Author Notes - Lynn may seem a little timid in these earlier chapters, but as she becomes more confident in her identity, she'll act more like... well, Lynn. In other words, a brutish and gross jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold. This is NOT be a statement against trans people, and merely my writing her to be in-character. Of course, trans people are just as capable of being jerks as cis people are, so I think it's important to show them as jerks sometimes. Just as long as it's made very clear that their jerkish nature has nothing to do with them being trans.

WARNING: Lynn Sr and especially Rita say some things in this chapter that could easily be taken as transphobic. These words are NOT reflective of my opinion in any way, and is a demonstration of what well-meaning people might end up saying in this situation. It isn't out of hate, but merely ignorance. I like to imagine that most transphobic people simply don't know better. But that may be wishful thinking.

CHAPTER TWO - SO MANY QUESTIONS

When Rita rushed up the stairs to see what the problem was, she saw her older son yelling and crying at his father. They moved him to his room, so he wouldn't hold up the bathroom, and didn't discuss the elephant in the room until after dinner time. After they had to deliver a plate up to Lynn Jr's room.

The youngest children had been put to bed, and Lori could handle Leni and Luna with ease. So, the Loud parents went into their own room to talk about what had been on their minds for hours. Rita sat on the end of the bed while Lynn seated himself on a chair right in front of her.

'He actually said that?' Rita asked.

'I couldn't not hear it,' Lynn replied. 'Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Grouse complains about it tomorrow. He made it quite clear: he doesn't want to be a boy.'

Rita rested her forehead in her hands. After Leni's diagnosis, it seemed as though they were done with their difficult questions. And yet, Lynn Jr managed to present them with many more that were even more confusing than the ones that Leni made them ask.

'Maybe… maybe it's just because he has so many sisters.' She said, rather unsure of herself. 'It took a while before Lincoln was born, and he was practically surrounded by girls for a while. He might just want to be like them.'

Lynn put his hand to his chin. 'I'm not sure. If he just wanted to be like his sisters, I don't think he would've snapped like that. He didn't just want to be like his sisters. It was like he wanted to be anyone but himself.'

'Oh god… He's too young to be worrying about things like this. He's barely even started school! What could've caused something like this?'

Lynn's eyes widened in horror. 'Okay, I just had a concerning thought. What if he actually wants to be a girl?'

'Lynn, he…' She sighed. 'I don't know what's going on with him, but we have to talk about it tomorrow. And none of us are getting out of it.'

'Absolutely. I need to figure out what's going on with my son, and I need to know it now.'

There was an extra part of that sentence that he didn't say out loud, but it was yelling at him from inside his mind: if, of course, Lynn Jr even was his 'son' in the first place.

It wasn't the first time in Lynn Jr's life that he had been brought into his parents' room. Out of all of the Loud Kids, he had already proven to me the hardest to wrangle. So, he got himself into trouble a shocking amount considering his young age. Rita could only hope that her other son, Lincoln, didn't end up like this. Usually, however, Junior would act as though he had been robbed of his rights. He'd kick up a fuss. Yell out of rage. Insist that he had a dang good reason to do what he did. But today was different. He sat on the chair with his knees tucked up to his chest, hardly able to look at his parents at all.

Rita had hoped that he would've forgotten about what had happened yesterday. Evidently, he had not.

'Alrighty!' Lynn Sr said, sounding more cheerful than he really was. 'So, yesterday, you said something… interesting. And there's a lot to unpack with it. So, let's talk about that.'

Junior remained silent. His father's words passed through his ears without being picked up by his brain. The image of what he saw in the mirror continued to haunt his memories, even though a whole night had passed.

He could see his reflection in his dreams.

'Uh, son?'

He cringed. 'Don't call me that!'

Both parents flinched; clearly, nothing had changed since yesterday. They could barely believe it. A mirror was all it took to reduce their rough-and-tumble son to a quivering mess?

'Well, that's the first question,' Rita said. 'Why do you hate being called 'son' so much? That's what you are to us: our son.'

Junior's stomach churned. Every time that word was used to describe him, it made him feel more and more sick. And it wouldn't stop. 'Brother' did the same thing; his sisters almost made him want to puke with how much they called him that.

'I… I don't know…' He muttered. 'But i-it never felt right. It'd be like calling me weak, you know? The word just isn't me.'

'Uh… but the word is for you,' Senior said. 'You're a boy, and you're our kid.'

Junior stared at the floor for a moment, before he dared to speak up again. 'W-When did you find out that I was a boy?'

The Loud Parents glanced at each other for a moment, unsure as to where this question could've been going.

'Well, s- kiddo,' Senior replied. 'It was before you were even born! When you were still in your Momma's stomach and we went to check up on you, the doctor saw… the thing between your legs, and she told us that you were a boy.'

'D-Do… do you think t-that the doctor could've been… w-wrong?'

'WRONG?!' Rita yelled. 'Lynn, don't you realise how hard it is to become a doctor? They're not always right, but they couldn't have gotten a detail that simple wrong!'

She took a deep breath; yelling at her young son wouldn't help anyone, the kid least of all. But with how hard it had been to become a dentist in the first place, she didn't appreciate hearing such things about people in medicine.

'Wait, wait, wait,' Senior said, waving his arms around. 'Maybe we should hear him out.'

Rita sighed. 'I know kids are smarter than they often let on, but… he isn't even four years old yet. How would he know about this stuff?'

Junior glared at her. 'I'm sitting right here, Mom!'

The mother rubbed her temples. 'Alright. What makes you think she was wrong?'

Junior immediately wanted to run right back to his bedroom and never show his face to them again. He knew he had all these terrible feelings inside of him, but now he had to put it into words. How could he do that when he barely understood it himself?

'Well, I, um…'

He gritted his teeth; if he was alone right now, he'd punch himself out of frustration at his own stupidity.

'Take your time, kiddo,' His father said. 'We'll be here as long as we need to.'

A long pause of silence went by.

Junior took a deep breath. 'W-Well, when I saw myself in the mirror, it made me feel sad and angry. Cos, I dunno, it's like I don't see me. It's like I'm looking at someone else. A stranger, maybe. A-And when people call me 'brother' or 'son', i-it makes me feel sick. And when I think a-about my body, I-I…' He gulped. 'I-I… I HATE IT!'

He yelled so loudly and suddenly that his parents jumped. Senior in particular almost fell off the bed. Junior buried his face in his knees, because he didn't want his parents to see him cry.

Senior leaned forward. 'Kiddo?'

'I DON'T WANT TO BE A BOY!' Junior shouted. 'I-I hate it! I wanna be like my sisters, but instead I'm stuck as a stupid boy!' His voice trembled. 'W-Why was I made like this?'

Rita was totally speechless, barely able to even comprehend what her son was telling her. Senior stammered for a bit before speaking.

'But what's wrong with being a boy?' He asked. 'I mean, there's nothing wrong with being a girl either, but you get what I mean. Right?'

'Because…' The boy choked back a sob. 'Because everyone keeps telling me that I'm a boy and they're wrong!'

By this point, he stopped trying to hide the tears. They trickled down his face like a river after a flood, and they didn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. If the parents weren't absolutely shocked before, they definitely were now.

'Wait…' Senior said, trying to understand it all. 'You don't just want to be a girl. You… are a girl?'

Junior could only cry, unable to answer the question. He barely even heard it. His mind was rushing too fast to understand anything.

'Why was I born a boy?!' He cried. 'W-Why did this happen to me? What did I do?'

'Lynn,' Rita said, speaking as gently as possible. 'It's alright. It's… probably just because you live with so many sisters, and you want to be like them. When Lincoln gets older, you'll have another boy in the family, and-'

'NO! I-It isn't that! Girls are prissy and annoying, a-and they want to be pretty, and I don't like any of that, b-but… but I still want to be a girl!'

He buried his entire face behind his knees, refusing to let his parents see him crying. He was already failing at being a boy, and he didn't need (what he thought was) another unmasculine thing to add to the pile.

Rita, too, buried her face in her hands. Not to hide any tears, for she wasn't crying, but merely out of utter exasperation and confusion. Leni, too, had given her many questions and worries, but now they knew what was 'wrong' with her - not that Rita believed that 'wrong' was the right word to use. Junior, on the other hand, was presenting her with an entirely new problem.

'Lynn…' She murmured to her husband. 'What do we do? No boy I've ever met has told me that he didn't want to be one. Heck, many of them were proud to be boys! And Lynn is so brutish and messy that I…' She sighed. 'I know girls can be brutish and messy too, but Lynn... He isn't... So why is he like this?'

Senior was no more certain about anything than she was. Yet, he couldn't help wondering if there was an obvious solution to this terrible problem.

'Rita…' He whispered. 'I have no more of an idea about what's going on than you do. But maybe we're going about this the wrong way.'

'What do you mean?' Rita asked. 'Please tell me. I want whatever is best for our son.'

'Well, that's the thing. Maybe instead of telling LJ that he's a boy and shouldn't be worrying about this, maybe we should… give him what he wants. If it stresses him out so much to be called our 'son', then we should…'

His voice trailed off. Now that he was saying it out loud to someone, it seemed so silly. But he couldn't see any other way to solve a problem this intense.

Rita played with her hands, in a way that was obviously uneasy to Senior. 'Lynn, are you suggesting that we call him our daughter?'

'Yep.' Senior replied, not missing a beat. 'If only so we can see how he… she? … responds to it. Maybe it'll help.'

'But won't that confuse him?'

'Honey, he's confused enough already. I don't think we could possibly make it any worse.'

Rita was silent for a moment. 'Well, I guess we could get it a try.'

Senior smiled, and got out of his seat so he could kneel down in front of his son… daughter? Best to stick to simply 'child' for now, just in case. He tried to give him… her?... his gentlest smile; his four daughters loved that sweet little smile, and hopefully it worked for this child too.

'LJ,' He said, quietly. 'We're not sure what's going on. But we'll try to make it all better.'

Junior peeked out from behind his knees and sniffled. 'Y-You will?'

'Of course! Would it help if we called you our daughter instead of our son? You know, treat you like you're a girl. So we can see if that makes you happier!'

The child lifted his head all the way up, eyes no longer making new tears. The heartbreak in his eyes had turned to hope, where happiness was out of reach but so close that he could taste it. Girl… that word made his heart and soul soar like an eagle for reasons he couldn't quite explain. All he knew for sure was that the word 'boy' made him cringe and caused his stomach to churn, while 'girl' filled him with hope.

Hope that no one would ever call him a 'boy' ever again.

'R-Really?' He said. 'You would really do that for me?'

Rita was even more unsure about this decision, but she nodded and smiled anyway. 'It will be a little weird for us, but we'll do whatever makes you happy.'

'Oh, thank you thank you THANK YOU!'

Junior leapt out of his seat and hugged both his parents at once, before running out of his room to do whatever fun activity was on his mind at the moment. As soon as he was gone, Senior closed the door and leaned up against it, letting out a heavy breath.

'I thought four kids would've given me the experience to deal with everything,' He said. 'But that was stressful.'

'Lynn…' Rita said. 'I know you're asking yourself the same question right, but are we sure we're doing the right thing? Lynn's obviously confused, and I worried about confusing him more.'

'Well, he - or she - seemed pretty dang happy when I suggested it. And keeping my kids happy is all I care about.'

'Alright, but keep an eye on him. I don't know if this is just a phase or something truly serious.'

It was becoming increasingly clear that it was not just a phase. Or, at least, it was a pretty serious 'phase'.

Junior's sisters or brother yet, so they continued to call him their 'brother'. Each time, Lynn noticed, his child became more and more uncomfortable. Every week, it seemed, the child would be found crying in the bathroom because he saw his reflection again. Every other day, he lamented that he was everyone's 'brother' instead of 'sister'. Every few fours, he'd be reminded of that thing between his legs and get sick to his stomach.

Fortunately, calling him a girl at the end of the day seemed to make it all better. Even if only barely.

But after a few weeks of this nonsense, Lynn Sr decided that he had enough. When the kids were put to bed, he jumped onto his laptop right away. They say not to look up 'your symptoms' in case the internet told you that you had a thousand cancers, but he was desperate for help. And who else was he supposed to ask? It wasn't like he knew anyone else with these kinds of problems.

'Lynn…' Rita said. 'Please, get to bed.'

It was pretty late at night, and it had been a long day. Luan had managed to find that old joke book that was supposed to be hidden from her, and there were only so many times that someone could hear 'GET IT?' before it began to grate. So Rita was already in bed and wanted an early night, but her husband was too busy doing his research.

'I'm sorry, Rita,' He said, not looking away from his screen. 'I just found a forum.'

'You're going to trust the internet?' Rita asked.

'I don't like it either, but I don't know if there's anyone else in Royal Woods with a problem like this. But on the internet… well, there's a lot of them.'

Rita, admittedly, became curious. She opened her eyes and sat up in her bed, ignoring how badly she wanted to sleep.

'Really?'

'You've heard of them, right?' Lynn said. 'You know, people who were born one gender and changed to be another? I mean, it isn't super common, but it's happened.'

'Oh, I've definitely heard. Transgender people. I've never felt uncomfortable with my gender, but I understand that there's a lot of people who have. If it makes them happy, then they can do it all they want. I never cared if anyone was in that acronym before, and I don't plan to start now. But you don't think that…?'

The Loud father nodded. 'Lynn might be trans, Rita.'

Saying the words out loud was totally different to thinking them. But after his hours of research, it was the only conclusion he could come to.

That journey had been rough. Hardly anyone knew about this topic, especially when it came to kids. The late 2000's didn't have much information, apparently. And what little info he could find was all those questionable 'man in a dress' jokes. Mostly involving a man throwing up into a sink or toilet after finding out that the lady he fell in love with was 'a man'.

Then there were people just being jerks. Actually, 'jerks' was too nice a word. Lynn knew some jerks who had the common decency to attack people for things other than their identity. So many comments about 'chromosomes' and 'basic biology', jokes about how someone could 'never be a woman'... Only after shovelling through a bunch of mean people and some terrifying statistics did Lynn find what he was looking for.

'It's the only thing I can think of,' He said. 'If LJ just wanted to be like his… her… their sisters, they wouldn't be worrying so much. The kid doesn't just want to be a girl, Rita. I think she is a girl, but she's stuck with a boy's body.'

Rita sighed. 'But he's so young. How could he know about this stuff when he's still struggling to learn the alphabet? He's just too young to know any better.'

'It's a part of who she is. If she says that she's a girl, I think we should listen. I know why you're worried. I am too. All of the stories that I've heard are about adults transitioning. But maybe… it can start young. It didn't take too long for you to realise that you're a girl, did it?'

Lynn was worried. Beyond worried, in fact. Perhaps it was just because it was late, but Rita did not look like she was believing a single word that he said. Unluckily for the both of them, he wouldn't be going to sleep until he managed to convince her.

'I'm just not sure, Lynn,' She said, sighing once again. 'It doesn't feel right. We should wait until he's older, so he can know for sure. For all we know, he's just confused and playing pretend. We can't jump to a conclusion this severe so early.'

Lynn had hoped that the conversation wouldn't come to this, but he saw no other option. Taking a deep breath, he continued.

'I've read articles, Rita,' He said. 'It's shockingly common for a transgender person to attempt to take their own life.'

'Then why would we want Lynn to transition?!' Rita yelled.

'That changes with support! If we accept her - and I say 'her' for a reason - for who she really is, then she'll be happy. Think about it, Rita. Ever since she looked in that mirror, she can't stop crying every time she even thinks about her body. She doesn't just want to be a girl. She needs to be a girl, or we'll end up with a depressed child.'

Rita thought about her words very carefully. 'But isn't he… she…? I just don't know. What if we go through all of that, and it turns out that he was just freaking out over nothing? Maybe he, she, is a transgender kid, but he seems so young and… what if we're wrong?'

'It can't be any worse than what's happening right now. I can't be sure. We can never be sure unless we try it. But if she is trans, and she does need to be treated like a girl instead of a boy, and we don't do that… we could lose her. Do you want to take that risk? I know it sounds extreme, but right now I'm only seeing two options: a happy daughter, or a depressed son.'

That wasn't the second option that was floating around in Lynn's head. After all his research, the actual second option that he discovered would be too harsh even for this discussion: either they could have a happy daughter, or a dead son. Even after softening the options, Lynn still wondered if he had gone a little too far, since his wife was taking a while to respond.

After a while, however, she finally spoke. 'Alright. We'll do it.'

Lynn smiled. 'Really? You will?'

'I don't know how we're gonna do it, though. And it's way too late to have a second serious discussion. Get to bed, and we'll try to deal with this in the morning.'

'That's good enough for me!'

Author Notes - A major source of inspiration is Ryland Whittington, a semi-famous child who happens to be a trans boy. There's a fascinating(ly sad yet beautiful) video about him, called 'Raising Ryland'. I tear up every time. I think my favourite part of the video is when the parents say that, compared to what other parents go through, having a trans kid 'is nothing'. After all, he's still alive and happy. So many parents don't even have that.

If this topic interests you in literally any way, there's a few YouTubers I would recommend you check out. If you like 'reaction' type content, then Jammidodger and Sam Collins (both trans men) are great people to check out. Jammi especially is just a wholesome guy. If you'd prefer more 'scripted' content, then I HIGHLY recommend watching videos by Jessie Gender (a trans woman). Her videos are highly informative, very funny, and (if you're a Trekkie) loaded with wonderful Star Trek references. She also talks about Star Trek (obviously) and autism, and both of those are good for me!

Oh, speaking of autism, that's what the deal with Leni is. It's not really important to the story, but we're already delving deep into topics like this so why not? Especially being autistic and being trans are a lot more connected than you might realise. In fact, I might discuss that connection in a later chapter. I don't see Lynn as autistic, but I'll find a way to talk about it.