Something About Sticky and Sweet · 1:25pm Aug 17th, 2021
This is a blog post about Sticky and Sweet, you could call it an installment of Behind The Story, but it’s more about myself.
It’s no secret that I’ve written a lot of trans pony stories recently. Some of them have been received well, and some of them haven’t. It’s also no secret that I’m trans, anyone with a basic knowledge of pride flags could find that out by looking at my avatar.
I’ve also started school recently, we haven’t really done much, but I came to school with one goal: to use my chosen name.
Freshman and Sophomore year, every teacher asked for your chosen name (if you had one) during roll call. I expected them to do the same this year. However, they didn’t.
There was one teacher, however. She’s not the regular teacher for the English classes, because the regular teacher got into a car crash the weekend before school started. In her place was a teacher who didn’t know many of us. While getting seated for homeroom, I told her my preferred name. I later gave her my preferred pronouns on a notecard, but that’s not relevant right now.
I’m cynical about these things, my name isn’t exactly classified knowledge, a handmade paper with my name on it is hanging in my room, for goodness sakes. Despite how visible it is, not a single member of my family endeavors to use it.
Likewise, when I came out to my Discord friend group (the one that isn’t QnS, though I’d include a few of them among Discord friends), they all said that they’d try to use my preferred name and pronouns... and then they never did.
Needless to say, I didn’t expect much from this teacher.
You can imagine my surprise when English came around that day and she calls my name, loud and clear.
Part of the conversation that Thunderlane has at the end of the story with Caramel is almost exactly what I said, and it carries the same meaning regardless. The actual conversation went something like this:
After a bit of silence, I realized what the teacher had done, and I replied, “Sorry, the name just caught me off-guard.”
She responded with, “Didn’t you say that you preferred to be called it?”
I said, “I do, but you’re literally the only person who calls me that.”
That in itself is a slight lie, because my boyfriend calls me by my name, too. However, I don’t really count him, he is my boyfriend after all.
The meager rest of the day proceeded without incident, and I have to say, that when I went home, I was happy.
That, compounded with another new dislike on Not Who I Thought I’d Be drove me to write Sticky and Sweet.
Finally being called that name just made me feel so much better, because I knew there was a person in my physical life who actually respected my name. I know I’m a hoosier from probably the most red big city in the state, and also the city that has a seemingly infinite number of churches, but I still had some hope. Having that hope being crushed constantly wasn’t exactly the best for me.
I knew writing a story about my name being respected (from Caramel’s PoV) and having the moral be ‘just call trans people by what they prefer to be called’ was going to be controversial. I knew it would feel like I was virtue signaling to a certain sect of readers. I knew all this, and I didn’t care.
I didn’t care because the story was coming from my life, about an event that had left my heart pounding in the best way. I didn’t care because it was a story I wanted to write.
I didn’t care because I was writing about something that made me happy.
I wrote it over three nights, with ample modifications to the text, because I wanted to tell the exact message I wanted to tell.
The teacher is, in the grand scheme of things, a small victory. My name still sounds virtually identical to a boy’s name, especially in a Midwestern accent. But, if me being asked if my name was spelled with an ‘a’ or an ‘e’ yesterday was any indication, it can get better.
That small victory was all I needed, however, to be happy with being trans.
I hope Caramel feels the same way.
And until next time; be awesome!
-Dashie
I'm so glad you're finding people who respect and support you, even in the roughest places. You deserve so many more.
Keep at it, kiddo!