#i even had what i wanna have planned even though i knew the XX XY science and knew it couldn’t be planned lol

[evermoredeluxe]

it’s the way i’ve had how many kids i wanna have, when i wanna have them, what rituals and activities we’ll do, my parenting style, and how i will be as a mom decided since i was 13🧍‍♀️

[theclaravoyant]

AN ~ so I got a prompt 500 years ago for “trans!Fitz slaying transphobes” and I love my smol trans son but I got Feels(TM) so idk if ‘slay’ is the word I’d use. Still, my boy did better than I did the first time I got into a debate on this kinda thing, and Jemma stanning him is precious, so here we are. I’m also planning a future-set, more smooth & confident encounter, but this one’s Academy era.

TW: Due to the nature of the prompt, contains transphobia including one use of the t* slur. Disclaimer: Also probably contains a lot of oversimplified biology, because I am not a biologist and was 100% bound to stuff it up otherwise.

Read on AO3 (~1400wd)

Leopold (II)

Fitz didn’t spare a glance for Jemma when she came to sit near him at lunch. She didn’t mind – it was normal, when he was hyperfocused, and she had Kat and Tegan with her anyway. She said hello to him, because it seemed the decent thing to do on principle, and resumed her conversation.

It was not until several minutes later, Fitz twitched. There was something he was hearing but hadn’t been registering, and a knot tightened in his gut the more he tries to ignore it. It had broken through his focus now; thrown off the rhythm of the eraser he’d been twirling in one hand, while sketching with the other.

“I’m telling you, gender is a social construct,” one of Jemma’s friends, Kat, insisted, and Fitz’s ears couldn’t help but tune in. He squeezed the eraser hard. So that’s why I’m listening.

“Biologists don’t like to admit it but it’s true,” Kat continued. “Nurture, baby. The only reason trannies exist is because girls can do boy stuff now and the binary can’t handle it.”

Jemma flinched, just a little, and shook her head, but bless her, she didn’t look at Fitz at all and he hid in his corner, behind his page, still listening more than he knew he should.

“I don’t think that’s what it means,” Jemma pointed out carefully. “The way we perceive gender is a social construct, based on our culture and the belief that Western knowledge is superior. The binary is the construct. Forcing people to act it out.”

Her other friend sighed exasperatedly.

“Chromosomes, though!” she insisted. “XX. XY. Problem solved. And yes, I’ve considered the other ones; they’re called defects for a reason. Not bad ones! Just like, heterochromia and stuff. A quirk of nature. But it’s supposed to be XX, and XY, and nature designed us like that for a reason.”

Jemma huffed.

“Nature’s not God,” she snapped. “It doesn’t have a plan for us. Except maybe to let us make ourselves extinct with all these PCPs and cell towers and things.”

“What does it matter though, anyway?” The first one interrupted. “If girls can do boy stuff and boys can do girl stuff why don’t we all just stay in our lanes and get on with life? Who cares if a boy thinks they’re a girl. Who cares how many Xs they have. I don’t. Good on ‘em. They can avoid periods the rest of their lives. Score.”

“Well, not necessarily,” Jemma pointed out. “They can have surgery, you know. Many transgendered people are more comfortable that way.”

“Serious?” The girl raised her eyebrows. “And it works and everything?”

“Well…I assume so. It’s not like I’ve looked into it.”

“It certainly seems like you have.”

“Got something to tell us, Jems?” Tegan teased, prodding her with a finger. “Or – sorry, do you prefer James now?”

Jemma twisted her fingers together uncomfortably, but rolled her eyes as her friends cajoled around her.

“Come on, guys…” she groaned, trying to laugh it off.

“Hey, does that make you gay now, or…”

They laughed, and tried to nudge one out of her, but before Jemma could think up an explanation or excuse, the sharp slap of a pencil against paper snapped them all out of it. They all looked to Fitz, where the sound had come from, and only Jemma who knew him well could see the tension in his neck and arm where he squeezed the eraser so tightly his knuckles must have turned white.

“It’s not a defect,” he insisted. “And it’s not a social construct. If it was, you wouldn’t have 90 year old war vets coming out. If it was, you wouldn’t have kids who’d had it beaten out of them their whole lives sticking by it anyway. People risk dying to stay true to who they are. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

They were a little bewildered, and even though his heart was thudding so quickly his head was starting to spin, Fitz was a little proud of that. He also felt a little sick, but he was in it now. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and stared them down.

Kat lowered her eyes a little.

“You’re right, I didn’t think about that,” she admitted. “But people risk dying to stay true to their religion too. Identity doesn’t mean biology.”

“Right. Yeah. Fair enough. But on that – “ Fitz stalled. He wasn’t a biologist; he could be getting this all the wrong way. In for a penny, he reminded himself, and pushed on. “Did you know sometimes if people are born with penises that are too short the doctors can just turn them inside out? Yeah. All the outside bits are the same when you’re born and somebody comes along with a ruler.”

“Well, not the same,” Jemma interrupted, and then stopped, because now was not the time.

“And I said chromosomes!” Tegan insisted. “Not genitals.”

“What do chromosomes even do though?” Fitz challenged. “What do genes do? Biologists don’t know half the stuff our bodies do or why. They can’t even agree on how we learn languages! Who are you to say gender isn’t an entirely separate biological feature we haven’t even discovered yet?”

Tegan scoffed. “Somebody with a biology degree, which is more than you can say!”

Her eyes looked into his, wide and incredulous and a little provocative, daring him to push back again, and he realised that she honestly couldn’t see it. In any other circumstances he might have found that a comfort, even a victory, but in this moment he wished he could have worn a badge with it blazing across his chest. Instead, he gritted his teeth.

Tegan pouted.

“Aw, you’re gonna cry now Fitzy?” she moped.

He clenched his jaw tighter, cursing himself. He loved this body, but it loved to betray him.

“I guess you really wanna be a little girl, don’t you?”

Kat elbowed her and hissed don’t be a dick, and Tegan brushed her off, but before she could open her mouth, Jemma stood, and put herself between them and Fitz.

“I think it’s time for you to be going,” she insisted, her voice quiet and dangerous. Tegan watched her for a moment, and when Jemma didn’t back down, she rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, kid,” she sighed. “It’s been real. Have fun with Mama’s Boy over there for the rest of your life. And if you want him to actually get anywhere, since you two seem to be attached at the hip or something, teach him how to handle himself in a debate, will you?”

With that, she was gone, and Kat faded away too. Jemma wasn’t sure what side of the debate she’d ended up on and to be honest, she didn’t care. She’d made it through high school, university and two PhDs with friends dropping her left right and centre. Fitz was the one who’d stayed, and she’d stay right back.

“I’m not going to cry,” Fitz insisted stubbornly.

“Never said you were,” Jemma assured him brightly, as she came to sit beside him. She bumped his shoulder with hers. “You did really well. You were really punching above your weight and some of the things they were saying were really uncomfortable. But I think you got Kat thinking, if that makes you feel better.”

“You make me feel better,” Fitz said. “You really looked into it all?”

Jemma shrugged.

“A little bit. You’re my friend. I wanted to understand. And make sure I didn’t put my foot in my mouth too much; I have a bad habit of doing that.”

Fitz smiled weakly. “Yeah, you do.” Then he frowned down at his page. “I’m sorry you can never make any friends.”

“Hey, if they’re going to be like that, we were never meant to be friends anyway.”

“What happened to ‘nature doesn’t have a plan for us?’”

“Oh, nature doesn’t,” Jemma explained. “But I do. And nobody that calls me ‘kid’ and makes fun of you for crying or being a boy is part of that. You are. And as far as I’m concerned, you always will be.

“Now, how about you tell me about this thing you’re drawing?”