Best-Case Scenario

Chapter Twenty-Five

Tuesday afternoon, I'm doing some of the admin things for the GSA website in the library. Imari put up a survey about the support for trans rights in high school and now I'm here to shuffle through the pile.

They're pretty positive, but there are a few write-in responses. Instead of deleting them, I copy and paste them over on a separate document then print out the few pages.

"Imari!" I yell down the hallway.

He turns and waves. I walk over to him. He finishes a conversation with a friend and then turns to me. "What's going on Teagan?"

"I got the survey results from that poll? It's not bad, but it's not amazing. We have about eighteen percent of people who don't support trans rights and twenty-two who don't know a thing about it. I also got these."

I hand over the emails and he read through them, eyebrows furrowing and his mouth progressively getting thinner and thinner. When he looks up, his dark eyes are narrowed.

"This sucks," he says. "I'm using those completely appropriate words because so many teachers are out here, but seriously. What can we do?"

"That's what I'm asking you," I answer. "We need GSA on this as soon as possible. We can't let this get out of control. The emails... well some of them are threats."

Imari nods once. "Spread the word. We're having a GSA meeting tonight."

I find Kali and let her know. She goes and passes on the news to her circle and I continue my walk through the hallways grabbing members whenever I see them. Thankfully, sport practices start twenty minutes after school allowing athletes to come when they can.

"Finn," I yell. I push the emails at him and he reads through. He looks up at me. "We're having a GSA meeting after school. Can you come?"

Occasionally he comes to the meetings when he can. I can tell he isn't the most comfortable, but he goes to support me and learns a few things.

His face falls. "I can't, Teagan. I'm sorry. I have a quick phone call to make."

"A phone call?"

He looks really disappointed and I feel bad for asking a second time. "Yeah, sorry. College stuff. I'll explain later. I want to have time to explain it all. Let them know I'm on their side. Okay? I can do any rally stuff too."

I nod feeling a little hurt by it. Not like it's that big of a deal but I liked having him at the meetings.

He gives me a kiss and I kiss him back.

The afternoon goes by quick and then we're in the classroom for our meeting.

"Alright everyone," Imari says. The room quiets down. Both him and Kali are standing up at head of the circle. "I'm sure you all have heard about the responses we got on the blog. I hope a lot of you got a chance to vote on Friday, but either way, there was an overall good response."

He pauses to allow for the few people who clap to finish.

"It really is great that the response is positive, but what we're worried about are the negative ones. Our number one priority here is to allow people to feel safe in their environment to go about their business. We strongly believe that sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression should never inhibit someone's rights to safety.

"What we hope to figure out in this meeting is how to curb the negative responses Teagan received. There were a few threats and many other written responses showed negativity. The writers referred to trans people as 'it' and a reluctance to use proper pronouns. As many of you saw, there were many that called for bullying and this is not okay here."