Put on False Confidence

[Kai Baxter]

Kai was not typically one to get nervous, particularly when meeting new people. It wasn't that they were confident, exactly. Rather, they had learned awhile back that it was easier not to get bent out of shape about what other people thought of them. This was a little bit different, though. Having this discussion with a teacher was willingly putting themselves in a vulnerable position and that was not at easy for Kai. As they walked down the hallway, they tried to take slow, calming breaths.

Kai wasn't actually in Devinder Singh's class that semester, so had never really interacted with the teacher. They didn't have any guesses on how this conversation would go, which only made them feel more nervous. At least if they knew what to expect, they could prepare for that. Outside the door, Kai paused, running their hand through their hair and smoothing out any wrinkles in their shirt.

After taking the moment to compose themselves, Kai knocked on the office door. They waited, almost hoping that there wouldn't be an answer, and then they mentally chastised themselves. No, they this was something they wanted to do and they weren't going to be a big baby about it.

[Devinder Singh]

It was right after the final class of the day, and Devinder was gathering his things. He was ready to head home. He had to run some errands before he could finally go home, however. He had a mental list of groceries he needed to pick up. Plus he had to put gas in his car. Truly, he should have written it all down, since his attention span and memory was spotty, to say the least. Hopefully he wouldn't forget anything, because when he got home he liked to take off his turban and change into more comfortable clothes. If he forgot something, it meant putting everything back on. Which, really, didn't take too long necessarily, especially if he tied a quick parna, the easiest style of turban he knew how to tie, versus the 7 meter long pagri turban he wore everyday to work. Still, it was a hassle. Even with his mutated super speed, he always treated his turban with care.

His to-do list and the impending joy of taking of his turban at the end of the day were all bouncing around in his head when Devinder heard a knock at his office door. He paused with a stack of papers in one hand, ready to put them in his bag. Who could that be? He didn't think he had anyone scheduled for a meeting. Devinder scrambled to grab his day planner and check. No one. Weird.

Devinder sprang across the room in a split second, his mutation lending to how fast he moved. He opened the door and looked at the young person, presumably a student, standing in the hallway outside his office. "Hello?"

[Kai Baxter]

Despite the time taken to compose themselves, Kai was still surprised by the speediness with which the door was opened. He must have been standing right there when they knocked. They tried to blink their surprise away, feeling a bit foolish. At least they were tall and didn't have to gaze too far upward at the teacher. "Hi," they answered, still trying to regather their thoughts that seemed to have been scattered by the opening of the door.

Right, they had planned on what they were going to say. Kai tried to stand a little straighter. "Um, I'm taking your class next semester. There's something I want to talk to you about. Do you have time now?" They were not one to hedge their requests with if you possibly have time and I'm not being too much of a bother. That kind of talk always bothered them. Getting straight to the point was better.

Instinctively Kai noticed his heart rate, which was going a little faster than normal. They wondered briefly why that might be. Maybe they had startled him by knocking on the door right when he was about to leave. They pushed the thought away, though, since it wasn't very important.

[Devinder Singh]

"Oh," Devinder blinked a few times at the student. "Yes, sure, come in." He stepped aside to make way.

"Please, have a seat," Devinder motioned to a chair in front of his desk. He sat across the desk from the student. Curiosity was burning inside him. What did they want to talk about? His foreign studies class was fairly straight forward. The course description that was available online and in the printed course selection handbook explained everything. He had written it himself.

He looked expectantly at the student. "I'm sure you know who I am if you're taking my class," he said lightly, "But I'm very sorry to say that I don't know your name." Devinder knew that in Kalispell, his name stuck out. He had yet to meet another Singh (or any other Indian) in town. That made him memorable to most people.

"But also," he added, "how can I help?"

[Kai Baxter]

Was their heart beating faster because his had been or because they were getting nervous again? Kai wasn't quite sure which is was. Whatever the reason was, they tried to suppress it and calm down again. It wouldn't due to look in anyway unsure of themselves. They wouldn't want him thinking it was because they were in not confident in themselves or what they were about to tell him. They followed the teacher into the room and took a seat.

They did, indeed, know his name. They had checked their schedule for the next semester and were planning on talking to all their teachers. He was the first person they had decided to talk to, though, so they still weren't sure how things were going to go.

"My name's Kai," they answered, once they had situated themselves in the seat. "And, well, actually that's sort of part of what I wanted to talk to you about. It's not really anything to do with your class, specifically." Get to the point, they thought, mentally nudging themselves onward. "You might see something else on the attendance sheet, but I go by Kai." They didn't exactly hate their birth name, but they didn't like saying it out loud incase it encouraged someone to start using it. "I also go by they and them." It wasn't a request. It was a fact, whether people abided by it or not. Again, no mention of an alternative. They preferred for people to not even know what their biological gender was, if it could be avoided.

[Devinder Singh]

At Kai's words, Devinder did a double take. They and them pronouns? In that moment, his heart broke a little. He could see the cracks in Kai's put on confidence, but could hear the determination in their voice. And having their birth name on the registry instead of their chosen name? That must be hard. Devinder tore his eyes away from Kai's face, not wanting to make them uncomfortable, and looked down at his messy desk for a few moments, thinking hard on what to say next.

The truth was, Devinder himself felt like he didn't belong to a gender. He presented as masculine, that was obvious, but it had taken him a long time to feel okay with how he looked. That was one downside to his religion and his culture: there were gendered expectations that he felt a tremendous amount of pressure to conform to. As a younger man, he had had a few meltdowns. Cutting his beard off had been one, (he had since grown it back, except kept it short. He couldn't bear to have it any longer than it already was, once it started getting too long he spiralled into a dysphoric depression), even choosing to continue wearing a turban was a hard choice. While it was true that some Sikh women also wore turbans, when the majority of people saw his it marked him as a Sikh man. That was just how he was seen, and he didn't know if he could, or was even willing to, change that. He had never experimented with pronouns, although "they" and "them" suited him better than "he". 

"Of course, Kai," he said, his Indian accented voice tinged with some emotion. "Whatever I can do to make you feel comfortable and safe." The first step for next semester would be introducing the concept of preferred pronouns into the classroom: starting the first class off by introducing himself and saying his what pronouns he went by, and encouraging everyone else in the class to do the same in an attempt to normalize it for students who had perhaps never considered trans-identified people before.

Devinder looked up at Kai again. He felt his heart beat pick up. His face was burning, although with his darker skin tone, it was hard to see him flush red. "Kai, I want this to be a safe space for you. I myself identify somewhere on the gender-neutral scale. So please know that I will do everything I can to support you."

[Kai Baxter]

When Devinder looked away after Kai's explanation, they tried to gauge what that reaction might mean. They continued to gaze straight at the teacher, not wanting to appear embarrassed by averting their own gaze. They hadn't been using they and them pronouns for very long and had only started making their desire known even more recently. It had taken them a bit of time after coming to terms with their gender identity to start telling people to use those pronouns. For awhile, they hadn't corrected people, regardless if they used feminine or masculine pronouns. And even once they did start, they had gotten a variety of reactions, with quite a few people simply refusing. Now that they were at Bellefonte and knew they were going to be there for awhile, they wanted to be more assertive.

Although it was, for the most part, true that Kai didn't care much about other people's opinions of them, it was a relief to have the teacher accept what they said and say that he wanted them to be comfortable. It was more than just saying that it was fine or that he would use the pronouns himself. They weren't trusting enough to believe that this was going to go perfectly, but it was a start and they were surprised by how much better it made them feel.

Once again they sensed the teacher's heart rate pick up and Kai wondered, in the moment before he spoke, what he might be preparing to say. Would he qualify his previous statement? Say he would do nothing about other students? What he actually said, though, that was what really surprised Kai. That hadn't even begun to enter the realm of possibilities of what they imagined he might say. After trying to hard to look composed, they completely failed at masking their astonishment. The hardness in their face melted away.

"Really?" was all they managed to say at first. They had never met anyone, except on the internet, that sympathized with their feelings. They suddenly had so many questions they wanted to ask. "Are you... do other people here know?" They wanted to know if they should keep it to themselves or if it was okay to mention. There were other questions too, like why did he present so masculine (although Kai did feel a bit guilty about wanting to ask).

[Devinder Singh]

When Kai asked if other people knew, if Devinder was out, he got a sinking feeling in his chest. He felt like he had already failed this student. No, he wasn't out. Not because he didn't feel safe, but because his complicated relationship with gender was no one's business, especially since he was now comfortable presenting as male. When he was younger, it was different. During one of his early breakdowns, when he didn't have the language to describe how he was feeling, he had thrown a fit and swore to never wear a turban, or any other gendered symbols, again. This had upset his father, and after a day of sobbing in his room, Devinder came out timidly, wearing a parna-style turban. As he grew older and left home, he had chances to experiment with gender and sexuality. Now, on the surface, he knew he appeared very heteronormative. But at heart, he was agender and bisexual. But, he never really brought it up with anyone.

"I'm not out," Devinder admitted. "Not because I don't think I'd be accepted, or that people would react badly. But because I don't think it's anyone's business. I'm fine to be called 'he'."

He looked at Kai, a gentle expression softening his face. "I think you'll find support here. And I will certainly be your champion if you ever need it." He thought about the times he had needed support as a young queer. The times when he had desperately needed someone to tell him it was okay to want to kiss boys as well as girls. Someone to tell him that it was okay to not feel like a man, to tell him he wasn't a bad Sikh for feeling that way. He would be that for Kai, if they wanted.

[Kai Baxter]

"Oh." Kai was disappointed and it was difficult not to show it. At least he had said that people at the school would be accepting. As much as they were able to brush off other people's opinions of them, it was still painful to have people disregard their wishes and deny their identity when it didn't affect anyone else in the least. If what he said was true, even just a little bit, it would mean a lot. All Kai asked was to be acknowledged for who they actually were. It shouldn't have been much, but somehow it was.

Although it was difficult to understand why he wouldn't come out if he felt he could or why he would present as male with male pronouns, Kai attempted to empathize. It wasn't really their strongest trait and even though they identified as queer, they had had very little interaction with other people who felt similarly to how they did. They didn't fully understand the nuances of gender identity, presentation and different types of dysphoria. They only knew how they felt and what made them feel more comfortable, which was to present as androgynous as possible most of the time and to use gender neutral pronouns. That was what non-binary meant to them and so it was difficult to wrap their mind around anything else. They supposed they could sort of understand the sentiment that it was no one else's business. In a way, they agreed, they just thought that was all the more reason for people to simply accept things and move on.

Kai took a breath, clearly bracing for something that was difficult for them to say. What they did end up saying was probably natural for most people, but had never been easy for Kai, not because they weren't appreciative, but rather because it created vulnerability. "Thanks." It was slightly strained, but it was heartfelt. He reminded them of Mrs Dues, one of the people who had had the biggest positive impact on Kai's life. They hoped that he would continue to remind them of her.

[Devinder Singh]

Devinder struggled not to let his face crumple. He heard the disappointment in Kai's voice. Still, he couldn't allow his personal feelings to get in the way of being the role model that this student needed. "I come from a very--" he searched for the right words, "--heteronormative home. And society, for that matter." Devinder knew that he didn't have to explain himself to Kai, but he wanted to. He had never opened up about his gender before, but Kai seemed to be struggling, and Devinder was going to be supportive. "In my religion, men and women are expected to act certain ways. As a man, I'm expected to uphold certain morals and ideals, and part of that is presenting myself in a particular way." He motioned at his beard first, and then his turban. "Technically, I'm not supposed to cut my beard. But I choose to keep it short, because if I have it any longer than this, I get very depressed."

It was harder than he expected to find the proper English words to describe his feelings about gender. For a fleeting moment, he wished that Kai understood Punjabi. He could have poured out his soul with no restrictions. "I choose to wear a turban because that's part of my religion. It's one of five symbols of a Sikh. I didn't want to wear it when I was younger. I thought it was restricting me. But as I got older, I decided that what I felt was no one's business but mine." He knew that Kai probably couldn't relate to the religious strife he had experienced as a young person, but he hoped that the anecdote could get through. Devinder's relationship with his religion was a complex one, and would take a lot more explanation for Kai to understand it completely, but that wasn't the point. He and Kai belonged to the same community, and the way Devinder saw it, he was not only Kai's teacher, mentor, or role model, but he would step up as a surrogate older sibling, if Kai needed and wanted.