Discover Top Posts Tagged with #trans ted

first of all, love that you just kinda. graduated your icon to a next level. looks like the inside of my brain.

now

trans ted- whats your timeline headcanon, like major points in the journey and all that

thank you thank you, once i figure out how to make the background a nonbinary pride flag (with my limited skills and apps) it's over for y'all

(no honestly i looked at several pictures of trent for several minutes and then i was like. i can't do it i can't choose another one so i just. upgraded this one 🙈)

second of all, oh lord. that's a tough one. i mentioned before that I started taking notes for a possible trans ted fic, and that's set after the events of s2, maybe even a while later. i think ted doesn't start the process of ~~realizing stuff until after his divorce. I think just like his bi awakening, the gender stuff is something he never really inspected too closely because he was too wrapped up in being michelle's husband, and that meant that both his gender and his sexuality revolved around that. (Being Henry's dad plays a big part on how he conceptualizes his gender, too, I think.)

(this is long af so here's a cut)

I'm gonna project here because of course I do that and say - ted's journey isn't linear. it's not like he has a realization at one point and then starts transitioning and then never looks back. it's more like. there were moments in his life. like when he was in middle school, he definitely grew his hair out at some point, right? little weird kid, obsessed with Queen, of course he did. (I'm not gonna say teenage ted with a mullet because neither me nor the world is ready for that but. i'm also not not saying it.)

And there you have this kid, round-faced and mild-mannered and definitely misunderstood by most of his peers, who also looks up to his father a lot. Of course he does, his father is a kind man, much nicer than most fathers Ted knows, and since Ted has trouble connecting to boys his age, he looks to his father as a role-model for masculinity. And he's like, yeah, I gotta be that, but better. I can make that work, if I just try harder and don't give up. The other boys may not always understand it, but Ted has chosen his path. He's not like these other boys and he doesn't want or need to be. He'll find his own way.

And then there's girls. Ted loves them, I'm sure he does. Especially this one he meets one day, just him and her, the only two people in that big parking lot. He wants to be good for her, the best boyfriend he can be, and later the best husband he can be, and even later the best father to their child he can be. He always goes the extra mile, but he also always feels like he just has to try a little harder. It's never quite enough, but surely, if he'll just does a little more, does it a little better, eventually he'll crack the code. he's happy, most of the time, at least as long as michelle is happy, and henry is happy. and if they're not happy, he'll be whatever they need him to be so they can be happy again. There's no need to think about himself.

Couple's therapy is rough, not only because it's Michelle and her therapist against him (or that's what it feels like at least), but also because for the first time in a long time, Ted is forced to look at himself. He's not allowed to look away. This isn't me saying he never self-reflects - I think he does that a lot actually - but it's very different to actively reflect on what kind of man you've been in your marriage and in your family, and how all the efforts you put in have often been more for your own sake than for the other person's. I think Ted scratches the surface of ~~realizing things there. Because he's been playing this part for so long, and for whom?? for what?? Always trying to be the man everyone needs him to be, but now finding out that's a burden he has placed on himself? Oh, that must hurt. I think it even hurts too much for Ted to dig deeper, to find a truth behind it.

That's later, after the divorce, at Richmond. The thing is this: Ted has been surrounded by men for most of his career, but even for a social butterfly like Ted, the way he connects to Higgins and Beard and Nathan and then Roy is a new thing. Beard as Ted's closest friend for decades might be weird, yes, but he's also way closer to the masculinity you'd expect from someone in sports - a little gruff, no lasting romantic relationships, emotionally unapproachable etc. He's Ted's levels of weird, but they've already been close for probably two decades, so they click on a different level. But with the others, Ted has a wide range of masculinities - Nathan's insecurities and Higgins the family man and the push-over, even Roy with his whole 'tough on the outside, soft on the inside' bit... Ted clearly values their input, respects them and all that, but sometimes, he still seems to set himself apart from them as well.

Now at the same time, i'm not sure there have been many women in Ted's life before Rebecca and Keeley - not that closely, not in the way of friendship and mutual respect. Keeley is one of the first people (maybe the first) at Richmond Ted genuinely connects with, and he's working hard to win over Rebecca, and he always meets them eye to eye.

And then there's the "Lavender" episode. Where Ted desperately tries to be part of Rebecca and Keeley's 'girl talk' in a way that blows my mind. (now we're at the point where tedbecca shippers may start to like me a little less - i'm sorry, friends, this is just my interpretation, i'm not trying to shit on yours or anything 🙈) Because they could have played this a dozen different ways - Ted could have been weirdly jealous of the guy Rebecca is talking to, he could have been uncomfortable from the vibes there. But no, he genuinely just wants to be a part of this kind of friendship, and all episode long, he makes an effort to learn the rules of it and adapt it. He later even applies what he has learned to the diamond dogs (the whole 'sometimes, people just need to talk about a thing and there needs to be no solution'), which i think is SUCH a cool choice. Because of course they could be saying here 'Instead of devaluing femininity, Ted lifts it up and learns from it' - but they go even beyond that. He says he wants to be Keeley multiple times a day AND he lets Rebecca use his hand to try out different nail polishes. He doesn't just play along to learn from it and adapt it for his own needs - no, he enjoys femininity for femininity's sake. Like I said, blows my fucking mind.

And I think somewhere there, somewhere after Nathan leaving when Ted is full of self-doubt, somewhere around the time he starts talking to Doctor Sharon for real - that's when a door opens for him to finally examine his gender.

And it's hard to say where that leads him, but holy shit, the possibilities excite me to no end.

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