A/N: It's always difficult writing about queer identities in the context of history (I use queer here as a queer person, in reclamation of what was once a slur), and so I suppose I just want to apologise if this seems, or is, clumsily written. All feedback is welcome, especially if it helps me to grow.
From Michael JG Meathook: When Sherlock works his first case requiring to be disguised as a woman, he discovers that being a woman fulfils a longing in deep within himself he had long tried to suppress.
One becomes used to certain things, living with Sherlock Holmes. I was used to him shooting the walls, filling our living room with noxious gases and flitting in and out in various guises with barely a look or comment to suggest these things might be out of the ordinary. So when I came into our living room to discover a woman towering over 6-foot tall who had not quite finished shaving her five o'clock shadow, I hardly blinked. She - that is, Sherlock Holmes - was more disconcerted than I had ever seen.
"Watson! I- I didn't know you would be in." Eyebrows, which I only then appreciated that Holmes must find time to pluck at some time or other, drew together in consternation. "Shouldn't you be at your club?"
"I was late finishing my rounds," I replied absent-mindedly, putting aside my medical bag and searching instead for my cuff-links. Then I stopped, for it was rare indeed that Holmes wouldn't deduce something so obvious. "Are you alright, Holmes?"
Holmes stuttered, lost for words in a few rare moments of shock. "You do not mind this?"
I began to consider that perhaps this was not some disguise in aid of a case, as I had automatically assumed.
"Most sane men would be disgusted." Holmes's tone was flat, but the words stuck in me at a strange angle and made me feel terribly sad. "Most women, terrified."
"I am not most people then," was my careful answer. I took a step toward Holmes and looked him - her? - them - up and down. The dress was nice enough, though a little old-fashioned to my eye. "Do you have a wig?"
Holmes's head tilted in confusion. "You needn't indulge this, Watson. I can change."
"I do not want you to change." And although we were discussing only Holmes's outfit, I hoped my words might lodge somewhere deeper. "I was only curious. But I can leave, if you would prefer."
If it were anyone else, I may have acted more shamefully than I did that day. There were things I was born with, raised with, taught as I grew that may have made my reaction more extreme - perhaps even violent. Sherlock Holmes has always proved an exception for me, and I have always been desperately glad of it. Especially now as I saw the smile, which bloomed tentatively across their face like weak sunlight through rain.
"My dear Watson," they laughed, "I really will never get your limits."
"And I will never get yours." I schooled my face into a parody of solemnity that I knew would send Holmes into renewed laughter. "So I suppose we are stuck with each other."
I did not go to my club that night, to smoke with stuffy men I knew from my university, but instead remained with Holmes and discussed things Bohemian and Queer - and, of course, the best place to purchase a more fashionable dress.