Chapter 21: 21. The Guidance Counsellor

"Right, we'll stop there." Miss Jorgensen struggles to make her voice heard over the sound of the end-of-day bell and the resulting clamour from the class. "Remember to finish reading Chapter 13 before Thursday, otherwise you won't understand the work."

As the rest of the class are busy packing, my desk is already completely clear. Jessie, just popping her book into her handbag,squeezes my hand tight. It does little to alleviate the knot in my chest but it's nice nevertheless.

It's been a week and some change since Beth left. She's phoned once--she's made a few friends, which has definitely eased Mum's worries, but she doesn't know if she'll be able to come home and visit any time soon. There had been talk of her coming back for a week at Christmas but Beth says she wants to try and get a part time job to make some extra money, and she might not be able to get any time off around the holiday season. We understand, even if we are disappointed. But it has made my own decision easier.

I can't wait for Beth to come back before I transition. I had deluded myself into thinking that was an option, but it's clear that it isn't. And it's equally clear that I can't possibly wait until I go off to uni myself. Three more years in the lie? No thank you. So if I have to come out to the school, off my own initiative, then I might as well do it right away.

I don't know what the process is. That's the main issue. Miss Jorgensen mentioned that there was a process, and she's also the only teacher who knows my name is Hannah. She seems like the obvious person to ask for help. It's weird, though: I know she's an ally, and I know she'll help me, but I'm still nervous that she just... won't. You know? Luckily I have Jessie beside me, for moral support.

As the rest of the class file out of the classroom, Jessie included, I linger. I know Jessie is going to wait just outside for me. We decided last week that we're going to enjoy every second being publicly a couple. Jessie isn't quite ready to be seen by the larger school populace as gay. She definitely wants to eventually, and she told me repeatedly that she'll just suck it up so we can be together--but it wouldn't be fair on her. She needs the time to get her head in the right place, to steel herself mentally. Once I come out to the school, we'll still be girlfriend and girlfriend but we'll keep our affection to after school. When Jessie is ready to come out herself, we'll pick up where we left off.

Miss Jorgensen is filling in a form on her computer--reflected on the live feed from the overhead projector--when she notices me. "Hannah," she says. "Sorry, I didn't notice you. Are you alright? Your work has been fine lately, but if you're struggling to understand it--"

"I'm handling the work just fine, Miss," I tell her. "I just wanted to ask you for some advice about... the other thing."

"Your gender?" She smiles at me as I nod. "How can I help you?"

"I'm a girl," I say. "I know that. Definitely. I just... how do I go about telling the school?"

Miss Jorgensen looks at me with kind eyes. "First of all, I'm proud of you, Hannah. It's no easy thing to realise you aren't what you were raised to think you are. Telling the world you're a girl is a very brave thing to do, and I'm happy for you and your future life. Fortunately you aren't the first young girl to discover her girlhood while a pupil here. The path has been carved already, and you can follow it nice and easy. The admin team know what to do, the staff know how they are to behave. I can personally assure you that anyone who causes you grief will have me to answer to."

"Thank you, Miss," I blush.

"Now in answer to your question: you will have to speak to the school guidance counsellor, Mr Hunter. Don't worry, he's not a gatekeeper. But for legal reasons he will need to confirm to admin that you are transgender. They'll be able to change over your details on the system just like that, then."

"Mr Hunter?" I ask. Miss Jorgensen nods. "Do I just... ask to see him?"

"I should think so," she says.

*

Mr Hunter's office is a draughty little room adorned with gaudy trinkets and framed certificates. It sits at the end of a long corridor at the south end of the school, of what used to be those shitty prefabricated classroom huts but which by way of concrete at the base and a hammer to certain of the interior walls was turned into a part of the building. If you've never been inside a prefab hut, let me just describe one for you. They're--at least the ones I've seen--usually two classrooms with a small hallway in between, more a cloakroom with coat pegs and doors to each room. The walls are painfully thin, often either woodchip or a sort of rubber stucco, with just enough paint to give the illusion of something more permanent. The roofs are invariably flat black felt--on any given winter, you can expect one or more of these huts to leak; they tend also to have gathered a collection of assorted balls, kicked or thrown up there by kids at play and--like terminally-online incels--never again to touch grass.

These prefab huts were and are designed to be a short-term fix. The idea is always that, eventually, they'll be replaced by proper rooms in a proper building. They're certainly not designed to be haphazardly turned into permanent buildings themselves. If you want an idea of how big the rooms in this corridor, among them Mr Hunter's office, were, think of your favourite classroom. Then, imagine if someone marked off six feet of it into a walkway and put up a plywood wall between that six feet and the rest of the room. If you ever want to further torture your mind, picture said classroom--thus partitioned--after a dozen years of slowly acquiring mold.

By the time I'd got down there on Monday afternoon after English, Jessie dutifully following behind me, the lights were off in this corridor. Mr Hunter and the other unfortunates who work here are clearly not the sorts to linger in their grotty offices longer than they have to. So I'm back Tuesday lunchtime. The lights are on, so people are definitely here, but I'm noticing a distinct lack of any other students about. I wonder what percentage of the student body actually knows we have a guidance counsellor.

Mr Hunter is sat at his desk when I enter, eating a ham and lettuce sandwich out of a Tupperware container. He's a scrawny man, with hair receding all the way to his crown, wearing a brown tweed suit. When he sees me, he puts the rest of his sandwich back in the container and sets it aside on his desk. "Pardon me," he says, mouth still full of crumbs. "I don't often have students wanting to see me during their lunch breaks." He looks me up and down. "Well, come on in then. Shut the door behind you and take a seat. It's, uh, Harry, right? Harry Carden?"

"You know me, sir?" I say as I shut the door.

"I know all the students," he says. "Or I try to, at the very least. It was Harry, wasn't it?"

Sitting down, I shake my head. "No, sir."

"No?" He picks up a sheaf of papers--from the brief glimpse I get of several of my peers' school photos, I presume it's a list of students--but I cut him off.

"You have the right person, sir," I assure him. "But my name's not Harry. That's actually why I wanted to see you, sir. I'm, uh... my name's Hannah. I'm a girl. I'm trans."

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Mr Hunter is quiet for a second. Then, slowly, he nods. "You want me to back this up to the administration, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

His eyes seem to pierce right through me. It's all a bit intimidating, and for a moment I worry he's about to go off on some transphobic rant like the woman at the doctor's surgery. And then he smiles. "Then I will do just that, Miss Carden. I won't seek the admin out--I've always been of a mind that it's up to a trans person when they come out and to who, and it's not my place to out you to them before you're ready. When you tell them, they'll ask if you've spoken to me. Legal bullshit, Miss Carden, hoops we have to jump through. Neither the admin nor I find it strictly necessary, but sadly the politicians in this country disagree. They'll ask me for confirmation that I've seen you. I'll tell them that I have indeed seen you, and that you are indeed trans."

"You believe me? I thought I might have to... I dunno, bring documents or proof or something."

Mr Hunter shakes his head. "The only proof I needed was for you to say of your own free will that you're a girl. Boys don't want to be girls. Some of them might pretend to for a laugh or a dare, but they'd absolutely fall short of seeking out the school counsellor. Speaking as a man myself, the idea of being seen as female is... uncomfortable. Not to say that it's bad, of course it isn't, but it isn't me. But Miss Carden, do you know which demographic does want to be girls? Does want the world to see them as girls?"

I shake my head.

"Girls, Miss Carden. Girls want to be girls. Boys don't want to be girls. In a fundamental sense, that's how it is. So the fact that you've told me you're a girl is all the evidence I could possibly need to be assured that you are a girl."

"Is that not a bit prescriptive, Mr Hunter?" I ask. "I mean, some people are neither boy nor girl. Some people are both." The research I'd done since my egg cracked had opened my eyes to my own ignorance about gender identity.

Mr Hunter shakes his head. "When I say girls want to be girls and boys don't, I don't refer to the sex they were assigned at birth. The criteria for being a girl is wanting to be a girl. Though I concede I was rather exclusive towards certain identities--that is my own fault. As it pertains to you, though, Miss Carden... unless you wanted to speak to me more, we're just about done. I just have a few yes or no questions for you before you go."

I nod.

"Question one. Are you a girl?"

"Yes."

"Question two. Are you a boy?"

I shake my head violently. "No."

"And question three. Are you non-binary?"

I shake my head again, more gently. After all, when I learned what non-binary meant there was a small period when I thought it might apply to me. In the end, even though I am confident that I am as binary as it's possible for a girl to be, I think I kind of understand non-binary identities a little. "I'm not non-binary, sir, no," I say.

"Then I'm convinced, Miss Carden," says Mr Hunter. "All the best in your future transition. You know where my office is if you need to speak to me again in the future."

Twenty minutes later I'm stood in the school's main reception, leaning on the desk, absent-mindedly fiddling with my fingernails as I wait for the receptionist to return from her lunch break. She arrives just as I'm beginning to consider coming back later. A young woman, surely not more than a year or two out of school herself, she is the picture of the sort of girl I want to be. Her hair is long and wavy, and her eyes--framed by dark eyeliner--are doe-wide. She has on a cute knee-length dress with a collar that I am immediately and incredibly envious of. And she smiles when she sees me, a full smile.

"How can I help you?"

It occurs to me that this is it. I'm not telling family, or friends, or medical professionals. This woman doesn't know me from Eve, and the moment I tell her why I'm here I set in motion the sequence of events that will, in short order, result in my gender identity being known to the whole school. No wonder my throat's gone dry...

The receptionist frowns, her smile wavering slightly, and I realise I've been quiet too long. "Uh... hi. My name's Harry Carden. Year Eleven. I've come to, uh, ask about changing some of my details on my school record." I hope sincerely that this is the last time I'll have to give out my old name.

She types my name into her computer, and nods. "Okay. And what details would you like changed?"

"My... my nameandgender." I cough. No way that was clear enough. "Sorry. I'd like to change my name and gender."

"Oh." The receptionist looks at me for a second. Then, unexpectedly, she leans across the desk and hugs me. "Oh, you poor thing! Of course we can get that sorted for you." Breaking the hug and going back to professional, she glances at her computer. "I've wondered when we'd have another trans student, you know. It would have been a shame if we never got to use the procedure, after the shit I had to put up with to get the old head to accept my transition."