Gender Identity Amongst Humans in Wild Country

In the Wild Country, the Elven tribes have various beliefs in a spectrum of gender, but the prevailing attitude remains: everyone has a place because everyone belongs.

The Dwarven families of the Seven Hills are majority trans (which is the word used for this gender identity in Common). The Dwarves themselves refer to the identity as the Balien (translates to “what you are now.”)

But the Humans are still learning all that there is to know about the Realm in all its majesty. Their children are girls and boys, but sometimes those girls and boys do not yet feel at home in themselves.

When they wish to take a new name and assume their correct identity, but they have kin who are opposed, there is a small, private ceremony they can arrange.

No whisper goes unheard in the Realm of the First Magic.

They enter a Fairy Haven at night, and a single fey creature appears as they kneel. It is one of the Hushia, of the Court of Masks. Resembling a fox, their face obscured by an ornamental mask, they speak in a soft melodic voice, and the Haven now smells of peppermint and cinnamon.

Normally, when a Fey asks for your name, it is of utmost importance that you prepared to skillfully avoid giving this away.

But this ceremony is different. The child is nervous, but not scared. The Hushia sits beside them, not across. The child knows what they are going to say. The Hushia knows to speak very specifically.

“What was the name, child?”

And here in the dark of the haven — a small slice of the Cosmic Hollow, a vast realm of ancient fey knowledge and pageantry — in a quiet whisper, with only the breeze moving quietly through the trees and the moons above, the child utters the dead name for the last time.

The Hushia bows its head, and removes its mask — a sight only the child will ever see — and smiles.

“Paradahr vehl nuth balien.” (“You are as you always have been.”)
They sit for as long as is needed. And then:
“Go, child.”

And the child stands, leaving the Haven a different way from the way they entered, and never looking back.

Once the child has gone from view, the Hushia replaces its mask, and returns with the name to the Cosmic.

And true to the rites of the ceremony, the name can never be uttered amongst the living ever again, banished from the tongues who stood opposed.

They refer to the child only by their True Name.

They are as they always have been.