When she was just X-23, there was no guidelines surrounding how she thought of herself.
She did not think of herself at all, because she did not exist- she did not have a soul. She had no thoughts or feelings outside of what she was told to do, no time for inner turmoil with missions to complete and orders to carry out.
(It was simpler, then. Not right, not good, but simpler.)
When she joined up with the X-men, most knew that her cloning was not perfect, that Logan’s Y chromosome was switched to her double X. No one questioned it on her team, just shrugged and continued their fun, their work, their drama. No one realized that that was not quite the reality.
She had read the files, on the way to San Francisco when she was thirteen years old. She knew Weapon X had been captured under false premises, that the subject was actually female, that Dr. Kinney had been forced to bend over backwards to give the clones a y-chromosome in the X’s place, that she was born male in an attempt to create a stronger weapon.
Julian, Santo, and Sooraya had been the first to bring the topic of identity to her concern, over a shared bottle of Mountain Dew mixed with other unknowable contents at midnight. The rules of the game prompted each member of the group to tell a secret or take a swig and a dare. Each child had quickly become bored of the traditional rules, instead taking the opportunity to tell stories and drink the Pepsi bottles Santo had stolen from Chase Stein.
Mostly, she listened to their voices rather than pipe up herself.
Julian was in the middle of a rather unbelievable story of his childhood, featuring his older brother and a large pool.
“Obviously, y’know,” he whispered conspiratorially, “I wasn’t going to swim- my scrawny trans ass wouldn’t’ve gone near a pool if you paid me.”
She looked up, confused, and Santo smiled at her. “What’s up?”
“What is trans?” she asked, blushing. She assumed it was slang, or some form of a word she did not recognize.
Julian took the explanation on, obviously the expert on the subject. He grinned at her and started talking so quickly she almost missed half the words out of his mouth. “I’m trans! It means you were assigned a gender at birth that you aren’t, really, so you take your actual gender. Like, I’m a trans boy. That means I’m actually a dude, but was born a female.”
Laura squinted.
“Okay. You’re still confused?”
She nodded.
“Do you know what gender is?”
Laura nodded. “The state of being male or female.”
“Nah, that’s sex.” Julian shrugged. “Gender’s what you actually are- boy, or girl, or anything else.”
“You can choose?” she gaped, for once not caring at the range of emotions flicking across her face.
“Fuck yeah.” Julian grinned. “Gender’s fake. Do what makes you comfortable! We’re fucked-up mutant children in 2010! Assigned gender is fake! You can use whatever pronouns you want.”
Pronouns. She knew those. He, she, they, it.
She.
She bit her lip but spoke out loud, to her teammates in that darked living room. “I think,” she faltered, searching for the words that so often escaped her, “that I would like she better. And… my name- my name is Laura. My mother gave it to me. I believe I would like that better than X-23.”
(That was true- her mother had scrawled two names on the sheet- James, for a boy, and Laura, for a girl. She had written for when you know, which she had assumed to mean when she met with her father. This must have been the true reason.)
“Fuck yeah!” Julian hollered. “The trans x-squad have a new member!”
He held his hand out expectantly and Santo slapped it, grinning. The rocky boy clapped her on the back hard and Julian hollered again, nearly knocking over the drink. Sooraya’s eyes danced and she gave her a thumbs-up, her hand still dusty from the training in the earlier afternoon.
Laura bit down a grin as Julian started rambling again, listening as his eyes lit up.
Being trans in the X-men was more common than not, which helped immensely. Ororo and Jean helped her find hormones and clothing she liked better than Logan’s old plaid shirts. Scott worked long hours to manage a legal name change. By the time she was seventeen years old, Laura Kinney existed to the world at large.
It was not perfect. It was not easy. Some days she did not dwell on it. Most days, she did.
But life had improved. She had discovered herself, her father explained over his story of gaining top surgery on regrowable skin. That, he said, made all the difference in the universe.