her chest, but clearly in the heat of battle such things go unnoticed. She doesn’t tell them afterwards, not Kurt or Ororo or Peter, because it’s been a long time since she’s had any friends. She especially doesn’t tell Scott, because she knows he likes her and she doesn’t want him to stop liking her.
They all find out anyway in the end, and Scott doesn’t talk to her for over a week because he feels very confused about it.
“The Professor said that gender and biological sex are different things,” are his words on the subject when he finally approaches her, fiddling self-consciously with the zips on his jacket. That’s a good way of putting it, Jean thinks.
“I think you’re really pretty,” Scott says then, in a rush. “Even if you used to be a boy.”
She feels a small stab of disappointment because that’s not quite it, and because she wants him to like her for who she is, not in spite of it. But he’s earnest, at least; he really does like her, and he’s not panicking about the whole does she have a dick or a pussy thing anymore. Mostly he’s thinking about the way she smiles and the way she scrunches up her face when she’s thinking about maths and the lame jokes she has an embarrassing tendency to tell.
“I’m not really sure how this is going to work – whether it’ll be different or weird or whatever…” Scott trails off, coughing nervously. “But, well… I’d like to find out.”
He’s blushing and fiddling with his jacket again, and without thinking about it Jean reaches out to still his hands with her own. “Maybe you could take me to see a movie next week,” she suggests, smiling tentatively as a blush begins to colour her own cheeks. “Start with something we already know how to do?”
“Yeah,” says Scott, a little breathlessly. He squeezes her hands and smiles. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
--
“Professor,” she asks one day. “Am I always going to be a boy?”
He regards her silently for a long time before speaking. “Do you feel like a boy?”
She doesn’t think so, but she isn’t sure whether she’s allowed to say that. She has a dick, and girls don’t have those, do they? In the end she doesn’t say anything, and when the Professor beckons towards her she clambers up onto his lap and lets him stroke her hair, longer now than it used to be.
“You can be whoever you want to be, my dear,” he says, and the words echo strangely in her head.
You can be whoever you want to be.
--
“Charles told me you use your powers to alter the way people see you,” says Raven, and Jean almost jumps; she wasn’t expecting this sudden turn in the conversation. But Raven is looking at her expectantly, and Jean realises she’s supposed to respond.
“Yeah. I, uh, don’t actually look like this,” she replies, and tries to ignore the stab of disappointment that follows those words.
Raven nods, then shoots her a knowing grin. “It’s exhausting, right? Concentrating on holding that image all the time?”
“Yeah,” Jean says slowly, and she’s not trying to read Raven’s thoughts but the memory is there at the forefront of her mind, of a teenager who struggled to lift weights because she needed to focus on keeping her skin from becoming its natural blue. She looks at Raven uneasily, because her mentor is unapologetic about wearing her natural skin these days, and Jean really doesn’t want the why don’t you just accept yourself as you are lecture from someone she respects.
But Raven can clearly see where Jean’s thoughts are heading, because she shakes her head and says, “I don’t mean you shouldn’t do it, if it makes you feel comfortable. I just mean that it makes things like combat more difficult. If you’re using half your concentration to alter the way you look then you’re only half paying attention to whatever else you’re doing.”
Jean blinks at her, unsure exactly where this is going.
“I’m trying to say that there are other options,” continues Raven. “I know a doctor. He does surgeries, hormone therapy – that kind of thing. I could put you in touch, if you wanted something like that.”
At Raven’s words, Jean’s mind comes to a screeching halt. “I can– I can have surgery?”
“It’s your body,” Raven shrugs. “You can do whatever you like with it.”
She’s thought about it before – of course she has – but only ever in an abstract sense. These things aren’t exactly mainstream; they’re not covered on the news or in any of those books about growing up. She never thought that it could actually be a possibility.
“Take your time to think about it,” says Raven, standing up and patting Jean on the shoulder. She makes to head out of the room, but pauses when she gets to the door and looks back at Jean intently.
“Whatever you decide, you’ll always be Jean to me. It doesn’t matter how you look or even what body parts you have, the person inside stays the same.” She smiles then and gives Jean a quick wink. “Trust me on this – I know better than anyone.”
Then she’s gone, and Jean finds herself beaming at an empty room, an inescapably giddy feeling making her heart beat faster.
--
“Ah, good morning, John. You’ll have to forgive me for being late to our session, Alani wasn’t having much luck with–”
“Professor,” she interrupts quietly, and to both her surprise and relief he immediately stops talking. “I’ve decided that John isn’t my name anymore.”
“Oh?” He blinks, but then there’s that kind smile on his lips and he’s wheeling himself over towards her. “Would you like to introduce yourself, then?”
She draws in a deep breath. “My name is Jean.”