London winced. “No.”
“Listen, London, you should do that. Because Mom has sort of organized a big watch party at the house. She’s having it catered and everything.”
London groaned.
This meant that half of Nashville would be tuning in, together, in the living room where London was raised.
London shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course their mom would organize a watch party. She loved her kids, and she loved an event.
London’s family was privileged, but they weren’t a dysfunctional level of privileged. The Parkers were close. Growing up, London’s parents worked long hours. Their dad, in particular, traveled a lot. But their parents still always attended every one of Julie’s basketball games, all of London’s band and choir concerts. They had dinner together at the dining room table every night they could, and a big Sunday supper every week that included an open invitation to any cousin, uncle, aunt, neighbor, or family friend who wanted to come. London’s childhood had been full of love and community.
“I’ve wanted to say something to Dad about it, to warn him, but . . . ” Julie trailed off.
“No, I know. It’s my responsibility.”
And it was London’s responsibility. To let their dad know that when half of Nashville showed up in their living room, they would all be witnessing London introduce themself as nonbinary on national TV.
London stared out the window at the lights of Burbank, the darkened sky.
They hadn’t really known what to expect when they came out to their family three years ago. Their mom had seemed a bit confused, but she’d promptly done research, as her scientific mind usually did. And then she’d been fully accepting, even if she did have lots of intrusive Science Mom questions.
Their two older sisters, Jackie and Sara, had been on board right away, too. Jackie and Sara were seven and nine years older than them—Julie and London had been a double whammy of a surprise for their parents—and were out of the house by the time London was in middle school. But London still remembered how protective they both were of London and Julie when they were kids, and that hadn’t changed.
Julie had been upset. Cried, even. At first, it was the most hurtful reaction London could have imagined. If Julie didn’t accept them, of all people . . . Well, it would have been a struggle. But it turned out Julie didn’t care about London being nonbinary; she was more upset that there was something so important about London she hadn’t known.
Although, as their twin, of course Julie had known something. She grew up practically glued to their side, after all. She was there every time London threw a fit about wearing a dress, about getting dumb girl gifts every birthday and Christmas when all they wanted were new cooking tools and gift cards to the music store. She had been there when London had finally started questioning their sexuality in college, when they had come out as pan.
So when Julie had discovered, during their mom’s grilling sessions, that London had already started microdosing testosterone, she had felt betrayed. London had been annoyed at the time, thought Julie was being selfish, that she had unrealistic expectations, sometimes, of the whole twin thing. But looking back, London got it. They had been a little selfish themself, maybe. But maybe it was okay to be selfish with some things.
And it was a hard thing to explain. That they didn’t want to be a man, but that they had never felt quite right as a girl. That they only started to feel really okay when they understood they could be their own thing. That they could exist in a space that was all their own, that they could shift and adjust until it felt right. They had settled on nonbinary feeling right for them, even though they knew others like them had their own names that felt right to their own experiences. And that was comforting, too. That each person could choose what brought them closest to belonging, the power in that. Knowing that one day, people might discover even better words for it. That there was only ever freedom in continuing to find new names for who we were, who we could be.
And so after more conversations, Julie had calmed down, and things were as normal as ever between them. Maybe even better.
Their dad, though, had refused London’s gender identity from the start. It had created friction between their mom and dad that London never remembered seeing before, which made them feel guilty as hell. They still didn’t quite understand it. Sure, their father had rolled his eyes a bit when London came out as pan, which had been less than ideal, but London had never taken that as out-and-out rejection. It was like . . . it was like the nonbinary thing was the last straw for him. Like he’d had a lifetime of London being the weird one, and he’d had enough.