“Yes!” Griffey practically shouts. “Jeebus, I thought it would never happen.”
“Shut up!” I hiss at him.
Sam is laughing. “People don’t have a birth gender. We’re assigned a birth sex.”
“I know,” I say quickly. I glance around. The nearest kids are laughing at someone’s phone. “My mom told me they’re different.”
“Gender’s just, like, socially overemphasized decoration. Fun to play with.” They point at their face. “Like today I’m feeling a little girly. Hence the mascara. But guy’s there too, so I thickened my eyebrows with a brow pencil.”
“But—” My brain is shorting out. Sam is a walking, talking example of all the stuff Mom tries to tell me. “You wear makeup to look like a guy?”
Sam takes another bite of apple. It still has a sticker on it. “I wear makeup so my outsides match my insides. I’m into coordination. You are too, yeah? You’ve got the red blush to go with your red Chucks.”
Curse my fair skin. “What do you call yourself?”
“Sam. Nice to meet you.” They hold out their hand and Griffey laughs.
I shake it awkwardly. “I mean . . . what label do you use?”
“I don’t label myself. But other people like to label me. Enby, genderqueer, nonbinary, freak, agender, whatever. I get it all.”
“But—are those accurate? I mean, except for freak. You aren’t a freak.”
“If you like being defined by something you’re not, they’re technically accurate.” Sam takes another bite that just barely misses the sticker. “You like playing chess?”
Griffey laughs. “Ash sucks at chess. No offense, but you do.”
“So are you non-chess?” Sam asks. “Chess-queer? Are you a-chess?”
I’m not sure if I’m being made fun of. “I guess?”
Sam shrugs. “Zero people will die if you don’t label yourself. Or if you don’t want to define something that shifts.”
It’s the kind of thing Mom would say. “I know,” I say again, even though I don’t, entirely. “It’s just that the world’s set up like it’s one thing or the other. Are eight billion people wrong?” That’s a big sticking point for Dad.
Sam leans in, their dark eyes looking right into me. “Yeah, they hella freaking are.”
I shrink a little under Sam’s intensity. “Do you—do you use the neutral bathroom?” My face is on fire. “Wait, that’s too personal. Forget I asked. Sorry.”
“I use whatever’s closest when I need to pee. So yeah, sometimes.”
“But—do people freak out at you?”
Sam shrugs. “Who cares? I just suggest they download the Genderbread Person so they can explore their identity, since their interest in my junk might mean they’re more fluid than they think. Works like a charm.” Sam notices the sticker. They pluck it off and stick it to Griffey’s sleeve. “People get weird when your identity conflicts with how they think the world works.”
“I’ve noticed,” I say. “Which is why I’m, like . . . not out here. I’m not embarrassed, I’m just . . . I don’t really know what I am. I’m not ready to—”
“I won’t tell.” Sam looks me in the eyes. “Promise. I’d never out anyone unless they specifically asked me to.”
I slump in relief. “He knows, obviously.” I nod at Griffey. “And my parents. That’s all.” And the kids at my last school. I’m “out” to them as the “flip-flop freak.” As “it.”
Mara joins our group. “Hey, guys.”
“Hey, babe.” Sam gives Mara a peck on the cheek that makes me blush, then turns to me. “All I’m saying is, nobody has to pick between two opposites. It’s a spectrum, not a binary. You can be on both ends at the same time, or neither end. Hang out anywhere you want on the whole glorious continuum. You don’t have to look like a guy to be a guy, or a girl to be a girl.”
Mara nods. “Preach.”
“I second that. I mean third it,” Griffey says.
“Then it’s settled.” Sam chucks the apple core at the trash can by Mr. Lockhart’s desk. It misses and bounces across the floor, leaving smears. “Oops.” They get up to retrieve it.
Mr. Lockhart calls the room to order and asks us to shove the desks into a circle. I wind up between Griffey and Esme, the girl who’s pre-HRT MTF. Mr. Lockhart hands everyone an index card. He drags an empty desk to the middle of the room and puts a big bin of markers on it. We’re supposed to look up the pride flag that best represents us at this moment, then draw it on our index card. He says if we don’t know what flag is right for us or don’t feel like making one, we can write an inspirational quote.
I steal a glance at Sam, who rolls their eyes and mouths labels, then grins.
Everyone gets to work, talking and laughing. Griff starts on a rainbow. Esme uses pink and blue to make the trans flag. I look over at Sam. I can’t tell what other colors they’re using than the purple they’re holding.
I stare at my blank card. There’s no flag for just plain dude. Which is what I am “at this moment,” which is what Mr. Lockhart said we should do. And I don’t think any of Mom’s cross-stitches count as “inspirational” quotes.
Griffey shows me his phone. “How about this one?” His screen has a flag labeled Gender Fluid with five colors on it. He nods at Sam. “That’s probably what they’re doing.”
“I’m not that right now,” I say. “I’m just a guy.”
“And you like a guy, right? So go with a rainbow. It covers everything anyway.”
I guess he’s right. I borrow his red marker and start the first stripe.
I’m so stressed about the Daniel-Chewbarka-Bella situation that I barely pay attention to the conversations around me. I don’t snap out of it until I look up and realize everyone’s putting their flags in a pile. Mr. Lockhart says he’s going to make a collage to put in the school lobby.
Esme tells Griffey and Sam how she pronounced peninsula as “pe-nin-sweh-lah” when
