Part One: A Webcomic

Opening the Black Box

It’s July. It’s 2020. The world is erupting after the murder of George Floyd, and I’m trapped at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m angry and scared and out of side projects to occupy my attention. My friends are too. I haven’t slept well in months, and I’m not particularly sure why.

It’s Saturday evening and we’re finishing up with our weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. We’ve been playing by voicechat, and each of us has been attending religiously, desperate for human interaction. My wife, B—, is cleaning up the detritus of her game-night tea. Her shoulders are drooped, and she’s shuffling in the way she does when she’s really tired. Makes sense. She’s been running game. Most of the others are logging out too.

C— posts a link in the text channel of the voice chat. She’s openly trans, about a year into her transition, lost her job a few months ago as the pandemic decimated the foodservice industry, and lives with her parents. Her father’s deeply transphobic and her mother can’t wrap her head around C—’s reality. She’s almost 30.  I’m worried about her, and so is B—. We’ve been trying to help her hold things together for a while now, and nobody’s happy with the situation. She’ll be moving in with us for a few months shortly, so that she can start to get back on her feet.

“This is really relatable,” she says.

“Yeah?” I ask. Looks like a link to a webcomic I haven’t read, which isn’t surprising. She reads a lot of them.

“Yeah,” she says. A pause. “I think I’m going to go to bed,” she adds. It’s about 10:10. She doesn’t usually get to sleep until the early hours of the morning. I know, and she knows that I know, that it’s code for I need to go cry, but I don’t know how to comfort her in a way that gets through. She disconnects before I can say anything.

I click the link. Real Life Comics, the logo reads, by Greg Dean.

“You coming to bed?” B— asks before I can read the first comic. I look up at her and smile.

“C— posted a link to a comic. I want to read it. Maybe it’ll help me… you know,” I say, not having the heart to speak aloud how helpless I feel. B— smiles, radiating soft, warm contentment.

“Come tuck me in when you’re done,” She says, and leaves. I watch her go, loving the lazy curl of the hallway light around the swell of her hips, and turn back to the comic. The art is simple, clean, and only one of the four panels has any text. It’s the reproduction of a tweet—one I’d seen a couple of years ago.:

The eyes of the main character of the strip—Greg, I realize—go wide. I nod, half-grinning. Yeah, I can see that being quite a thing for someone else to realize. I’ve never wished such a thing, of course. I mean, except for sex stuff. And that doesn’t count. Because sex is weird. Obviously.

I remember having thought the exact same thing when I’d read that tweet a couple of years ago. It doesn’t strike me as unusual that I’d managed to come across it twice now, given that I don’t use Twitter.

I move on to the next comic. Now Greg’s talking with what looks like a version of him that’s a woman. Next page. Yep, that’s the deal, and she’s pissed with him. She says she’s his core self, and that he’s been ignoring her for his whole life. He seems stunned.

Makes sense. I think of A—, of R—, of K—, of A—, of C— —the list goes on—the many trans women I’ve known over the years. Man, that must’ve been something to figure out. I realize I never really asked any of them about how they figured things out. I heard somewhere that trans folks always knew. I never asked any of them, I realize.

Next page.

They’re talking about Greg’s childhood. About how he kept wishing to be a girl. “This whole time, I just assumed I was weird,” Greg says on the fourth panel. “I never told anyone about any of this, because I thought it was weird, and if anyone found out, they’d hate us.”

—18 years ago, give or take—

My first girlfriend is breaking up with me. D—, her hair black and short, and with a radiant smile that comes too rarely.

“But… why?” I ask. We’d only been dating for two and a half weeks. One date. Which I screwed up. She looks away.

“You’re… you treat me too well,” she said, blushing. Her last boyfriend was abusive. I suspect worse. I haven’t dared to ask.

“Too well?” I ask, baffled.

“I’m broken,” she says, and it’s definitely not the truth, but it’s something like the truth. She turns and walks off, and I don’t follow her. I just stand there, silent. She rounds a corner. I go to class.

Three years later, we give it another try. It lasts a month and a half. She leaves me for a woman. I feel disappointed, jealous, an inexplicable sense that I could’ve been what she needed.

—Now—

I’m not smiling anymore. I’d lived that fear for over a decade before B— had stumbled into it by accident. But it’s just bedroom stuff. Sex is weird, right? Right. My heartbeat has picked up.

Next page. My hand is definitely not trembling.

—22 years ago, give or take—

I’m reading the fifth volume of Ranma ½ ravenously. I’ve just gotten into manga, and Ranma’s my favorite by far. Awesome martial artist, hilarious martial arts, will-they-won’t-they romantic nonsense, and a main character that changes sex every time they’re splashed with water. I ran out of allowance after the fourth volume, so I’m downloading the pages of the fifth volume one by one.

Which, given that I’m on a dial-up connection, is taking approximately a geologic era. Per page.

A thought strikes me. I’ve been reading video game fanfiction for about a year and a half. Surely there’s Ranma fanfiction. Surely. I do a Google search, and not only is there fanfiction, there’s mountains of it—a whole mailing list. I crawl through their archive. One of the first ‘fics I find is called Girl Days. The summary says it’s a story about how Ranma has to stay a girl because reasons. It’s over 100,000 words long in total.  I’m 14.

Three days later, I’ve finished it. The week after, I sneak into the school’s computer lab to print the whole thing off so I can read it again and again. I find the next fic, and the next one. Ranma gets trapped in their girl form over and over.

I don’t go back to reading the actual manga for years.

—Now—

Now Greg’s trying to justify not knowing. Panel 1, panel 2, yeah yeah, trans lesbians are a thing. I know this already. Pretty much all of the trans women I know were or are in lesbian relationships, and that has never once struck me as unusual.

Panel three:

“I like dude stuff, kinda! I drive a truck, and I like building things, and drinking beer and all that!” Greg says.

I freeze. I don’t even like as much guy stuff as Greg lists. Woodworking, really. Gaming? But I’ve been proud and very happy that it’s become more and more unisex—more welcoming to women. All of my recent Dungeons and Dragons groups have been majority-women. I hang out with the girls at board game nights. I like cute little cars instead of loud, impressive ones, and cozy, romantic nights with B—. I don’t even like beer. I’ve never been drunk or high in my life—I’ve got an irrational fear of intoxication, and I lie constantly to explain why I won’t or can’t indulge.

I know that things come out when you’re intoxicated, and some part of me knows that I cannot let that happen. I don’t know why.

“Yes,” his female self says, “Because we like those things. There’s nothing inherently male about any of that crap. It’s all just stuff. I don’t really give a crap about dresses, either. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Wham, wham, wham, wham. My heart is hammering in my chest, powering blood and oxygen into my veins. A panic reaction, I know. It is the only motion in any part of my body, and it’s strong enough to make my whole torso quiver with its force. My mouth hangs open, and my thoughts have come to a crashing, catastrophic halt.

Because… because, so far as I know, liking those things are what makes you a guy, and if they’re not, then what the hell does?

The next page loads. I didn’t notice clicking the button for it.

Toxic masculinity. Yeah, this I know. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve apologized for ‘typical guys.’ Felt utterly and completely mortified to be anything at all like them. Next page.

They talk about being young. They talk abut watching Ace Ventura over and over. The bottom of my stomach drops out. I did too. Over and over and over. My brother and I loved it.

Wham, wham, wham, wham.

My mind wanders. Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, cheesy garbage from the ‘90s, where a doctor accidentally turns into an evil woman version of himself over and over. As the show progresses, he realizes that she’s taking over, and that soon he’ll be her all the time. I must’ve rented it dozens of times. I never watched the ending, but the transformation sequences? I’m surprised I didn’t burn out the tape.

Rainbow Brite. Mom recorded it off of TV at some point. I did wear that tape out. I still remember daydreaming about her as my parents drove me to, and then home from, my first in-person baseball game.  

I don’t remember a thing about the game. Just thinking about how pretty her dress was.

Wham, wham, wham, wham.

Next page. More toxic masculinity. Don’t care. Next page. I need to know what’s next.

She challenges him to name her. Says he uses it all the time. He knows. He knows she’s called Mae.

Wham, wham, wham, wham.

How long have I been daydreaming about names for my potential daughters? Never sons, mind you, and I really, really don’t want to have any kids anyway. Just daughters.

Athena. Diana. Jade.

Zoe.

Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe Zoe has been rattling around in my head since I could remember, since I was tiny and I have no idea where my awareness of that name even came from, what the hell is going on wham wham wham wham whamwhamwhamwhamwham my heart is thundering out of control, it feels like it’s about to explode and—.

Next page. I’m terrified, my heart is hammering, screaming at me that something is not right.

Jesus Christ. They’re talking about Ranma. They’re talking about Ranma, about managing the sex-change curse by just staying in the girl form, because it’s the easier one to trigger, and I had that exact thought so many goddamn times and I even wrote my own fucking fanfiction about it.

And Mae goes ahead and says it. That’s not a thing that cis people think.

Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

Next page. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to now.

Dysphoria, Mae says, is when “you wonder why you look in the mirror and don’t give a crap about your appearance. You don’t identify with yourself.” She even teases Greg for never changing up his hairstyle.

I started growing my hair out just after my 13th birthday. I’ve worn it in a ponytail for twenty-two years, with no changes at all. The idea of cutting it short has always been appalling to me.

And I… only have one outfit. A fair number of variations, but only one outfit, really—clean jeans and a t-cut shirt. I don’t like how it looks. I just hate how everything else looks on me. Not like the gorgeous edge-printed skirts girls get to wear. Or the fashionably-cut blouses, or the lovely retro A-line dresses that I’ve bought for B—, or…

Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

Next page.

Greg’s already accepted it all. They’re talking about coming out.

I cannot handle that thought right now. The world has ceased to exist outside of this comic. Next page.

Mae says to go to Reddit for help. Next page.

They embrace, blue shirt to blue cardigan. He fades. Disappears. It’s just her now. Just Mae.

And at the bottom of the comic, the byline’s changed. Mae Dean. This was autobiographical.

Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

I slam back into my body. My computer is off, but I don’t remember shutting it down. I stand up. I sit back down. I sit there, the need to do something burning inside me like the shining, radiant, white-hot heart of the sun itself, but I don’t know what. It’s 11:00. When did it get that late? I’ve been up here, alone, for almost an hour. I stand up again.

I walk to the kitchen. The sink’s full of dirty dishes. I grab the glass I used for game tonight… how long ago? A decade? A century? I pour some lemonade. I drink deep, then pause for breath. My heart’s still hammering. I try to hold still. My pulse is still strong enough to send rhythmic ripples across the pale surface of the lemonade. I pour the lemonade down the drain and manage to not break the glass when I slam it down on the counter, needing to remove the evidence of my distress. I can barely handle my panic without proof of its intensity right there in my hand.

I cannot remember ever feeling this alive or terrified in my life.

I walk back to the office. I stand there, in the darkened room, worn beige carpet underfoot, darkened computers waiting. Silent. I just stand there. I turn and leave.

Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

My brain will not reengage. I can’t get the first thought together for anything, no matter how small. I realize I’m walking toward the bedroom, habit finally kickstarting something in me. I let it go. It’s pitch black, but I don’t bother with lights.

B— is asleep. I hesitate, wanting to wake her, to beg for comfort, to ask for help, but… for what? I don’t know what. The panicking part of me screams that that’s a lie, and that I know exactly what it is, what it’s always been, what it cannot be anything other than. I don’t wake her. I can’t bear the thought of speaking this terror aloud, to give it form and force and power. To make it a real thing that’s really happening, because once I name it, I can’t ignore it anymore.

That line, I realize dazedly, is straight out of Dreadnought. A book about a trans superhero. A book I’ve read six times in the last two and a half years.

I very pointedly do not think about that any further. I strip, and lie down.

Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

An hour later, I get up and take two sleeping pills.

An hour after that, I finally fall asleep. My pulse is still racing.

About five hours after that, I’m awake again.

Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

My heart hasn’t slowed in the least, all through the night.

With the slight quiet of sleep, my mind has had a chance to start itself back up. To begin ramping into the opening trickles of thought it needs to operate. But now… now, things are worse. Pulsing in time to my thundering, raging heartbeat is a new thought, screaming in my mind, intrusive and inescapable.

Transtranstranstranstrans.

Continued in part 2.

Author’s Note: The names of those involved have been changed to protect their privacy.