Friday, June 19th, 2020
“I’m a girl now.” Fourteen, well nearly fourteen, year old Albus plainly informed her dad, deciding to tell her mom later that day when she came to pick her and her siblings up for the weekend. It had been like that since James began his first year; one summer they would be with their dad 8:00 P.M. Sunday-8:00 P.M. Friday and their mom 8:00 P.M. Friday-8:00 P.M. Sunday, and the next summer the opposite. Before that it switched by the month, as it did during the school year for Albus and Lily—and then just Lily— until all three were at Hogwarts, last September. They used to all live together, but then Harry and Ginny got divorced when Albus was three, and so only James really remembered those days, though not well, being five during the divorce. Poor Lily was only one though, so she doesn’t have a single memory of them being a full family. None of the fighting either, though.
Harry sat with his head tilted to the side, eyes squinted, and mouth open for about ten seconds before he responded. “Huh?”
“I’m a girl now.”
“You’re a girl?”
“Yes.”
“....Why?”
She needed to remain calm, logical, level-headed. Everything would be fine, everything would be fine, everything would be fine. It had to be.
“Al?”
“I don’t like being a boy.”
“You what?”
“I don’t like being a boy, I don’t want to be one anymore. It doesn’t make me feel safe or comfortable or seen. So, I’m a girl.”
“Are you sure this isn’t just an autism thing?”
“Dad.”
“I just mean—your psychologist said that autism makes the world…different…to you. Are you sure you’re uncomfortable because you’re a boy? Maybe it’s just the…brain difference…between you and others.”
“It’s not a ‘brain difference’ it’s a neurological developmental disability.”
“Yeah, but it makes your brain different.”
Albus carefully took a deep breath, releasing it through her nose. “My brain being shaped differently from allistics does not make me a girl. Me being a girl makes me a girl.”
“I just—”
“Dad.”
“Al?”
“I am not a toddler, I have the capability to self-reflect and realize things about my identity. I would understand if you were hesitant if I was younger, even though gender can develop as young as two, but I am a teenager. I am autistic, yes, but I am also a girl.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Do you want James and Lily to get hurt?”
“What?! Al, of course not! What makes you think that could ever be true?”
“You never tell them you don’t think something is a good idea because you ‘just don’t want them to get hurt’, just me.”
“Well….” Harry looked away, rosy cheeked. “Things are different for you.”
“Because I’m autistic.”
“I mean….Yeah….Yes, things are different because you’re autistic.”
“Why?”
“People with autism—”
“Autistic people.”
“Autistic people are easier to manipulate, to hurt.”
“I’m not naïve. I know you think we’re all naïve, but we aren’t. Yes, things like manipulation, rape, and such things are a serious problem in the disabled community, but infantilizing me isn’t helping anything.”
“The average lifespan is like thirty.”
“Thirty-nine, but the global average is seventy.”
“And all of those deaths come from things like drowning and murder. Autism in itself can’t kill you.”
“Not all of them, many are from suicide, in fact it’s the leading cause. I believe we’re three times more likely to kill ourselves than allistics.”
Harry went silent, turning white and sucking his cheeks into his mouth which reminded Albus of what she did when she felt like she was going to vomit.
Maybe she had gone too far. “Dad?”
“I don’t want you to kill yourself, I really don’t.”
“I know.”
“How do I keep you from killing yourself? I do what I can,—therapy, all the accommodations you ask for, meds—but I don’t think it’s enough. I’ll do anything.” He sounded desperate.
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Then let me be a girl.”
“Albus—”
“I am a girl, I will be a girl whether you approve of it or not. It’s just, I can either be your daughter or a strange girl your kids talk about sometimes.”
“Or a corpse.” Harry whispered.
“Or a corpse.”
“You really want to be a girl?”
“I am a girl.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, Al, okay. You’re a girl, if it keeps you alive…you’re a girl.”
Albus smiled happily even though she knew to anyone else, including her dad, she still looked blank-faced. “Albus, She/Her.”
He nodded a couple times before finding his words. “Does your mom know?”
“Not yet, I’m telling her tonight.”
More nodding. “Your siblings?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone else?”
“Scorpius Malfoy and Rose.”
“Your cousin Rose?”
“Yes.”
Harry looked down, arms crossing around his stomach, quiet for as long as he could stand. “Okay, then.”
“....Okay.”
It could have been better, but it could have been far worse too, and everything was going to be fine.