PHOTO DESCRIPTION:
Photo 1: A shirtless androgyne is immersed in the woods, swaying with the confidence of an Amazonian. The androgyne is stalked by a black leopard wearing the facial expressions of a predator going in for the kill, but with the soft eyes of a guardian, emitting a green light over the androgyne.
Photo 2: One paw up and eyes wide open, a black leopard is making its next move.
STORY LETTER:
Dear Author,
I had always felt different to the others around me as I grew up. I mostly thought it was because of my tendency to not settle on a gender, oft times dressing as either male or female and sometimes even both together. Then I had my 21st birthday and everything in my life changed. I found out that my late parents had had a secret and now I had to learn how to hide it too. Mind you changing into a leopard in the middle of Main Street was probably not the way to do that.
Sincerely,
Ilona
Thank you to whomever picks this. I look forward to reading what you create.
n.b. Please feel free to change everything except the ‘gender fluid shifter’ aspect of the prompt and please give me a HEA. No goes are incest and rape.
STORY INFO:
Genre: paranormal
Tags: bartender, coming out, friends to lovers, interspecies, Peruvian, shifters, trans
Content Warnings: cigarettes, binge drinking, discrimination, catholic guilt, casual use of the word queer
Word Count: 9,922
Author’s Note
Additional disclaimers:
Some characters in the following story use gender neutral pronouns. Here is a helpful guide for those unfamiliar with trans culture:
Nominative (i.e. he): zhey
Oblique (i.e. him): zhem
Possessive determiner (i.e. his): zheir
Possessive pronoun (i.e. his): zheirs
Reflexive (i.e. himself): zhemself
Important vocabulary words:
Cisgender: a person whose gender identity agrees with the gender identity they were assigned at birth [sometimes shortened as cis]
Genderqueer: a person whose gender identity is neither male nor female
Queer: non-heteronormative people; can be used as a slur, however, recent LGBT movements have focused on reclaiming this word; is also used in academic spaces to refer to the study of LGBT issues
Trans: someone who is on the transgender spectrum
Transgender: a person whose gender identity doesn’t agree with the gender identity they were assigned at birth
EVENT: Love is an Open Road