Emmerson checks the door. “You know what, screw this.” He aims his nose at Wellcamp. “Everyone knows why they put us together. Let’s talk about why you pose as trans to get more followers and, like, minority cred.”

“She doesn’t even have gender dysphoria,” Henry says. “Ask her, mate.”

At the pronoun, air sucks out of the audience. I cross my arms over my chest. At home, I have a set of expensive binders, still stored in their wrappers. When I try them on they hurt as badly as the kids say and worse, due to my soft, aging torso.

Wellcamp leans back, shaking blue hair off their face. The way their hair moves—of a piece and so dry—it’s obvious it’s a wig. “I don’t believe in gender dysphoria.”

Emmerson and Henry groan.

Wellcamp closes their eyes. “Can’t we rethink our language? Why is our community so negative? What about gender euphoria for once?”

Surely there are moments, many moments, in a transition that trigger euphoria. Like when I ordered the binders, or when I pin my hair back so fiercely it looks short. I turn to Sunny for approval, but his mouth is tight.

Henry’s skin brightens under his freckles: “Of course it’s negative to be trans. You’re born wrong, so what the fuck, of course! You want what you’ll never have. I’ll never have a normal willy. I’ll never have inbred male confidence. I’ll never get those extra little pushes forward a real boy gets one billion times before he even knows what gender is.”

“All I’m saying,” says Wellcamp, “is that isn’t everyone’s way. Some people make changes out of joy.” They spin a hand over their front, their sparkly top ruffling. “I got top surgery out of joy.” They point out a patch on their wrist like an acid burn. “I got phalloplasty out of joy.” They dangle their fingers over the rim of the table. “I’m wearing nail polish and this hair because it all makes me happy.”

“Then why?” Emmerson’s voice is so strained he’s barely audible. “What motivates you if you were so happy before? Why pay a hundred thousand dollars to slice up your junk if you’re literally spinning around a mountaintop singing about joy?”

Sunny’s hands clench his chair. Does he remember my sister’s fights with his father, a stumpy architect who left when Sunny was three? Last year Sunny wrote him a letter. His father responded: I don’t have a son. If Nathan had stayed, Sunny would be halfway through the wrong puberty, miserable and silent. Bangs in his eyes, shoulders hunched around breasts, thinner even than he is now, his voice low and dead. Me at his age.

“She’s fucked, dude,” says Emmerson to Henry. He turns to Wellcamp. “You’re discrediting our community.”