Sorority Bet

Evan and his friends kept making increasingly unreasonable bets. Nothing dangerous, exactly, just nearly impossible feats of social engineering. Last month his friend Dan had convinced over a thousand people to show up to a non-existent music festival, winning the adoration of their friend group (and five hundred dollars). Now it was Dan’s turn to bet Evan, and he had no idea what to expect.

“Evan,” Dan intoned, “I bet you can’t… get accepted to join a sorority.”

Evan glared for a moment, before putting a practiced blank look on his face. Dan knew he was a little weird about gender, becoming uncharacteristically silent when topics like drag or crossdressing came up. But he’d figured out an angle. “Any additional parameters?”

“Yes. It has to be a chapter of a sorority registered with our university’s Greek Council. You as an individual must apply, show up in person, and be accepted as a member after that. Coed social or professional fraternities don’t count, even if they have sorority in the name.”

“Sounds good to me. Shake on it?” The two shook hands solemnly as their third friend Brendan acted as a witness.

“Thus the oath is sealed!” Brendan announced. Evan laughed. “Dork.”

“Hey, being a nerd is cool now. Chicks love it.”

“Whatever, man. Gonna go get started on my applications?”

“Yeah? Good luck, dude. You’re gonna need it,” Dan said.

“Pfft, you wish. Better get ready to pay up.”

***

Once home, Evan opened his laptop and searched “transgender sorority mission state.” He quickly navigated to the Facebook page of the university’s premier (and only) LGBT sorority, called Lambda Sigma Beta, or LSB for short.

Reading their mission statement, LSB “set out to provide a social group, support network, and meaningful connections between those who have ever, currently, or will ever live and/or identify as a woman”.

Perfect. I should be able to just tell them I’m transgender and haven’t transitioned yet. There’s really no way to verify that either way, and if they refuse to let me in it’ll look like they’re transphobic. And that way I won’t have to deal with, like, clothes. I may not have that much shame but I don’t think I could deal with people pointing and laughing at me wearing a dress.

Scrolling down a bit, it looked like they were having a social dinner for potential members next Tuesday. He added the event to his calendar and then started researching trans terminology and common experiences.

***

“Hey, it’s so nice to meet you! I’m Evan!” He shook hands with the group of girls wearing LSB shirts.

Now that he looked more, actually, he wasn’t completely sure all of them were girls. There was one person who definitely looked more like a guy--with a patchy beard and everything--and others who looked like probably really butch lesbians. One in particular had a buzzcut and overalls.

Looking around at the other potential members, he mostly saw fairly normal looking girls, with some dyed hair and undercuts and piercings. One person stood out as, like, crazy tall--at least a head taller than his 5’10”. He glanced at her feet and she was wearing sneakers.

About fifteen minutes after the event was supposed to start, a girl stood up and announced, “We’re going to have a brief presentation about Lambda Sigma Beta, with snacks afterwards.” Several people cheered at the word “snacks.”

She continued. “So I’m Siena, our current chapter president. To help everyone get to know each other, there’s some nametags on the table that you can put your name and pronouns on, if you’d like. But before that, let’s talk a little about what LSB actually is.

“Basically, we’re a social sorority. That means we don’t have a house or anything, but we do have regular meetings and events. Attendance generally isn’t required but it’s definitely encouraged, as a way to get to know the other members and to do some good in the community. We have some fun events like group trips, some fundraising events to help pay for the fun events, and some charity events. We generally like to keep things like, although we do have one rule that’s just based on past experience: no dating other members. Obviously, if you’re already dating someone and you both join, that’s one hundred percent fine, but otherwise it’s something we try to avoid.

“Okay, now that’s all the boring stuff out of the way! Anyone have any questions?

The really tall girl raised her hand. In a quiet voice that was slightly deeper than Evan expected, she asked, “Just to make sure, what’s your policy on transgender members?”

“Good question! We’re completely open to people of all and any gender, as long as you have identified or present as a woman at some point. We try to provide an inclusive space for everyone in the queer community, plus allies.”

Evan briefly suppressed a grin. Things couldn’t be going more perfectly for his plan! The tall girl seemed to notice and looked at him a bit oddly.

“Okay, any other questions?” Another girl asked something about scheduling conflicts for student athletes, but by then Evan had basically stopped paying attention. He started meandering towards the table with snacks, hoping to be at the front of the line once one formed.

After looking around for any more hands, Siena said “I guess that’s all for now. Please feel free to come talk to me or any of the other members if you have any questions, and now it’s time for free food! Yay!” She pressed something on her phone and a portable speaker started blasting the song “All Star” by Smash Mouth.

Evan grabbed some potato chips and pretzel sticks and a cup of lemon-lime soda, as well as a name tag and a marker. He thought for a moment before writing “Evan/any pronouns”. He figured that was noncommittal enough that it would support the narrative he was trying to craft, while keeping up the pretense that he was worried about being outed as trans outside a limited group.

Wandering around a bit, he ended up face-to-face with the person wearing overalls. Looking at the nametag they wore he saw “Chris she/her” and internally let out a small sigh of relief. Being around so many people whose gender he wasn’t sure of had been making him feel--odd, like the ground had fallen away from beneath his feet. The structure he was used to suddenly disappearing. Like, was gender even real? How was anyone supposed to know what gender anyone was?

“Hey, I’m Chris,” she said. “Well, I guess the nametag says that. So you’re Evan? Uh, what’s your major?”

He didn’t see any reason to lie about this. “I’m double majoring in political science and rhetoric. I’d be doing a dedicated pre-law program but the university doesn’t have one.”

Chris made a face. “Ew, lawyers.” She laughed. “Nah, just kidding. My sister is doing poli sci, actually.”

“Oh, cool. Here or at another school?”

“Here, actually! She’s two years younger than me so she’s still a frosh but that’s her plan at least. Either that or econ.”

“Nice! I thought about doing econ. Oh, what’s your major?”

“I’m looking at English with a minor in Environmental Science. Honestly, writing is my passion. I also do slam poetry, actually. You should come to a show some time!”

“Sure, sounds cool!” Evan said while secretly thinking anything but. Slam poetry was way up there in student performances he’d like to avoid, lagging a bit behind the Vagina Monologues and improv comedy. “It was great to meet you but I think I’m going to go talk to some of the other members now.”

“Nice meeting you! I’m gonna go get another drink before they run out of apple juice.”

He made polite small talk with several other of the members. There was Amalia, an integrative biology major; Cierra (not to be confused with Siena), an art history major; Eda, a gender and women’s studies major; Rebecca, an ethnomusicology/linguistics double major; Kai, a mechanical engineering major; and Eugenia, a computer science major. The whole time, he kept one eye on Siena, waiting for her seemingly endless string of conversations with prospective members to end. Finally, he saw an opportunity and ran over to talk to her.

“Hey, sorry, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, like… basically, I’m trans, I think, but I haven’t really done anything to transition and I’m not really out to anyone. Uh, is there any way I could, hypothetically, join the sorority but not have that be public knowledge outside the group?”

Siena thought for a moment. “Sure, shouldn’t be an issue. We haven’t had this exact situation before but we’ve had similar things where, for example, someone doesn’t want their family to know they’re queer. We use Facebook for a lot of event planning but it’s all in a private group that people can’t see the members of, and as long as you’re willing to take the small risk of, you know, showing up to our closed events I don’t see why that would be a problem. And even if you can’t make most of the events, you’re definitely welcome to join!”

“Great! Thanks so much Siena, that’s all really good to hear.” This time he didn’t bother to repress his grin. His plan couldn’t be going more perfectly. In one fell swoop he had come up with an excuse for why he should be allowed to join a sorority, while making sure it would never affect the rest of his social life. Sometimes his brilliance impressed even him.

***

Evan attended a few more social events, until finally it was the day when they’d hear back about who was accepted. Looking at the throwaway email he’d used to sign up, he was thrilled to see he’d been accepted.

The email said to meet in front of the student union next Wednesday at 8 pm. He immediately screenshotted it and sent it to Dan, along with the message Pay up, dude.

Dan immediately responded How do I know this email is real? For all I know you sent it to yourself.

It was a fair point. What will you accept as sufficient proof of membership?

Formal documentation, a roster of members, or the testimony of multiple current members of the same chapter would be sufficient.

I’ll see what I can do. This slightly threw a wrench in Evan’s plans to ditch the initiation, but no big deal. He’d just need to keep up the facade a little longer.

***

That Wednesday, all the new members, along with quite a few current ones, assembled on the quad.

“Okay, gather up!” Siena announced. “So, the university doesn’t allow hazing, and I want to make it clear that participating in this activity is completely optional and won’t affect your membership in any way. But for those who are willing, please put on these blindfolds.” She pulled a bunch of diagonally folded bandanas out of a bag.

To Evan’s complete lack of surprise, every single initiate took one. Social pressure was a powerful thing.

“Now each of you will have an older sibling guide you. As you cannot see, they will act as your eyes, and you must put your trust in them. Please put on your blindfolds now.”

A moment later, Evan felt someone grab his shoulders. A voice behind him whispered “keep walking forward until I tell you to stop, and turn if you can feel me trying to turn you.” A moment later, he started walking forward.

Walking through campus blind was really disorienting. He had no idea where he was, and he had to resist the urge to constantly wave his hands around in front of him out of fear of crashing into a tree.

“A slight step is coming up,” the voice said. He started taking slow, high steps until he felt the jolt of his foot hitting the ground a bit before expected. “Okay, you’re good.”

Finally, they stopped and Siena announced “You’ve made it. Please remove your blindfolds now.”

Evan took the bandana off with a sigh of relief, and turned to see that Chris had been guiding him. She smiled and gave him a thumbs up before pointing towards Siena.

Siena stood with a group of several members who hadn’t been on the quad. There was a table set up with some drinks and a cake on it. All the senior members started applauding.

“You have made it through the trial, and now find yourself among friends. Welcome, siblings. You are the Mu class of the Gamma chapter of Lambda Sigma Beta, and we’re so glad to have you with us.”

Evan unexpectedly found himself choking back tears. Even if he wasn’t really a part of this, it was obvious that this was deeply meaningful to some of the other people there. After a moment, he realized that crying might actually better sell his “closeted trans girl” persona and let the tears flow.

He exchanged hugs with a bunch of people--all of whom asked first if hugging was okay--before getting some champagne and cake. Technically you weren’t allowed to have alcohol on campus, but this was hardly the first time he’d seen someone break that rule. Hell, the departmental meetings for Rhetoric almost always had at least one bottle of wine floating around.

After finishing that, he sidled over to Siena. “Hey, sorry, can I talk to you real quick?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“So uh… I know I asked you not to, you know, spread around that I was a member but… is there a way I could get proof that I joined?”

“Uh, what kind of proof? What is this for, an application? You can list me as a reference if you want.”

“Yeah, that’d be perfect!”

“Okay, here’s my number.” She showed Evan her phone screen and he entered her as a contact. “And just to check, if someone calls about you, what name and pronouns should I use?”

“Evan and he/him should be fine. Don’t want to out myself to potential employers, y’know?”

Siena scowled. “Yeah, it’s really fucked up that employment discrimination against trans people is still legal most places. I’m really sorry you have to deal with that, that’s so shitty.”

Evan shrugged, feeling a bit guilty. “It is what it is.”

“Just to check, are those the pronouns you’d prefer me and the other members of LSB to use? When non-members aren’t around, I mean. Obviously we’ll honor your request to avoid outing you.”

Well, I feel like there’s an obvious answer that an actual trans girl would give here. And eh, why not? It doesn’t really matter what pronouns someone calls me.

“Uh, when it’s just the group, she/her? If that’s okay.”

“Absolutely!” She paused for a moment. “I know at the orientation your nametag said any pronouns… feel free to say no, but there’s an exercise I read about to help people figure out how they feel about different pronouns.”

“Sure, do you want to do it right now? Does it require any equipment?”

“Haha, no. Okay, so--oh, wait, are there any other names you’d like to try out?”

He did have an answer to this preplanned, as he thought a real trans girl probably would. After looking at way too many lists of baby names, he had eventually just settled on the most obvious option. “Uh… Eva, I guess?”

“Okay! So… This is my friend Eva. She’s really cool and I like her a lot. Her personality is great and I hope she appreciates that about herself.”

Evan felt a weird shiver pass over his body as Siena asked “Was that okay?” There I go, being weird about gender again. No one else seems to be like this. If Dan was here he’d be laughing his ass off.

Well, the best lies were mostly just the truth, and his actual feelings seemed as good as any to say. “Yeah, it was… interesting? Definitely not something I’m used to, but I can’t say I hate it either.”

Siena smiled. “Well, figuring yourself out is definitely a process, and I hope maybe I’ve helped a little? And of course let me know if there’s ever anything else you could use help with.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Evan said, still feeling a little odd. “I… I’ll have to think about things, but I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

***

Evan thought it would be prudent to wait a few days after that event, so that the call from Dan would seem more plausibly like something that had gone through hiring bureaucracy.

Finally, Friday evening he and Dan were hanging out at Dan’s place. “Here, Dan, call this number and ask if I’m in LSB. Pretend you’re a potential employer.”

Dan grinned. “Ah, gotcha, the ol fake reference gambit. I’ll do my best.” He dialed in the number and as soon as Siena picked up, put on his best “serious businessman” voice. “Hello? This is Proctor Law, calling to verify some information about an applicant, one Evan West. Yes, that sounds right. Alright, so you can confirm he is a member? Perfect, thanks so much! Have a great day.”

After hanging up, he turned to Evan. “Alright, I’ll admit that was pretty convincing. Where’d you find the girl, Fiverr or something? Tell her it was a good performance but she was a little too effusive.”

“Dude, what the fuck?! I keep giving you clear evidence that I joined this sorority and you keep dismissing it. What do I need to do, bring you as my date to the prom thing they’re organizing or something?

Dan’s grin grew even wider. “Yes, absolutely. I would love nothing more than pretending to be your date. This is gonna be good, don’t you think, honey?” He tried to lean over to kiss Evan on the cheek but Evan slapped him away. “Jesus, dude, save some for the actual event. I always knew you wanted to get into my pants.”

Dan laughed. “Alright, are we gonna play chicken all night, or do you wanna play some Smash? I bet I’ll kick your ass.”

“Fifteen sound good? Alright, we’re on.” They shook on it.

Dan paused for a moment, before adding one more thing. “Oh, and I swear she almost called you Eva before correcting herself? Maybe make sure your next actress reads the script ahead of time.”

“Fuck you, dude.”

“Wow, thanks, I’d love to… Eva.”

Evan shuddered and elbowed his friend. “Sh-shut up, dude! Just for that, I’m gonna spam PK Fire on your ass.”

***

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Dan asked. Dressed in a snazzy suit with a pink, lavender, and blue trie, he gawked at Evan, who was wearing black jeans and a sky blue polo shirt.

“What?” Evan asked, looking down at himself and feeling suddenly insecure. “We’re not all business majors like you, dude. I’m a college student. You really think I own a suit?”

“No, I just meant… it’s a sorority, RIGHT, Eva? This doesn’t… exactly seem to fit the dress code.”

“Actually, the invitation explicitly said that anyone could wear any kind of formalwear they wanted. I know at least one girl is renting a tuxedo.”

“Huh. Don’t they think you’re a girl? Like, I thought you were going to have to… wear a dress or something. Kinda disappointed.”

“I--fuck you, dude, yes, they think I’m a girl. But they know I look like this. I don’t really feel like explaining it, okay?”

“Wait, do they think you’re, like, a super butch lesbian? I mean, I guess I can see it? You’re, like, kinda androgynous. Not a bad look. Wait, but aren’t they gonna think it’s weird your date is a guy?”

“Okay, one, it’s for queer women in general, including bisexuals; and two, it’s just a general plus one. I was just gonna tell people I brought a friend.”

“Aww, damn, rejected again. Why do women always friendzone nice guys like me?” Dan pretended to sob.

Evan whacked his shoulder. “C’mon, dumbass. I don’t want to be more than ten minutes late.”

“Oh, still though, I think you’re a little undressed for a ‘prom’. I think I have something you can borrow, if you want.”

“Oh, sure, man. Thanks. Are you sure it’s gonna fit, though? Like, you’re significantly taller than me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Dan winked before departing into his room and returning with a garment bag. “Here ya go. I’ll, uh, avert my eyes if you wanna change.”

Evan gasped when he opened the bag. “Dan! What the fuck? Why do you even have this?!”

“Dude, I looked at some of your laundry and my friend helped me figure out the sizes. I figured that if you’re joining a sorority, you might need it. Come on, Evaa, I put in a bunch of work to get this. Don’t let it go to waste.”

The bag held a blue dress with lacy embroidery on the front and a long, flaring skirt. It looked like it was exactly Evan’s size.

“Oh, and there’s some heels in the bottom of the bag.” Dan ducked, barely avoiding Evan’s attempt to slap him

“Seriously, Dan, I know your family is rich, but this must have cost a lot. Like, hundreds of dollars. That’s a good chunk of what’s at stake in the original bet. Are you just flexing on me, dude?”

Dan looked down. “Okay, I’m sorry, I may have gone a little overboard. But you’re not gonna let my parents’ money go to waste, right?”

“You’re the one who already wasted it, dude. You should be spending this on a girlfriend or something, not me. I will absolutely not wear it.”

“Yeah, I should’ve expected this… you’ve always been a little insecure in your masculinity. In fact, I’d bet a thousand dollars you wouldn’t follow through with it.”

“A--Are you serious, dude? Okay, fuck it, I’ll take that bet.”

“Alright, shake on it?” They shook.

Evan started heading to his room.

“Dude, where ya goin’?”

“I’m gonna go get changed, obviously.”

Dan grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Now that’s what I like to hear.”

A minute later, Evan stepped out of his room wearing the dress and heels. “Go ahead, laugh.”

Dan shook his head. “You know, usually I love to laugh at you, but you don’t actually look very funny. I could buy you as, like, a lesbian trying to dress up for once.”

“Shut up, dude. Let’s just get going.”

They walked to the event space above the student union where the prom was being held. At first Evan kept flinching whenever they walked by anyone, but after a while he calmed down. No one seemed to particularly care that he was wearing a dress. Maybe that wasn’t so surprising; after all, this was a university town, and people saw stranger things every day. At least he wasn’t yelling or trying to hand out flyers.

They finally reached the doors of the large room. Siena was sitting at a folding table set up next to the open double doors.

“Tickets, please?”

Evan almost went to reach for his pockets before remembering he didn’t have any. “Fuck, I think I left them in my pants. Siena, you know I already Venmoed you, can’t you just let us in?”

Siena laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. We’re not really enforcing the ticket thing, just trying to raise a little money to go towards the fun trip we have planned for later this semester. Also, I love your dress!”

Evan laughed nervously. “Thanks. Uh, Dan here bought it for me.”

Dan said, “You can tell because she has no fashion sense.” Evan shot him an angry look and he shrugged, looking innocent. After a moment Evan stopped glaring. He had been… weirded out by Dan calling him “she,” but it was for the best in keeping the masquerade up.

“Well, either way, you look very nice,” Siena said diplomatically. “Both of you. I love that tie! Well, why don’t you two go on in, and enjoy the dance?”

“Oh, we will,” Dan said, winking before grabbing Evan’s hand and pulling him into the prom.

***

“Okay” Evan hissed. “We went around and said hi to people. It’s pretty clear that I’m a member, right? Can we go now?”

Dan scoffed. “But there’s free food! Don’t you want to get some of that?”

Damnit, Dan knew him too well. Free food was his kryptonite.

“Fine, but can we leave after that? And it’s not like you need free stuff anyway.”

“You think my family got rich by spending money? I like free stuff as much as the next guy. And c’mon, can’t we stay for at least one dance?”

Evan glared at him. “Dude, I’m glad you’re getting your kicks embarrassing me or whatever, but enough is enough. Seriously, you’ve been taking the jokes too far lately.”

For once, Dan looked genuinely penitent. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just--look, I just like teasing you, okay? I didn’t want to actually hurt you or anything.”

“Teasing? What is this, middle school? And why me specifically? You don’t do shit like this to Brendan.”

“Yeah, well, you’re way cuter than Brendan.”

Evan could feel his cheeks turn red. “W-what? Goddamnit, Dan, I told you to stop fucking around.”

“No, I’m serious. You--oh, fuck. Did you--did you not know I’m bi? I thought I was signalling it pretty clearly.” He pointed to his tie.

“Dude, that’s a gradient, not stripes. I thought it just coincidentally looked like bi colors. You’ve never mentioned this before. And I’ve seen you dating a bunch of girls!”

Dan rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t exactly come organically in most conversations. And the dating pool of women who like guys is way bigger than guys who like guys. I haven’t actually dated a guy before, but I’d be open to it if the right guy came along.”

“Okay, so. You’re bi. Cool. That, uh, doesn’t really explain all of this?” Evan gestured down at the dress he was wearing.

“Okay, well…  that’s another thing I should probably talk to you about. We should maybe head back to your place first though,” Dan added hurriedly as he realized a bunch of LSB members were staring at their loud whispered conversation.

“Okay, let me just grab some of the food and we can head out.” He gulped, feeling a pit in the bottom of his stomach, before heading over to get a slice of pizza.

As he reached the table, Chris--wearing a rented tuxedo, as promised--was filling her cup with punch. She turned as he approached.

“Hey, everything okay?” she asked. “With your friend, I mean.”

Evan sighed. “Yeah, it’s fine. I just--apparently he’s bi, and he might like me? Like, in a romantic way? Didn’t really see this coming.”

“Oh. Well, do you like him?”

Brief thoughts of Dan’s goofy smile flashed through Evan’s head. “I--uh, god, I don’t know. Can I tell you something?”

“Of course!”

“I… think I might be asexual or something? I don’t know. I’ve never really dated. I mean, sometimes I think people are cute, or I want to be friends with them, but...fuck, I don’t know.”

“Can I give you a hug? You seem like you could maybe use one right now.”

“Go for it.” Evan let out a deep breath as Chris gave him a comforting squeeze. “Thanks for listening, Chris.”

“Hey, what are siblings here for? And feel free to talk to me any time, okay?”

“Absolutely. Now I think I need to go talk to my friend.”

Evan walked away from the table feeling kind of weird. The whole joining a sorority thing was only supposed to be a joke. He hadn’t expected to, like, make actual real friends there. He imagined dropping out of the group and ghosting everyone and just pictured Chris getting worried and messaging him. A sudden feeling of guilt settled on his shoulders.

Glancing around the large room in search of Dan, he spotted him talking to Lyssa, the tall girl who’d joined at the same time as him. The two of them were laughing and he felt a pang of irritation. Here they were going to talk about something serious, and Dan got distracted hitting on girls.

Dan waved as he approached. “Ah, here’s my lovely date now!” Lyssa grinned cheesily and gave Evan a thumbs up. “He’s a keeper,” she mouthed.

“Hey, Dan, can we head out now? I got a slice for you if you want it.”

“Aw, you’re leaving already? They haven’t even gotten to my contributions to the playlist yet.”

“Sorry,” Dan said, “but I promised we were gonna go talk about something. Plus I don’t know how much hyperpop my ears could take.”

Lyssa laughed. “I’ll admit it’s maybe a bit of an acquired taste. Well, see you around!”

As they walked off, Evan said, “Getting cozy with Lyssa, huh?” His irritation seeped into his voice more than he meant to let it.

“Yeah, she seems cool,” Dan said. “I’m pretty sure she’s a lesbian though, so it’s not like I’m trying to date her.”

“You sure?” Evan asked. “Some of the members are bi or trans or whatever.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure she’s trans, but she also had a lesbian flag pin on.”

“Wow, look at mister pride flag expert over here. You automatically get that skill with being bi?”

“No, my pupil, you must train and hone your skills before you can become as radical as me.”

Evan laughed. “You’re such a fuckin’ dork, dude.”

***

Evan unlocked the door to his apartment and he and Dan stepped inside.

As soon as they sat down on the couch, he turned to Dan. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“So… I’m not sure exactly how to say this? Let me start from the beginning.

“The whole… joining a sorority thing wasn’t exactly just because I thought it was funny or impossible. Honestly, you approached it completely differently than I expected. I didn’t realize LSB accepted closeted trans members or whatever. I thought you were going to have to dress as a girl or something.”

“Why, so you could get your rocks off? Isn’t bi people being pervs a stereotype? Way to go on the queer liberation, dude.”

“What? No, it’s not like that. I… I was trying to help you.”

“Uhhhhh… how exactly was trying to make me dress up like a girl helping me? Really not following that logic.”

“Evan… I think you might be trans.”

***

Evan paced back and forth in his room, furious. Who the fuck did Dan think he was? One: Why the fuck would he think that? Two: Why is this his response to thinking that?

Christ, he could have at least TRIED TALKING to me! Seriously, for the most part he liked Dan a lot, but the guy had a bad habit of taking the joke too far. He thought back to when Dan had convinced their mutual friend Brendan that there was an annual nude run around the campus. Brendan had shown up with nothing but a towel, and narrowly avoided getting arrested for public indecency.

Dan just didn’t seem to get that some things were serious. Someone joking about your gender felt… strangely violating. Evan shuddered.

Well this seems like a good time to break into the bottle of vodka I have stashed. Hopefully I can wake up tomorrow and forget about all this shit.

***

Evan woke up with a pounding headache. It felt like Dan’s latest prank had replaced his tongue with sandpaper. He managed to stumble to the bathroom to fill up a glass of water, swallowing a handful of aspirin before collapsing back onto the bed and grabbing his phone from the nightstand.

Huh, weird. For some reason his phone had, like, 50 unread messages on it.

God, I really hope I didn’t call one of my exes or something while blacked out last night.

He unlocked the phone with a feeling of dread, cringing away for a moment before opening Messenger.

Scrolling up in his conversation with Siena, he realized with mounting horror that he had basically spilled all the possible beans to her.

heyy sorry im kinda drunk right now but. I feel like i should come clean

honestly i don’t think im actually trans. Im a fake! I really only joined cuz Dan pressured me to. We make a lot of bets with each other, its a whole thing

Anyway i feel really bad now. When i was first joining i thought “whatever its just some strangers” but ive gotten to know a bunch of the siblings now and honestly a lot of them are so cool. Like, SO cool. Like how even is a human being that cool lolol

After that wall of text, he could see Siena’s response, sent about half an hour after his:

So sorry, just saw this! I have a fair amount to say so don’t worry if you see me typing the message for a while :)

Evan, I’m sorry to hear that you feel like an imposter. I think questioning if you’re “really” queer, or if you’re “queer enough” is a really common experience, and one many of us can definitely relate to. You’ve been really great as a member of LSB and I don’t think anyone would question whether you belong there. I’m glad you’ve made some friends, and yeah, our members are awesome!

It sounds like Dan was maybe overstepping his bounds as your partner, but I am glad he convinced you to try joining. I feel like I’ve seen you relax and become more yourself around us as time went on. A lot of the siblings really enjoy your jokes and sense of humor. That said, of course you’re free to withdraw from participating in the sorority at any time, if that’s what you want.

Anyway, I don’t know if that helps, but I for one would love to see you stick around. You’re always free to reach out to me or any of your siblings if you want to talk. We do have one member who volunteered to be a resource for gender-related questions, so you might consider talking to her. I can give you her contact info if you want to reach out one-on-one.

Sorry if that was a little too much text, haha. My friend tells me I text like I’m writing an essay

Anyway, I think I need to go to sleep now, but I can talk more tomorrow if you want. That’s what we’re here for :)

After taking a while to read through Siena’s new novel a few times, Evan was mostly just confused.

I literally just told her I was faking it and wasn’t trans. Was that not clear? How is she not freaking out?

Wait, and she called Dan my partner? Fuck, better try to clear some of this up.

hey, so to be clear, i’m, like, a cis guy. Even with the pretty loose wording of the membership guidelines im pretty sure im not allowed. Also just fyi dan is JUST A FRIEND

After waiting impatiently for about a minute for a response that didn’t come, he decided to swipe over to his other messaging apps.

He was part of a relatively chill gaming Discord server, and it looked like he had about 30 responses in the #photos channel.

...Aaand he had sent a picture of himself last night. From a classic selfie angle. Of him wearing the dress.

Responses were… varied.

Whoa what the fuck why are you actually cute

I think i already saw this anime

Lmao what the fuck dude

Gay

Tbh i’d tap that

Not in my good christian minecraft server!

Have you thought about becoming a streamer? Lol

Ah, the elusive e-girl (male)

Can’t tell if this is #girlboss or #malewife lol

He also had a few DMs.

Okay, for real though, if you’re willing to do cosplay I genuinely think you could make bank as a streamer.

He decided to ignore… whatever that was and move on to the next one.

Can I add you on Kik? My username is ████████.

A DM from one of the mods of the server saying they had to delete some messages targeted at him due to them containing hate speech...

...and a dick pic. Lovely.

He finally saw a notification pop up for a message from Siena and immediately switched over.

If you really feel like it’s inappropriate for you to be in LSB, then we can go through the process of removing you from any registries and possibly refund any fees you paid. But I just wanted to say that we want to be inclusive for people of all genders. I know our mission statement is phrased as being for “those who have ever, currently, or will ever live and/or identify as a woman” and you might feel like you don’t qualify, but that’s really something only you can decide.

And I want to apologize for making an assumption about your relationship status. I should know better than to do that, and I’ll try to be conscious in avoiding that kind of implicit bias in the future.

Evan sighed and decided to give up belaboring the point for now. Siena was somehow so woke that rather than being mad like he expected, she somehow wrapped around into being… supportive? He couldn’t help but feel she was still misunderstanding the situation, but at least he’d made a real effort to explain.

Now he just needed to deal with Dan.

***

Evan woke up uncharacteristically early, hours before his alarm. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and padded out of his room to plant himself on a stool in front of the coffee maker.

About an hour later, Dan came stumbling out of his room, hair sticking up in a ridiculous, asymmetrical coif.

“Mornin’!” he said cheerfully. His eyes momentarily flicked to Evan’s exposed torso. “Uh, can I get to the coffee?”

“Dan.” Evan said. “We need to talk.”

Dan sighed. “Coffee first, then talk.”

Evan stood up, getting in Dan’s face--well, as close as he could get with the foot of height difference. “Dude! Can you please take one thing seriously? Fuck, man, this is… this is important, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Let me grab a seat.” He swung a leg over the other kitchen stool, straddling it backwards like a teacher trying to be cool. “Shoot.”

Evan plopped back down. After a brief awkward silence, he spoke. “Why would you think I’m trans?”

Dan smiled awkwardly. “Please don’t get mad? I… you get so weird when people talk about gender. It reminds me of my high school friend who came out as trans in our senior year.”

“Is that seriously it? That’s so little to base such an extreme claim on.”

“Look, I’m not sure about anything. Obviously I can’t really know what’s going on inside your head. But I figured… it’s college, right? It can’t hurt to experiment a little. You know, just giving things a chance.”

“Okay, but… you need to work on communicating like a normal human, dude. I can try to help you practice, I guess. Uh, is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

“Uh, not much I can think of. You already know I kind of have a crush on you, right?”

“WHAT?! No, no I did NOT know that. What the fuck.”

“Is it that surprising? I told you I thought you were cute.”

“I thought you were just fucking with me, like you do all the time. How was I supposed to know you were being serious? God, dude, this is all, like, so awkward. I think I need some time to process. Can we just, like, take a break and watch some YouTube or play Smash or something?”

“Sure, dude, sounds good! There’s a new Nikki Barnes video I wanted to watch.”

“The leftist video essayist/beauty channel? Nah, man, that sounds like it would require thought. Plus, didn’t she get canceled or something?”

“Yeah, the whole was pretty dumb IMO. Uh, you wanna watch the new SmallCrow? Looked like he was doing a run where you had to throw away each weapon after using it once.”

“Yeah, why not. I wish to have no thoughts, empty head.”