Aight. Didn’t expect to have to set up a whole new chat client. Apparently, these guys take operational security pretty seriously. I guess solid opsec would have to be standard for secretive cis-man-feminization communities.
I paste the link into the Noise app and immediately get thrown into a group chat. It’s simpler than Accord, no channels, no pins. No message history.
“Welcome,” says a user simply named ‘Admin’. No profile picture. No profile. Cool, very normal.
“To register for the Spring of 2025 quarter, you must agree to the terms of the competition. Do you understand?”
I type out a quick “yes.” No need to py along with the drama.
“The terms of the competition are simple.
Participants must submit the provided liability waiver, signed, within the deadline.”The bullet points keep going for a while. Weirdly thorough for what can’t possibly be, in any sense of the word, a legal operation.
“Participants must be assigned male at birth and must have a male gender identity.”
Ah. There’s the weird shit. The enforced cisness of it.
“Participants whose gender identity is found to conflict with the purpose of the competition will be disqualified. Participants acknowledge that disqualification will result in withdrawal of all participant benefits.”
I skim past the bit about reward pools. I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions, here’s my full name and address, whatever, let’s go.
I’m handed an invite link to an Accord server. This looks more familiar, and I guess it’s where the participants actually hang out. The rules are too short and to the point to even skim. Behave yourselves and follow the terms of the competition. Role selector channel lets you pick a name color and pronouns.
Wait, hang on, pronouns?
The reaction tagged he/him has a few hundred clicks, whereas they/them and she/her have about ten each. Out of curiosity, I check who’s reacted.
All the she/hers and they/thems are from users who are no longer in the server.
Nichos has passed the first trial, and correctly observed that the pronoun selector is presented in bad faith. A simple trap, yet one that has successfully caught many transfeminine interlopers, whether through habitual selection or a momentary pse in recognition of the nature of this ridiculous, nonsensical space. Where they have faltered, I remain, hidden in pin sight within this den of gamer stench. For the sake of my less wily compatriots as well as my own, I intend to persevere.
I lean over his shoulder, watching him familiarize himself with the channels. His monstrously oversized gaming hardware hums in the background, LEDs throbbing with rainbow colors as the machinery trivially achieves the task of dispying a chat client and a web browser. It is an insult to such magnificent machinery, truly. It yearns to be applied in ways that truly test its limits, not this fool’s errand by a poor, misguided boy who-
“Uh, dude? Your, you know. Chest area. It’s,” I flinch backwards upon realizing that I have been resting my left breast on his shoulder this entire time. Oh no.
This is disastrous for a multitude of reasons. On the one hand, I am mortified at the embarrassment of failing to realize this was happening. I am still adapting to the changes my body is going through, and aside from the door incident in the week prior this is by far the most egregious demonstration of that issue yet.
On the other hand, Nichos might interpret it as a flirtation, which risks revealing that I am far more comfortable with these changes than what is permitted by the terms of the competition. It is crucial that I py this off as discomfort masked as apathy, so that he does not begin to suspect the truth. Furthermore, I am not attracted to men, especially not him, and thus it is absolutely essential that our interactions remain strictly ptonic.
The high-pitched yelp is not helping, Katherine. Are you truly so cking in conviction that you will allow a mild embarrassment of this nature to undo your entire scheme? Have you already lost all control over your emotions from mere exposure to estrogen? No, I have not, and I must choose my next words with the utmost care to put any suspicion to rest.
“Wow uh, haha, I didn’t realize bro. Sorry. It’s like, they don’t feel like a real part of me so I forget they’re there, you know.”
Utter and complete failure. Line delivery all over the pce. He will turn around any moment now and realize I am blushing, at which point he will see through everything. An unmitigated disaster on all counts.
God dammit, Daniel really has no clue what he’s doing, huh. He’s disassociating so badly that he doesn’t even realize his body’s changing? I need to get him out of this competition, and quick.
If I lied to the mods and said he’s secretly a trans girl, would they believe me? I have to figure out the server culture.
“It’s whatever dude, just, watch where you’re putting those things,” I say. Maybe he’ll give up if he’s forced to realize what he’s doing to himself.
The thing he’s been getting to do while I’m sitting here desperate for a chance to even start.
The channels start off pretty standard. General chat. Memes, for some reason. Info, which contains a link to a website with HRT guides for trans people. How to do injections, avaible research on its effects.
Leaderboards, both divided by quarter-years and all-time. Several white names, with (disqualified) in bold letters. Unsurprisingly, the attrition rate is pretty high.
They’re listing cup sizes alongside something called “NTBV”. What the fuck.
“Normalized total breast volume,” Daniel interjects. “Cup sizes aren’t, y’know, accurate. So they worked out a formu that’s supposed to be more fair, account for differences in height, chest circumference, all of that stuff.”
The breast growth competitive scene has rigorous metrics. Cool. There’s a third number listed alongside each of the competitors, and I have to ask.
“Dude. What do they mean by ‘knockouts’?”
