So What Are Your Pronouns?

Sophie had just finished doing her homework in a bathroom stall and was on her way to math. Just as she was about to finish holding her breath, she walked through the cloud of crème-brûlée flavored Juul smoke, turned around to check for tampon wrappers that might have gotten stuck on her shoe, and saw a (oooooOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOO!)—person of unidentifiable gender identity!!! (scream.) Given that Stuyvesant has no gender neutral bathrooms (no subs [@ the administration]), she couldn’t be sure if the person identified as a lady or something sort of close, was biologically female, was gender-fluid and lacking better options, or simply didn’t care all that much about gender presentation. And worse—there was a tampon wrapper stuck to her (their? Zeir?) shoe!

Sophie wanted to be politically correct, but couldn’t help making assumptions. Damn the conditioning of a gender-saturated society!

“Um, well, excuse me?” The ooooOOOOOO let out a cloud of smoke into the bathroom mirror and checked their hair with their other hand. (Sophie wasn’t sure if it counted as checking their hair, considering they barely had any). “You have a… on your…”

The ooooOOOOO looked back at Sophie with the sort of disdain it probably had for gender stereotypes. “Uh huh?”

“There’s a… tampon… on your...”

“A tampon?” She (she?) was seeming more and more exasperated with Sophie by the moment. Feeling judged, Sophie moved a hand to wipe off her own lipstick and move her tube top up to cover up her cleavage. She messed up her hair to imply a disregard for gendered standards of beauty.

“A wrapper. On your shoe.”

The OooooooOOOOOOOOOoOOOOOOOOOO looked down at its Doc Martens and pulled off the offending pink, floral-patterned piece of plastic. Watching this gesture, it occurred to Sophie that period management products were unnecessarily hyperfeminine. Did one really needed to be reminded of the delicate, artificially flower-scented nature of their femininity while popping a blue pill, or while shoving a wad of cotton up their vagina to halt the unceasing flow of blood? It would certainly be helpful to a lot of trans-masc folk in dealing with their dysphoria.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“I’m Sophie, by the way.”

The oooOOOOO did not seem to care.

“I use she/her pronouns.”

“Cool,” it said, and moved to tuck in its shirt.

“What are your…”

It didn’t move its attention away from the mirror.

“Oh. I don’t really care.”

Sophie went white with shock.