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Flowers
“What’s happened to your face, Debbie?” Elf asks as they walk through the portal.
Debbie touches her cheek, and her fingers come away smudged with dry face paint. She grins. “It’s face paint. I was going to wash it off when I got home, but I forgot.”
“Nah, keep it on,” Elf says. “It suits you.”
Nick the Stick makes a sound very much like someone being sick. Elf retaliates by thumping him against the floor.
“Ow,” Nick mutters.
“Anyway,” Elf says, laughing. “Just keep it on. I need you to come with me. There’s been a—”
Debbie sighs. “What? A natural disaster? A power cut? A union strike? It’s obviously some kind of big problem, isn’t it?”
Elf deliberates. “Well… yeah. I’ll just let the Elders explain. Come on.”
As Debbie wonders what on Earth has happened this time, they walk their usual route to visit the Elders. When they arrive, the Elders are more interested in Debbie’s face paint than whatever they called her here for in the first place.
“What have you got on your face, Deb-beh?” Vex asks.
“Debbie,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “And its face paint.”
“Rainbows,” Ho-Tan says. “Very colourful.”
“Anyway, so about this problem—”
“What is the purpose of these rainbows?” Choop asks.
“Because we’ve never seen you with them before,” Pressley says.
“So they must be for a reason,” Flowers adds, adjusting his robes.
Debbie sighs, realising she’s going to have to explain before they will focus on anything else. “I went to a Pride parade earlier, with my friend.”
“Pride?” Flowers says.
And as she sees them all staring blankly at her, Debbie realises that none of them know about LGBT Pride. Of course they don’t, because no one seems to know anything here.
And so Debbie proceeds to tell them all about LGBT identities and the idea of Pride. Ho-Tan takes notes throughout, at one point grinning at Vex when Debbie mentions transgender people. She doesn’t go into much detail, not wanting to overload them, but she mentions some of the most well known identities, including: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and pansexual. As she speaks, the Elders begin to nod, clearly understanding.
“So the rainbow is the symbol for the LGBT plus community,” Pressley says, staring at the rainbows painted across Debbie’s face.
She nods. “Yep.”
“Sorry, could you go through the last one again?” Ho-Tan asks, dipping the quill into the pot of ink. “I didn’t write it quick enough.”
“Course I can,” Debbie says, and she explains being pansexual again.
“So pansexual people fall in love regardless of gender?” Choop says as Ho-Tan scribbles down more notes.
Debbie grins. “Exactly.”
She glances at Flowers, and sees him frowning, clearly thinking hard. But then he smiles broadly and gets up to hug Debbie. He loses his robes in the process, and Debbie has to avert her eyes.
“That’s me!” he says, slapping Debbie on the back.
“Don’t do that,” Vex moans, jumping.
“What’s you?” Ho-Tan asks.
“The pansexual thing! I think that’s what I am.”
Debbie grins, watching Pressley throw Flowers his robes. Flowers puts them on with obvious reluctance, but he can’t seem to stop smiling.
“Well, that’s great,” Debbie says, looking at the other Elders. Obviously, she knew that they wouldn’t be judgmental, but it’s still lovely to see them all smiling. “I’m glad I could help.”
Flowers hugs Debbie again, squeezing her tightly. Over his shoulder, she sees Elf smiling at her.
“And thank you for the information, Debbie,” Choop says, smiling. “It was most informative. Now, about the reason we called you here…”
Debbie raises her eyebrows as if to say about time. Elf just laughs.
---
Ho-Tan
She didn’t expect the Elders to forget about what she told them, but it still surprises Debbie when they bring up LGBT Pride in their next meeting. Yes, there may be a massive railway strike on (sometimes Yonderland is more similar to her world than she thought), but clearly the Elders aren’t really bothered.
“Well it’s happened many times before,” Vex says. “And they will probably sort it out themselves at some point.”
“So if we’re not going to talk about the strike, why did you call me here?” Debbie says, raising her eyebrows.
“We did talk about the strike,” Flowers says. “We just told you about it.”
Debbie sighs and glances down at Elf. He shrugs his shoulders.
“Come on, then? Why did you really send for me?” she asks.
“Well… it’s actually about what we spoke about during our last meeting,” Ho-Tan says, looking oddly inquisitive. “We were wondering if you could tell us more about… transgender people?”
“Yes, because we understand the basic principle,” Choop says, and Debbie sees Ho-Tan and Vex glance at each other. “But we aren’t totally sure how genders can change.”
Debbie sighs, wondering if she has become the official LGBT spokesperson for Yonderland. “It’s not that complicated, really. Because gender is really just a social construct – it’s sort of just been made up by society,” she adds when the Elders look confused. “And because gender isn’t like an official thing, it isn’t set in stone. Which means that people can be different to the gender they were assigned at birth, and transition to another gender. Hence the name: transgender. And there are more than two genders, so you can transition to more than just a man or a woman. So there’s men like you,” Debbie says, doing a sweeping gesture at the five Elders as she speaks. “And women like…”
Debbie trails off when, all of a sudden, Ho-Tan bursts into tears.
“What’s wrong?” she says, but no one answers.
Vex leans right across Choop, nearly squashing him in the process, and pulls Ho-Tan into a hug.
“It’s all right, dear,” Flowers says, and Pressley mumbles something reassuring.
Choop manages to slip out from under Vex, and smoothes his robes down. This allows Vex to move closer to Ho-Tan, letting Ho-Tan sob into his shoulder. Seeing Debbie’s confusion, Choop walks towards her.
“What did I say?” Debbie says, confused and feeling horribly sorry for Ho-Tan.
“Ho-Tan is a woman, Debbie,” Choop says. “By including her when you said we’re all men, you implied that she is a man. And that has upset her.”
“I’m so sorry, Ho-Tan,” Debbie says, thinking about Ho-Tan and the Pipple Tree and how no one has used her pronouns in front of her and how her cousin Bill said that being misgendered is a distressing experience. She goes over to Ho-Tan and Vex and watches Vex rub Ho-Tan’s back. From the way he cradles her in his arms, it is obvious to Debbie that the pair are more than just friends. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m really sorry.”
It takes Ho-Tan several minutes to calm down. When she stops crying, her eyes look swollen and the odd tear still dribbles down her face. Choop hands Ho-Tan a tissue, and she tries her best to smile. And seeing such a sad smile on the Elder’s face nearly makes Debbie cry too.
“I really am sorry, Ho-Tan,” Debbie says again, hoping her words sound as sincere out loud as they did in her head.
“It’s all right,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I just feel quite fragile today. Sometimes things… affect me more than they would on other days.”
Debbie understands, knowing how she spends some days feeling so tense and tearful that the slightest thing can make her snap and start crying.
“Would you like you adjourn the meeting, Ho-Tan?” Choop asks, his voice much softer than usual.
Ho-Tan smiles weakly, nodding her head. “If you don’t mind.”
When Choop nods, Ho-Tan and Vex jump down from their seats. They walk past Debbie and leave the Chamber, obviously heading somewhere private. Debbie looks up at the remaining Elders, feeling incredibly awkward.
“Are you sure she’s all right?” she asks, doubt still making her heart beat a bit too quickly.
“I think so,” Pressley says. “But I’d give them a while.”
“We’ve all made mistakes, Debbie,” Choop says. “Back when Ho-Tan first… came out – I believe that’s what you called it – we all occasionally slipped up and called her a man. It upset Ho-Tan and made us all feel guilty, but as we learned, it happened less and less.”
“And if we do get it wrong, Ho-Tan always tells us that it’s all right,” Flowers says. “What was it she always says?”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Pressley, Choop and Trevor all say together.
Debbie smiles, their words making her feel quite a bit better. Her cousin Bill said much the same the time Pete accidentally misgendered him, so Debbie knows that she isn’t alone. She just hopes that Ho-Tan feels better soon.
Sometimes later, when they all have left the Chamber and are sitting in the sitting room with the big fireplace, Ho-Tan and Vex rejoin them. Ho-Tan looks a lot better, but her eyes still look bloodshot.
“Can I talk to you, Debbie?” she says.
Debbie smiles, getting to her feet. “Of course you can.”
They walk together out of the room, and head down the corridor. They duck into an empty room and sit down, Ho-Tan clasping her hands together.
“I just wanted to say… I don’t want you to feel bad about earlier, Debbie,” Ho-Tan says, her face blushing. “You didn’t know. I don’t want you to feel guilty.”
“But I upset you,” Debbie says.
“I know. That’s why I want to explain why it upset me. It is all difficult to explain, but being called a man is distressing. Because I’m not a man. I’m a woman. I didn’t always know I’m a woman, but I am. Does that make sense?”
Debbie nods, remembering the expression on Ho-Tan’s face when she heard Debbie mention the word ‘transgender’.
“You know, I thought you were trans,” she says.
“You did?”
“Yeah, ever since the whole palaver with the Pipple Tree. And then, of course, I saw your reaction to me misgendering you…”
“Misgendering?” Ho-Tan says, confused.
“It’s when you call someone a gender that they’re not. So me calling you a man was misgendering you.”
“But you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know, but your intentions don’t matter. If you use the wrong pronouns or call someone a man when they’re not a man, that’s misgendering them.”
Ho-Tan nods. “I see. I didn’t know it had a name. I don’t like being misgendered.”
Debbie smiles weakly. “I don’t blame you. But, anyway, I think you’re transgender, Ho-Tan.”
Ho-Tan smiles. “I think I am too. I mean, I have known I’m a woman since… well, for a while now, but I didn’t know that’s actually… well, a thing. And there are lots of people like me?”
“Yeah, loads,” Debbie says, nodding.
Ho-Tan’s smile seems to get brighter. “So it’s not just me…”
“No, it’s not just you,” Debbie says, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “You’re not alone.”
Happiness seems to radiate from Ho-Tan, her eyes shining with what must be happy tears. And she looks into Debbie’s eyes and is clearly thinking about her fellow Elders as she says, “No, I’m not alone.”
---
Pressley
“Do you remember when you told us that there are more than two genders, Debbie?” Pressley says, several days since their last conversation on this topic.
“Yes, I do,” Debbie says, feeling awkward when she remembers how she said that only seconds before accidentally upsetting Ho-Tan. “Why?”
“I was just wondering if you… could explain how the others genders work.”
Debbie smiles, looking at Pressley and then the other Elders. “Yeah, that’s fine. You see, when you fit outside of the gender binary of being a man or a woman, you’re called nonbinary. It means your gender is different and possibly difficult to label.”
“Nonbinary,” Ho-Tan says, writing in her notebook again.
“So that’s what you would call yourself it you aren’t a man or a woman?” Pressley says.
“Basically, yeah,” Debbie says, deciding not to overload them all by talking about the different types of nonbinary genders.
“But you can still use the same… pro-thingies?”
“Nounpros?” Elf suggests.
“Pronouns,” Debbie says, correcting them both. “But you can use whatever pronouns you want. You’re still you. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not cis, but I’m happiest with she/her pronouns just because they’re what works for me.”
“Cis?” Vex says.
“It means you indentify as the gender you were assigned at birth,” Debbie says. When she receives only blank stares, she adds, “I mean if everyone said ‘it’s a girl’ when you were born and you consider yourself to be the girl they all say you are.”
The Elders seem to understand this time.
“So, basically it means ‘not trans’,” Ho-Tan says, smiling.
Debbie smiles too. “Exactly, Ho-Tan.”
Pressley has a massive smile on his face, looking more alert than Debbie has ever seen him look.
“I think…” he says tentatively. “I think I’m nonbinary.”
Debbie grins. “That’s great!”
“Well done, Pressley,” Vex says, smiling and giving him a thumbs up (Debbie taught them all that a while ago).
Flowers, grinning broadly, slaps Ho-Tan on the back and pulls Pressley into a kiss. Debbie’s eyes widen. Ho-Tan giggles.
Choop stands up. “I thought I told you two! No kissing in the chamber.”
“I forgot,” Flowers says, but he kisses Pressley again.
“Flowers!” Choop cries, exasperated.
“What are you talking about?” Debbie says.
“Mister Boring here banned kissing in the Chamber,” Flowers says.
“I’m not being boring, Flowers,” Choop says. “I just think it’s improper to snog someone when we’re meant to be ruling Yonderland. Why else do you think I sit between these two?” he says, gesturing to Ho-Tan and Vex, sat either side of them.
“Well I can’t help it,” Vex says defensively. “She’s just so lovely.”
Ho-Tan goes red.
“See what I mean?” Choop says, and Debbie thinks she does.
“And it makes me jealous,” Trevor says.
“Yes, and that. It makes Trevor here jealous to see people kissing.”
“You don’t have any lips, Trevor,” Vex says.
“I know that,” Trevor says. “That’s why I get jealous.”
“Anyway!” Choop says, clearing his throat. “I think we better get back on topic.”
---
Choop
When Choop takes Debbie to one side and asks to talk to her, she isn’t surprised. Given what her conversations with the Elders recently, it doesn’t take three guesses to work out what he wants to talk to her about.
Sure enough, when they sit down opposite each other in one of the sitting rooms, Choop’s anxious, awkward facial expression tells Debbie all she needs to know.
“With all this talk of relationships and sexualities, Debbie,” Choop says, leaning closer to her as he awkwardly clears his throat. “Is there… a term for people who lack attraction to anyone?”
Debbie smiles, and she sees Choop relax slightly. “Yeah, there is, actually. People who aren’t attracted to anyone are called asexual. Why?”
“No reason,” Choop says, failing miserably at looking nonchalant. He leans closer still, crossing one leg over the other. “Um… would this sexuality happen to have a flag?”
Debbie almost laughs, but stops herself. She puts her hand on the Elder’s shoulder. “Would you like me to get you one?”
Choop smiles weakly, looking relieved. “Yes, please.”
“So… is it normal not to be attracted to people?” Choop asks, and he looks dreadfully embarrassed.
“For asexual people, yeah,” Debbie says.”It’s normal and there’s nothing wrong with you.”
Choop smiles more firmly this time, and his grip is strong when he grasps Debbie’s hand. “Thank you so much for this, Debbie. I feel so incredibly relieved, because… because, for a long time, I did worry if there was something wrong with me. But now I know I’m not. Thank you.”
Debbie smiles and gives him a hug. “No problem.”
---
Vex
The next time Debbie walks into the Chamber, the Elders have covered themselves in pride flags. Pressley is wearing a nonbinary flag badge, Flowers has covered himself in pansexual flag-patterned flowers, Ho-Tan has a trans flag patch sewn to her robes and is wearing a badge that says I use she/her pronouns, and Choop has a small asexual pendant around his neck. The only one not wearing some kind of LGBTQIA flag is Vex.
“Where did you get all of those?” she asks.
“We showed the local merchants the designs and, well… they made these for us,” Choop says, smiling.
“They’re selling really well,” Ho-Tan says, picking up her notebook.
“What, you mean other people want pride stuff?” Debbie says.
Choop nods. “Yes, you’ve started a bit of a revolution, Debbie. Everyone is looking into their gender and sexuality and lots of people are realising they’re…”
“Queer?” Flowers suggests.
“Yes, queer,” Choop says. “It’s remarkable, actually.”
Debbie smiles, amazed. “Wow, I… well, I had no idea I’d help so many of you.”
“Well you certainly have,” Pressley says, yawning and leaning his head against Flowers’ shoulder. When he sees Choop and Vex staring at him, he raises his eyebrows. “What? I’m tired.”
The rest of their meeting passes smoothly (for once), and the Elders are soon all filing out of the Chamber. Debbie walks with them, chatting to Elf about how it’s possible to have thousands of songs all stored in a tiny device, when Vex taps her on the shoulder. She turns to look at him, noting the slight anxiety on the Elder’s face.
“Um, can I speak to you, Deb-beh?” Vex says, and Debbie doesn’t even bother to correct him this time.
Vex leads Debbie into a quiet room, and they sit side by side on a rather uncomfortable sofa.
“So…” Debbie says. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, it’s to do with the conversations we all have been having recently,” he says. “About… being LGBT plus.”
Debbie smiles, wondering why she hadn’t been expecting this. “What’s the problem?”
“Well, it isn’t a problem, as such, but I feel rather confused. After all, the others have all worked out of a lot of things thanks to your help, but I can’t seem to work out my own identity. I mean, I know I’m not… ‘straight’ and I’m not entirely sure that I’m cis either, but I don’t know what labels fit me. It is just all rather confusing.”
Debbie smiles sympathetically, knowing that sort of confusion all too well.
“You can just identify as queer, you know,” she says. “It can be your complete identity, if you want it to be. It’s quite simple. You don’t need to worry, Vex. Discovering who you are can be a long and complicated process. I mean, when I was a teenager, I thought I was a lesbian, because my first crush… I mean, the first person I fell in love with was another girl. But then I fell in love with a boy, and then another girl, and then… I met Pete. I was confused for years, until I finally realised that I’m bi. But if I’d just called myself queer, that would be fine too. Do you understand?”
Vex nods his head, smiling. “I think so. I just… I know that I’m queer, because I’ve fallen in love with men in the past, as well as people who would probably call themselves nonbinary now they know the words… and of course I love dear Ho-Tan with all my heart… And I suppose I could call myself pansexual like Flowers, but… I’m unsure of whether the label fits.” He sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “I’m just me.”
Debbie smiles. “I understand. You don’t have to use labels if they don’t work for you. You can just be queer. You can just be you.”
Slowly, a smile spreads across Vex’s face. “Thank you… Debbie. Thank you for helping me.”
When Debbie realises that he has just pronounced her name correctly, she grins. Debbie pulls the Elder into a hug, and he pats her back. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I’ve been able to help you all.”
Vex grins. “And, trust me, we have been incredibly grateful for your help, Deb-beh.”
And when she sees the silly grin on his face, Debbie throws a cushion at him.