Author Notes - Oh boy! Another chapter that demands a WARNING. We've got transphobia again. This time, coming from a bunch of annoying kids on the playground. Because there's no one in the world who's as mean as kids on the playground. I would know. I went into primary school as a cheerful little goofball, and came out with boatloads of social anxiety. FUN.

I apologise in advance to anyone whose name is 'Brittany'. Including the character from Pikmin 3, who's also kind of a jerk but not THAT bad.

CHAPTER TEN - KIDS ARE SO VERY CRUEL

Lynn wasn't entirely sure how the other kids were going to react to this revelation. Most of the students barely knew her, but the ones that did all knew her as a boy.

She gulped down her nerves as she stepped through the front doors of the building. Lynn Loud Junior, feeling nervous? As she walked down the hallway to get to her locker, many of the students looked her way. It had been a couple of days since the incident with Principal Huggins, so the other teachers in the school must've known about it by now and told their students about it. Some students were looking at her in confusion, while others just waved at her with a smile.

It's okay, Lynn, She told herself. You're gonna be fine.

Her open locker provided her with a void to stare into and forget about her worries for a moment. Most of the students walking past her were probably just minding their own business, but she couldn't help thinking that at least a few of them were staring at her.

'Hey, Lynn!'

She'd never admit it to anyone, but that voice made her jump. She spun around in a panic, and saw a semi-familiar girl standing right behind her. Someone she vaguely recognised from being on some of the school's sports teams. Not that Lynn knew her personally, since she had spent all her school time in the boys' teams. Nor had she made the change yet.

Margo. That's what her name was. At least, that's what Lynn thought it was; hard to be sure. Lynn had talked to her a few times during P.E. time, whenever she got the chance to despite being on two different teams. And Lynn was 90% sure they were in the same class together.

Uh oh.

'Uh, h-hi… Margo, is it?' Lynn said.

'I saw what you did a couple days ago,' Margo said. 'And it was super cool! I didn't realise that you were a girl! Sorry for calling you a boy for so long. Though, it sounds like you didn't even know that that for a little while.'

'I, um… huh?'

Lynn hadn't expected acceptance from someone this quickly. It left her a little lost for words.

'You, uh… don't think that's weird?' She asked. 'At all?'

Margo shrugged. 'Maybe a little. But if you're a girl, then you're a girl as far as I'm aware!'

'You're taking this pretty well.'

'Oh, I've seen this before. See, my mom's cousin's twin sister's best friend's uncle used to be an aunt. She - oh, he - came out about a year ago. I didn't get it, but my parents explained it to me, and… I still don't get it, but you're like that, just the other way around, so I'm cool with it!'

Margo had delivered this mini-speech so quickly and enthusiastically that Lynn barely picked up on half of it. What she got out of it was 'I accept this', and that was all that mattered.

'Oh,' She said. 'Well… thanks! I guess. I wasn't really expecting this.'

'When I saw what you did,' Margo said. 'It reminded me of that uncle who used to be an aunt. And I was so impressed that you opened up like that!'

'Uh, it shouldn't be 'used to be an aunt'. It's more like 'an uncle who everyone thought was an aunt'.'

'Ah, I see. Gotcha! You probably know a lot more about this than I do.'

There was a third person like her out there somewhere. Being told that you weren't alone didn't leave nearly as much of an impact as finding evidence of it. Between this uncle and Harold McBride, Lynn didn't feel alone at all.

'Hey, uh, I've got a thing I wanna do with my friends during recess,' Margo said. 'But I'm all free tomorrow! You wanna hang out more?'

'… Maybe?' Lynn replied. 'Why, though?'

'Well, I've always thought you were super good at sports. But we never had the chance to really talk, cos we're on different teams and all that. Now I know you're a girl, and it really makes me wanna hang out with you even more!'

Lynn spent her recess that day alone, for the first time in a while. The boys who she typically hung out with weren't there today. Which wasn't that big of a concern, at least for now. Lynn didn't blame them for apparently being in shock over having a girl among them now, after all those years of 'cooties' or whatever it was.

With how rare it was to get privacy in a house filled with eleven people, Lynn appreciated the quiet moments when they came. What most would call a lonely lunch, Lynn called a relief from utter chaos. It was nice to just unwind and eat her spicy sandwiches without having to worry about- BALL! A soccer ball came flying her way, right at her face. With the swiftness of a cheetah, she put her lunch aside and caught the ball like it was nothing.

'Got it!' She declared.

Not exactly the rules of the game to catch the soccer ball with her hands, but she was just ensuring she didn't get a broken nose. The real question was whose ball it was, a question quickly answered when a group of boys approached her.

'Don't worry, guys,' She said, grinning. 'I caught it. It wasn't that hard of a kick.'

She tossed the ball back to them and one of the boys caught it, but they didn't leave. They just stood there, staring at her while laughing to themselves.

'He thinks he's a girl…!' One of them said, talking in a very loud whisper.

The other boys laughed even harder. Another batted his eyes and moved his hips around in the most exaggeratedly 'girly' manner you can imagine.

'Hey!' Lynn said. 'I am a girl.'

'I can't believe it!' A boy said. 'He really thinks he's a girl, doesn't he?'

'Why would he want to be a girl?' Another asked. 'Girls are icky.'

They continued to laugh among themselves like they were comedic geniuses that even Abbott and Costello would look up to, even as they walked away to resume their game.

'Too bad for you!' The tallest boy said. 'Cos you'll always be a boy!'

Lynn clenched her fists, but stayed seated in her spot. These boys were strangely familiar - just a few months ago, she failed to throw a basketball to someone and they said that she 'threw like a girl'. Well, wasn't that strange. When they thought she was a boy, they called her 'a girl' to insult her. But now that she was out to the school as a girl, they insulted her by calling her a 'boy'!

'Well, shows what you know!' She yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. 'I was never a boy to begin with, idiots!'

The boys just laughed more, much to Lynn's aggravation. The joke was on them, of course, for being so wildly wrong about the situation. Lynn, with every fibre of her willpower, kept herself calm and stopped herself from going full Lynn-Loud-Junior on those boys. Otherwise, her mother would get very angry. Her father too, though his greatest concern was always the 'why'.

She tried to continue eating her lunch, without thinking about those boys, but she could hear some voices behind her. A group of annoying girls, those prissy girls who were a grade or two higher than her and already obsessed with make-up. They were 'whispering', though they were projecting their whispers so loudly it could hardly be called that.

'It's him.'

'That boy who thinks he's a girl.'

'Nah. He doesn't think he's a girl.' (You got that right, Lynn added in her mind) 'I bet he's just pretending.'

'Yeah. There's nooo way he really thinks we're falling for it.'

'No girl smells that bad.'

Lynn knew that she should've stayed quiet and let these girls say their stupid stuff. It was a message that her parents kept reminding her of whenever possible, and she always tried to stick to it. Violence was best saved for violent sports and nothing else.

But she couldn't stay quiet at a time like this.

'HEY!' She shouted, spinning around.

The group of girls flinched and looked at her in shock, apparently surprised that she could hear them so easily.

'Girls can smell that bad because I am a girl!' She yelled, puffing out her chest. 'And I'm quite proud of that, thank you very much.'

The self-proclaimed leader of the group, Brittany, rolled her eyes and scoffed. 'No one's falling for it, Lynn. We all know you're a boy. Now stop pretending to be a girl! You're not very good at it anyway.'

'Prete-? I'm not pretending! I guess I was pretending to be a boy for a few years, but - and I'll say it again - I. Am. A. Girl.'

'Please. Stop it. You're embarrassing us girls with your... weird way of acting.'

'I am not acting!'

Lynn hopped out of her seat, tucking her lunch away, and stomped over to this obnoxious girl. She never liked Brittany much in the first place, seeing her as someone who tried way too hard to look like the fake-looking girls on the magazine covers.

Brittany crunched up her face. 'Ugh. You certainly sweat like a boy.'

'First of all, thank you,' Lynn said. 'Second, what does that even mean?! How can I sweat like a boy if I'm not one? Maybe I have a body you see as boyish, but it's my body. So, it's a girl body.'

'And you're so rough, too. And messy. You've never worn a skirt in your life either. You're terrible at pretending to be a girl.'

Lynn gritted her teeth. 'Oh, so I can't be a girl cos I'm messy and like sports and stuff? There's a lot of girls like that in the world! Are they not girls either?'

'Well… at least those girls are real girls. Unlike you, Pretender.'

The other girls in the group chanted that one word - 'Pretender! Pretender! Pretender!' - in a condescending and mocking tone that would make anyone's blood boil. As it did for Lynn. Brittany gave her an obnoxious grin as her friends continued to chant that one word.

'You're not a girl, Lynn!' She said. 'Now stay away from our gender! Because all you're ever gonna be is a gross, smelly, rough little b-'

Lynn punched her in the mouth.

Not hard enough to make her bleed. Or knock out any teeth. Or do anything, really.

Just enough to send her falling backwards to the ground.

To say that Lynn was holding back would be an understatement.

The other girls stopped chanting at once. Lynn didn't notice. All she noticed was the mean girl lying on the ground, rubbing the developing bruise on her face.

When she realised what she had done, Lynn gasped.

'S-See what I mean?!' Brittany cried. 'Girls don't punch people like you do! No matter what you do, you're always gonna be an awful little boy!'

Everyone was staring at her now. For the first time in her life, the sight of people watching her every move made her heart race.

Her breathing turned heavy, so heavy that the rest of the world began to blur.

'HE PUNCHED A GIRL!' A kid shouted. 'HE PUNCHED HER!'

Lynn ran. To where? Not important. She picked a random direction and dashed away, caring only about getting out of here as soon as possible. And her legs could carry her far and fast. So far and fast, in fact, that she had already left the school grounds by the time Principal Huggins arrived on the scene.

Girls don't punch people like I do…

Rita and Lynn Sr were angry. Horrified. And, most of all, concerned for what could've possibly made Lynn punch someone. Violent acts were not unheard from, but they only ever happened in sports or during sister fights. Never with some random child on the playground, even if she didn't like them very much.

So, while they obviously did not approve of the behaviour in any way, they knew there had to be a reason - not an excuse - for why she acted in such a way.

'LJ… what happened?'

Lynn Sr sat with her in her room, sitting on Lucy's new and tiny bed. The three-year-old was being watched by Lori, so the Lynns could have this discussion in peace and quiet. Lynn tucked her knees to her chest and leaned against the wall, unable to look at her father at all.

'Principal Huggins told me what happened,' Lynn Sr said. 'We know you punched another girl. But you've never hit someone like that before. ... Okay, you have, but never without a reason. I want to know your side of the story. Why did you hit her?'

Lynn didn't want to answer. All she wanted was to pretend this whole thing never happened so she could move on, but her parents weren't letting her forget a thing. Her father spoke so calmly and sweetly that it was impossible to ignore him.

'Brittany was… she was saying things,' She replied, in a quiet voice. 'Mean things.'

'Mean things? You're usually so good at dealing with things like that,' Lynn Sr said. 'Usually, you just laugh at them and move on. What could she have said that got you so upset that you wanted to punch her?'

'She… she called me a boy.'

'Ah.'

Suddenly, it made a lot more sense. And Lynn Sr was already feeling the guilt eating away at him for letting something like this happen.

'I-It wasn't just that,' Lynn continued. 'She and her stupid friends said that girls don't smell bad like I do, and that I'm embarrassing the other girls because I'm doing such a bad job at 'pretending', a-and… and that no matter what I do, I'll always be a stupid little boy!'

She hated crying. Not just because the sensation itself was horrible, but because it meant she was exposing her emotions to whoever was in the room with her. It was humiliating, even if it was only in front of her father. A father who cried more each day than she did in a month. It didn't take long until she felt her father's arms wrapped around her, like a warm blanket on a chilly night. It was comforting. Too comforting, because it only prompted her to cry more.

'Okay, that's enough,' Lynn Sr said, stroking her hair. 'I understand. It doesn't justify hitting her, but… I get why you did. Don't tell your mother I said this, but I kinda wanna punch her now too.'

Lynn chuckled and wiped her eyes. 'R-Really?'

'Oh yeah. Who does that little brat think she is? Of course, I won't punch her, because I'm a man and she's just a little kid, and I don't like hurting kids.'

'You'd never win the fight anyway.'

'That is… that is very true. The point is, your actions weren't right, but I don't blame you for reacting that way one bit. What an awful thing to say to, well, just about anyone. But especially someone who's struggling so much with her identity in the first place.'

Lynn let herself sink into her father's warm hug, allowing the tears to leak out just a little. It was still unpleasant, yes, but it didn't seem so bad when she was with her father.

Neither realised that the door had been left open just a fraction. A tiny gap so small than even Lana's reptile 'friends' she met in the garden would struggle to get through it. Someone stood just outside the door, listening to every word that they were saying. And clenching her fists more and more as the conversation went on.

There was only one thought in this person's mind: Brittany is literally going to pay for this.

Author Notes - I'm trying to strike a good balance with the trans-related angst in this story. That's an interesting sentence right there. I want Lynn to have realistic reactions to what she's getting put through, but I don't want her to be so upset that it feels out-of-character. There's a reason why a lot of fans (including yours truly) don't like the episode 'The Taunting Hour', and that's because it makes at least half of the Loud Sisters seem like wusses who can't take a single bit of criticism. And also demonises Lincoln for no good reason, but I'm not here to review bad episodes of 'modern' Loud House.