Chapter Text
Louie is the first to figure out that Dewey is trans when the triplets are eight. What tips him off is Dewey choosing to dress up as a girl for the third Halloween in a row. When people asked if she was supposed to be a merman, she corrects them and explains that she’s a mermaid who traded her fins for candy.
Huey figures it out a few years later, at the same time as Webby. The triplets stopped going to school after they moved in with Scrooge. Mrs. Beakley homeschools them along with Webby. It’s during one of these lessons when Dewey mentions offhandedly that she wishes she was a girl. She says it so casually, as if it’s something everyone wants.
“Should we tell her that we know?” Huey asks Louie in their bedroom. Dewey is somewhere with Webby.
Louie shrugs. “I don’t think Dewey knows.”
“What do you think we should do?” Huey leaves it up to Louie since they’re openly queer.
“Nothing.” Louie says, placing his hands in his hoodie pocket. “We don’t make a big deal about it, and Dewey tells us when she wants to.”
Louie places a bet on when Dewey will come out. Huey writes a list of girl names that he thinks Dewey might like.
The realization strikes Dewey while she’s getting ready for bed. It’s past midnight and her siblings are already asleep, exhausted by their recent adventure.
Dewey wants to tell everybody immediately. She decides to tell Louie first, shaking him gently. “Louie. Louie.” She whispers repeatedly until he wakes up.
“What?” Louie mumbles.
“I just realized that I’m trans.” She says excitedly. “I’m keeping the name Dewey, but it’s not going to be short for Dewford.”
“Okay.” Louie rolls over and falls asleep.
Dewey climbs up the ladder until she reaches Huey’s bunk. He’s already awake, squinting at Dewey. “I already heard.”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“You know we support you.” He tosses a pillow at Dewey. “Now go back to bed.”
Dewey runs into Webby’s room the next morning to tell her. “I’m a girl.” She announces with jazz hands, an infectious smile on her beak. Webby is just as excited as her cousin.
She tells the rest of her family at breakfast, before calling Donald to tell him, Daisy, May, and June. There’s no judgment. Nobody questions if she’s going through a phase, partly because most of them guessed it already. It really is no big deal, except for how happy it makes her.