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Not certain whether she should be relieved or wary, Isabel nodded. Getting Brooklyn away from Jacob was a good idea, though, so she nodded and said, “Be sure to clean your mess up, sweetheart.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
As the door closed, Isabel gave Jacob one more quiet look. “You going to offer an explanation?”
“What the fuck does it matter?” He jerked a skinny shoulder and moved over to the window, his tone resigned. “I’m sure you’re ready to get rid of me no matter what.”
It’s not going to be that easy, kid,she thought. Turning to Aaron, she lifted a brow.
Aaron gave her an irritated look. “He came barging in and unplugged my amp in the middle of practice, Miss B. I yelled at him, and he yelled back. Then he called me a fucking girl and I shoved him. He shoved me back and I tackled him and ... ” Face red, he looked away. “I’mnota fucking girl. He knows that. We all told him. He’s already done it a couple of times and I’m having a shit day with my dysphoria anyway and hearing it ... ” He sniffed and dragged a hand under his nose, his dark eyes filling with tears. “I fuckinghatethis body and I don’t need some asshole kid reminding me of just how much I hate it, how much I don’t belong in it!”
“Hey, hey ... ” She approached Aaron and gingerly touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry. And you’re right.” She shot Jacob a hard look. “You shouldn’t have to put up with anybody being cruel and reminding you of things that cause you pain.”
Jacob glared right back, but after a few seconds, his eyes flickered to Aaron then fell away.
Since her newest charge had nothing to say at the moment, she focused on Aaron. “I can’t tell you it’s okay to haul off and attack another kid when they’re being transphobic bigots. You know it can cause problems—for you, for me, for the other kids in the house. But I understand it can be hard. No more music practice today and no video games. You and Booker can still hang out until his moms can pick him up. We’ll talk about the rest later ... and if you need to just ... talk, or vent, whatever, come find me.”
Aaron’s shoulders slumped and he nodded but before he turned to go, he darted a look at Travis. “All Travis did was grab us both before we started swinging. He didn’t do anything else.”
“I kinda already figured that, but thank you.” She ruffled Aaron’s hair and wished she could hug him, but he was intensely guarded. She’d learned that he’d let her know when he needed or wanted anything but the barest physical contact. “You two go on. You can put your gear away in about twenty minutes.”
After he and Booker left, she turned and looked at Jacob.
“I want to help you, Jacob. I’m willing to work with you and help you find a home here—but I willnottolerate bigotry or hate directed at another kid in this house. Aaron is aboy. Period.”
“Science says otherwise,” Jacob said with a sneer.
“Oh, really?” Amused now, she folded her arms over her chest. “And just where did you get your degree in ...science? When did you have a chance to look at his chromosomes?”
“She’sgot tits so that meansherchromosomes are the same as yours, XX.” Jacob smirked at her.
“Ah, but you haven’t seenmychromosomes, either, have you? For that matter, you probably haven’t seen yours. And there’s more to chromosomes than just XX and XY. You mention science, but the fact is, actualsciencesupports transgender biology.Thatis the reality. Both the medicalandscientific communities agree. There are numerous studies and articles on it. If you look into the real research being done in genetics, hormones and neurobiology, you’d see what I’m talking about.” Isabel paused, waiting to see what Jacob would say. He just glared at her. “And that’s just the focus on transgender individuals. What about intersex people, those who fit in between the binary? Those who are born with both testes and ovaries, for example. You could have the external genitalia of a female but undescended testes, which are part of the male reproductive system. And there’s vice versa.”
The boy’s face shot to fire-engine red and he jerked his eyes away.
“Oh, is this making you uncomfortable?” Isabel smiled sweetly. “You’re the one who felt perfectly comfortable referring to someone’s ... tits—they aren’t your tits, though, are they? Neither Aaron’s body, nor his body parts concern you, so why isthisdiscussion bothering you? You’re so grown up, and you know so much. So, let’s continue. And yes, intersex is a thing. One to two out of every one hundred births, across the world, are born intersex. That means there are literallymillionsof intersex people in the US alone.”
He opened his mouth, hesitated then snapped it closed.
Isabel wasn’t done.
“If you’re not too up to date on the facts of intersex people, it’s going tostunyou to learn that there are chromosome pairings like XXY, XYY, XXYY.” She frowned and paused to consider. “I believe there might be another couple in there. Then there are babies born with ambiguous genitalia and atypical genitalia. There is androgen insensitivity, conditions like güevedoces, Swyer syndrome—that’s when a baby is born with the XY chromosomes and has the gonads of a male, but also has the external genitalia of a female and some female reproductive organs ... they are usually unable to get pregnant naturally, but there have been a few rare cases.” She arched a brow as Jacob’s mouth dropped open. “What ... didn’t you read about these conditions and cases when you were reading up on ... science?”
He stood with rigid shoulders now, gaze locked on the ground.
“People are complicated, Jacob. The human body is complicated. Sex and gender aren’t synonymous. More and more biologists and scientists in general argue that sex and genderaren’tbinary. You have various genetic components that come into play and current research seems to point to a genetic component to being transgender. So if you want to arguescience, perhaps you should actually read up and see what science has to say.” Lifting a shoulder, Isabel said, “Basically, you can’t get by using a poor understanding of science to justify you being a bigot.”
Thatmade him look up, eyes narrowed and gaze hot. “I’mnota bigot. It’s just that all that shit is made up.”
“Are you going to tell me the earth is flat, too?”
She thought she heard Travis laugh, but the sound was cut off so quickly, she couldn’t be sure.
“No!” Aaron’s face was hotly red now but he was looking at her again, hands balled into fists. “I’m not one of those crazy quacks. But all that made up is shit about XYZ and guvo-whatever ... that’s not for real.”
She propped a hand on her hip. “Okay, so ... I just told you there are numerous studies that support what I’ve said. You are telling me you believe inrealscience?”
“Yeah.” He curled his lip at her. “If it’sreal, with facts and shit. That kind of real science.”
