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Aayla ran to her quarters, not even caring that it looked undignified for an initiate who was about to be a Padawan. She needed to get away and have space to think. Ferus Olin’s questioning had shaken her.
“How do you know you’re a female? Biologically, you’re not. Why would a Jedi care about outward appearances enough to live as a different gender anyway?” The younger initiate had asked, somewhat judgmentally. Aayla felt as though he was implying that by living as a female she was being unJedi- like. Worse, Aayla hadn’t even had a good response ready for him. When she had been brought to the Temple as a youngling, no one had questioned her gender. The other younglings had been too young to notice her biological differences from other Twi’lek females. But now they all knew.
Aayla entered her room. She tried to center herself. She sat down on her sleep couch and picked up the glowing red Heart of Fire stone that Quinlan had gifted her. It radiated a gentle heat, warming her hand. It had been a gift on her thirteenth birthday when he told her that he was taking her as his Padawan. That had been two weeks ago. He had left on a Jedi Shadow mission but when he returned he would take her formally as his Padawan. She wished he was here. Quinlan had always been a steady presence in her life. He would know what to say right now. She flopped back on the sleep couch with a sigh. Ferus isn’t totally wrong. Gender doesn’t matter, but for Jedi whose biological gender matches their internal sense of gender no one tells them to wear the opposite sex’s clothing to prove their commitment to the Jedi path. I’ve always known that I was female.
I knew that I wanted a female body. I saw the headwraps the Twi’lek women wore and I knew that it was right for me to wear one. I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to be a mother one day. And I liked boys. My mother, for the tragically brief time I knew her, taught me to keep those things secret. It was dangerous to be a girl on Ryloth, more dangerous still to be a transgender girl. But when Quinlan rescued me, he knew I was a girl. He said that he could sense it in the Force. I’ve always loved him for that. He brought me back to the Temple and introduced me as Aayla Secura. The name was the last gift my mother gave me, renaming me with a girl’s name. I discarded Ay Secura, like a Jalavash silkworm sheds its cocoon and becomes a beautiful moth.
Aayla sat up. I shouldn’t let Ferus’ words bother me. He is learning, too. I should release his words into the Force. She sat cross legged and sank into the Force, like a warm embrace. Ultimately we're all Jedi and that in the end is the only identity that matters. But we also hold identities like Togruta or Kiffar. For some their cultural heritage is really important to their daily lives, like Quinlan whose qukuuf are important ties to his family on Kiffu, and for others it's not. Gender is like that. In the end we're all Jedi but gender is sort of like a club most of us want to belong to. It isn't wrong and just because it's a "made up" set of things doesn't mean it's bad to enjoy and identify with it.
Aayla emerged from her meditation at the sound of a beep on her comm.
It was Quinlan.