Lenny Pierce
November 14, 2022 10:37 PM
Dear Ellie by Lenny Pierce
The crisis had begun twenty minutes ago when Cole left for Quidditch practice. Lenny had called out, “Bye! Have fun!”
Except the last word had dropped low. Lower than Lenny’s voice had ever gone before.
And he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
Cole had noticed. How could he not have? But where Lenny was inwardly freaking the heck out, Cole had just grinned, made a casual remark about puberty, and gone off to Quidditch.
Leaving Lenny to panic all by himself.
Easy for Cole to joke. He wasn’t even thirteen yet and hadn’t had any problems like this so far. His voice hadn’t done something stupid. Lenny was a terrible singer. His voice had never been as good as he would have liked it to be, but this was awful on a whole different scale. This was wrong.
He was afraid of trying to speak again because his voice might stay like that. He was half tempted to take an immediate vow of silence except he was pretty sure that would literally kill him.
His next letter began, Dear Ellie, and the following words came easier.
Hi, this is Lenny from Sonora. I joined your club last year. I am the boy who wears dresses.
He felt this would sufficiently jog her memory. People tended to remember him, and this was a fairly distinguishing characteristic, as much as it bothered him that more boys did not feel they were allowed to be pretty.
I am not a first year anymore. I turned thirteen in September. I think puberty is starting and I’m scared. I don’t like it and I don’t want it. I am happy to be a boy. I am not okay being a man. I don’t know if I want to be a woman either, but that’s not as terrifying to me as being a man and I don’t know why that never occurred to me until the change was imminent. I like being kind of ambiguous and my voice cracked today and if that’s my grown up voice, it is not ambiguous, and I want nothing to do with it.
I don’t know what to do. Can this be stopped before it goes any further? And if I change my mind later, can I make it start again? I always identified as male before, even when I like so many girly things, so it might just be growing up panic and not gender panic at all, but I just don’t know and I don’t want a deep voice and I feel like that’s going to happen really terrifyingly soon if I don’t do something.
Please help me? I’ve never thought I might be trans before. Nonbinary, if anything. I don’t even know what my options are. Where do I even start? The library? The medic? My parents?
Hope all is well with you.
♥
Lenny Pierce
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Lenny Pierce
Dear Ellie
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Ellie Alperton
December 04, 2022 3:26 PM
Dear Lenny by Ellie Alperton
Dear Lenny,Of course I remember you :) Sorry to hear you're going through a rough time.
I've done my best to gather some advice from different sources - different people, as well as organisations that help with this kind of thing.
Firstly, my own experience... It's not super similar to yours. I've always known I was a girl, and more of my energy was spent on fighting to be allowed to be that. Not with my family, who've always been great, but with school systems, acccess to treatment etc. I did puberty blockers (more on those later) followed by cross-sex hormone therapy. They won't let you have the latter until you are a Real Adult who can definitely make A Serious Decision. I felt like I was behind everyone else, and I just wanted to get through puberty because I hated being on pause and being made to wait when I knew what I wanted. I'm just telling you this so that the context is clear when I say that even I had moments of doubt and panic. I'd known who I was for as long as I could remember, but something about having to actively take medication and make a decision about it will make little wormy anxieties start up in your brain.
For a similar/opposite perspective, I asked my very definitely cis brother what he thought of puberty (not that I'm calling you cis). He said it was 'gross and awkward' but his feeling was that going through it was less awful than hearing about it in sex education or waiting to go through it - like, they hit you with this wall of info that sounds wild but day by day you just sorta roll with it. Seth is very much a 'just roll with it' kind of guy in all things though. My point here was that even 'just roll with It' cis guys get a bit freaked by the idea of puberty, but on rereading, I don't know how much that comes across.
I also spoke to a couple of nonbinary friends. Their experience is pretty different to yours, in that they grew up with pretty traditional expectations so those first forrays into painting their nails and wearing 'unexpected' clothing felt like exploration and discovering newness - with that newness then creating a sense of balance for them. It sounds more like you already have a balance and you're afraid of it being upset. They did say that no single feature makes you nonbinary or not. You can have a beard or a deep voice and still be nonbinary. There is no level of ambiguity or androgyny or 'passing' or 'confusing the cis' required to qualify (they did also point out that a lot of cis people are so narrow in their view of gender that someone who reads to them as 'clearly male but wearing a skirt' is enough to break their little brain boxes and put someone in the 'I don't know' column). None of this sounds quite like what you're experiencing or wanting to be - it sounds like you enjoy the ambiguity, rather than thinking you need it to be valid, and that you're scared of losing something you like about yourself, but hopefully seeing a range of perspectives is helpful.
As for treatments, yes. There are medications called puberty blockers, which do what they sound like they do. I'm attaching a leaflet from the McLeod Foundation about non-magical and magical options and how to access them. My experience of them is having my hormones monitored and taking them before puberty started (and, in 'signs you've definitely trans,' had recurring nightmares about not getting them on time or them suddenly not working and waking up Very Male Looking). They won't reverse anything that's happened already, but they do stop any further development. Be aware that, if you're engaging with the medical system, there can be quite a lot of hoop-jumping ad waiting. It's do-able, but just a warning that it won't be a one and done trip like getting antibiotics (erm... I forget if you know what I mean by that. Substitute 'an every day medicinal potion' if you don't).
If you or your parents have questions, or if you just want to hang out with someone maybe under the same umbrella as you, I'd be happy to visit.
Take care. Write again to let me know how you're doing.
Ellie. <3
OOC: Smiley would be drawn the right way up in Ellie's letter and the heart would be an actual heart.
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Ellie Alperton
Dear Lenny
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