#although it's like a gajillion years old so lmfao

[aliatori]

Transmasc Kaidan fic!!!!

Yes! The release of Legendary Edition, and specifically how they didn't retcon in M!Shenko from the first game, got me outlining a story that’s essentially reimagining a selection of canon events in Kaidan’s history through a transmasc lens.

First off, all the stuff in his backstory about Jump Zero hits so much harder when you imagine it’s a teenage, pre-transition Kaidan going through all this trauma instead. Not only is there the very justifiable anger at all the abuse he and the other kids experience in the name of being trained in biotics, but then there’s the double layer of deep, persistent psychological discomfort. Add to that the crippling physical pain (and permanent disability) of the implant and learning its usage, and feeling like a stranger in his own body for a myriad of other gender related reasons, it’s no small wonder he snapped, lost control, and killed his instructor Vyrnnus.

And then, if you look at his relationship with Raina with a pre-transition Kaidan in mind, it (at least imo) resonates a lot more with the complicated queer, trauma bonded, ‘are we, aren’t we in love?’ vibes I get from their relationship than if he were cis. It also makes her rejection of Kaidan after he kills Vyrnnus cut all the deeper, confirming what he already suspected: he wouldn’t have been good enough for her before, and he certainly isn’t now.

Canonically, teenage Kaidan and his dad have a heart-to-heart after the incident where his dad offers reassurance and support to Kaidan, and it’s here I choose to believe he came out and started the process of transitioning.

For the F!Shenko path, there’s a line in their first love scene in ME1 where Kaidan confesses she makes him feel human, and whoo boy, if that doesn’t ring all of my personal transgender euphoria and intimacy bells. For someone who has had to work so hard to take ownership of his physical body, both in regard to biotics and to gender identity, for someone who has been othered and made to feel less than on those same levels, that line admits so much trust in Shepard.

Oh my god, and Horizon through a transmasc Kaidan perspective? It’s a gold mine. Not only do you have all the delicious canon flavoured angst of realizing Shepard is alive at Horizon, some of the lines in the letter he sends a romanced Shepard hurt even more. The survivor’s guilt he mentions probably brought up a lot of old trauma from his teenage experience with Raina, of being rejected and abandoned for doing what he thought was right. And “I guess I really don’t know who either of us is anymore”? *siren noises* With the caveat that there are a myriad of experiences under the transgender umbrella, I feel it’s safe to say all of us grapple intensely with our identity and who we are, even if the manifestations of that conflict look different. For Kaidan to be thrust back into that uncertainty, to question a truth he’s been told is immutable, unchangeable? That’s the good stuff right there.

(In a worldbuilding sense, I posit that Kaidan probably thinks a lot about the implications of the technology Cerberus used to rebuild Shepard and how it could be applied to both trans and/or disabled people—along with having mixed moral leanings about using such technology even for good—but I digress.)

Which finally brings me around to the M!Shenko thing. Kaidan being transmasc gives me a reason to turn BioWare’s cowardice into a valid relationship development arc. This may be @ing myself on main, but imagining a transmasc Kaidan trying to navigate his new command position under a larger-than-life Shepard, all the Reaper and galactic peril business, and a desire for another man he’s not sure will be reciprocated or well received on either the queer or trans fronts? There’s delightful substance for exploration there. Granted, Kaidan is 32 by the time Mass Effect 1 rolls around, so I don’t think he’s struggling with his identity so much that he’s not sure taking that much of a risk will work out in his favor re: pursuing a romance with M!Shepard.

Anyway, there is my essay of headcanons that are the foundation for the transmasc Kaidan fic that you probably didn’t ask for but got anyway. I haven’t decided which canonical romance path to pursue for the series of snapshots, and knowing me this might end up T4T in the end too because why not, but there you have it.

In short: Kaidan Alenko is transmasc and, while I will gladly allow for other interpretations, this is the one I’m sticking with now.