The meeting, or whatever happened at a GSA, hadn’t started yet when Thomas and Logan entered the room. They found a place to sit and Thomas focused on whether or not Logan was panicking so that he wouldn’t accidentally end up staring at the other people in the room. He didn’t want to be the jerk who stared holes into the kids who were different.

A girl with pink and blue streaks in her black hair shuffled closer to where they were sitting. “I like your shirt.” She said softly to Logan.

“Oh, thanks.” Logan glanced down at his shirt. Thomas looked at it too, noticing for the first time that it had something written on it. It said ‘I am a Person’ in rainbow coloured letters. “My sister gave it to me. I thought it would be appropriate to wear it today.”

The girl laughed. “Very appropriate.” She slipped into the seat on Logan’s other side.

Thomas tapped Logan on the shoulder. “See, you’re doing fine. Didn’t even need anyone to come with you.”

Logan smiled, but he still looked nervous. “You’re not going to leave, are you?”

“Not if you want me to stay.”

“Thanks.” Logan sighed with relief.

Thomas felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text from Ian asking where he was. He realized, with some guilt, that his friends were probably waiting for him in the cafeteria. He quickly typed out an apology, explaining that he wouldn’t make it to lunch today, but didn’t tell them where he was.

When he looked up from his phone again, Mrs. Rust was standing at the front of the room. She raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t call him out for being there. Or was it a teacher thing about him being on his phone in the classroom? He returned his phone to his pocket quickly.

“Welcome, everyone, to our first meeting of the year.” Mrs. Rust addressed the group. “Let’s start by going around and sharing your name, pronouns, and what brings you here today.” She gave a sympathetic smile when she spotted some nervous looking faces. “You can pass if you’re really uncomfortable, but I assure you that this is a safe space, and what is said in this room won’t leave if you don’t want it to.”

That sounded a bit optimistic to Thomas, this being high school. But then he looked around and was reminded that the kids here weren’t the kids who spread gossip.

As the kids around him introduced themselves, Thomas felt his head start to spin. Terms he didn’t understand were being thrown around, and it seemed he was the only one who didn’t know what they meant. Terms like biromantic, greysexual, and quoiromantic.

The girl with the streaks in her hair beside Logan, whose name was Lana, told them she ‘didn’t know what she was, but it sure as hell wasn’t straight’.

Then all eyes were on Logan. “Hi.” He said quietly. “Uh, my name’s Logan, I use he/him pronouns, and, uh, I wanted to join the GSA because…” He trailed off.

Thomas looked at him, wondering what was wrong and if there was anything he should do. He was there for support, so if Logan was struggling, he should do something.

Logan met his eyes and he tried to give a reassuring smile. Instead of the nervous nod he expected to get in return, Logan just turned away quickly and shut his eyes. He took a shaky breath before opening them again.

“I’m an FtM, and I really want to transition now that I’m in high school.”