So, here, we get to see Race's backstory, explaining everything.

Enjoy! :)

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Warning: mentions of transphobia, dysphoria, and unsafe binding

Out of all of Racetrack's secrets, his biggest one is that he was not born a boy. 

He used to have a life before the newsies. It wasn't a wealthy one, but it was one of enough food and a roof over his head. And dresses. The bane of his existence. That was probably one of the first signs that he didn't feel like his assigned gender. 

So he tried to wear boy's clothes. He would scour neighborhoods and trashcans for old pieces of clothes for boys that no one wanted anymore. He was eight when he first tried dressing up as a boy.

And it felt right.

He couldn't let his family know. They wouldn't understand.

So he would sneak out and change into those clothes elsewhere. It felt exhilarating running through the streets as a boy. He wished it could have lasted forever. But alas, he had to come home at the end of the day, and put on the wretched dress.

When he was nine, it got too much. He couldn't go on trying to pretend to be the perfect daughter. He told his parents he wanted to be a boy, with a boy's name and boy's clothes. They said that he couldn't keep acting like this. That they could cure these thoughts. So they kept him in the house, in the dresses, absolutely miserable. Until he ran away to his grandparents'. They loved him unconditionally in a way that his parents couldn't. And so that's the way they lived. They were happy.

Until he lost both of them to old age when he was ten.

That's when he took to the streets. He lived nameless, and never wore dresses again. But it was still hard surviving on the streets alone.

When he was a little closer to age eleven than age ten, a boy a couple years older than him found him, a boy like him: a boy who wasn't actually a boy. A boy who gave himself the name of Jack Kelly.

Jack Kelly took him under his wing. He brought him to the Manhattan Newsie's Lodging House. Jack promised that he wouldn't tell his secret. He promised that here, he could live as a boy. 

However, some of those newsies figured out it time that he wasn't born a boy. They knew that Jack wasn't either. They didn't care, though. To them, these two were just boys like them, and would fight anyone who said otherwise.

Race had never felt so validated as he did then.

And the euphoria from living with a bunch of boys, as a boy...it was the best feeling ever.

He still didn't have a nickname yet.

It was when after a few months of selling newspapers, when he was eleven, that he found his way to Sheepshead Races in Brooklyn. He kept going back. 

Because of that, the newsies called him Racetrack.

Receiving that name, a name that fit him better than the one given to him by his parents, gave him euphoria like none other. It fit. It was him. Finally, after all these years, he felt accepted.

Race's mind has always worked differently from others as well. He can be extra hyper-active, his thoughts jump around all the time, and he has a hard time focusing--or focuses too much. As a newsie, he could live like that too. He was surrounded by people who finally understood him.

At age twelve, he learned to gamble. Jack wishes that he would have waited a couple years first.

But very soon it became harder for Race to live as a boy when his body was ready to start becoming a woman. And Race did not want that. At all. Dysphoria kicked in. Hard. It led to a lot of anxiety and sleepless nights. Jack helped him through all of it, having gone through, and going through, the same things himself.

When his chest started to show through his shirt, Jack taught him how to bind. But, Jack warned him, he had to follow very strict rules: bind safely, not too tight, and for not too long. Because all they had to fight this dysphoria were bandages, and even then it wasn't the best. But it helped. And Race stuck to Jack's rules, and he got by. 

Jack and Race helped each other in whatever ways they could. They reassured each other that they both are real boys, and no one can take that away.

They also both realized together that their romantic attractions weren't like everyone else's either.

In gender and sexuality, they helped the other always feel validated and accepted. They became as close as brothers.

And so that's how it is.

Sometimes, Race still has doubts. He doubts if he's a real boy, if the newsies care for him, if his parents were right, if he should be here. Dysphoria will own him. Jack is there to tell him that he shouldn't listen to those doubts, that there is a way to keep dysphoria at bay.

Then there's euphoria. Little things like hearing people refer to him as Race(track) and male pronouns. Then there's bigger things like when Blink and/or Mush tell him how handsome he is, or how they're happy to know a guy like him, or when strangers never take a second to think that he's anything but a boy.

When the strike happened in July, Race was fifteen, nearly sixteen. When Jack's backstory--but not the full story, not even close--was revealed, it got Race to tremble. Was he going to be exposed next?

It was hard when Jack betrayed them. For as long as Race had known him, Jack was always on his side. When he wasn't, little fears and doubts began to slip back into Race's mind of who truly is on his side.

That's when he realized that Spot was on his side. Spot may never understand him like Jack would, but Race can no longer deny that he doesn't want to keep Spot away at a safe distance. He wants to bring him closer. There's a risk to that, though. Yes, he may be a gambler, betting on bad odds, but never like this.

Lately. however, Race's emotions are in great turmoil. His mind has been moving at a faster pace than it normally does. He's been feeling more dysphoria lately, and has been binding tighter and longer than he should be. He's realizing his feelings for Spot. Now that the strike is over, maybe his inner chaos will calm down. He hopes so, at least.

Racetrack Higgins is many things. He's a newsie, a gambler, witty, and smart. His mind works differently. He's a boy who wasn't born in the right body. He's queer. Many of these things are common knowledge in the newsies world, but definitely not all.

Maybe, in time, he can start sharing some of these secrets.

But today? He's not quite sure that today is that day.

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Alright, so there's a lot to unpack there.

Since Jack Kelly's "real name" is Francis Sullivan, that sounds a lot like a deadname, and I've found others with headcanons that Jack is trans and Francis Sullivan is his deadname. And I decided that that was something I wanted in my story.

Racetrack Higgins--the real one--did live with his grandparents. So I wanted to put that in here somewhere.

I'm sorry that I had them not bind safely. There was just no way for them to bind safely then.

So that's why Race's chest was hurting in the last chapter and it was hard for him to breathe. He was binding too long, and too tightly.

I don't wanna be around when Jack finds out haha.

In all seriousness, though, please, please, PLEASE don't bind unsafely. Don't use Ace bandages. Use a binder, or use a technique involving sports bras and sweatshirts and layering. Don't bind for too long.

So I myself don't identify as trans. But I'm genderfluid, and sometimes I feel like my assigned gender, sometimes the opposide gender, sometimes just a non-binary without a gender. I have strong dysphoria. And there are a lot of trans stories/feelings that I can relate to. Does that make sense?

Edit: I am two years older, potentially wiser, and I have a different relationship with these words than I did back then. Yes, I still identify as non binary and genderfluid. However I've also accepted that "trans" is an umbrella term that fits me too. Although I don't call myself trans when talking to most folk because that leads them to think I'm a trans binary person, I do now recognize that I am a trans person.

Not all trans stories are the same. A lot of them may follow the same lines. These were the lines that I thought Race's story may be like.

Hating dresses doesn't always have to be a sign of not wanting to be a girl. I mean, it can. But it can also be about what those dresses represent: femininity, and centuries of gender roles/stereotypes.

So this is Racetrack's history.  Maybe I should have explained this first before jumping into the main story, but this is just as important.

Some of you might say that I don't have a right to make Race to be ftm trans. Maybe you're right. Maybe I shouldn't be writing gay fanfiction using someone else's characters to project upon. But these are my headcanons. And it also may be a little canon. The cover shows a legitimate social media post where someone asks Kenny Ortega--the creator of Newsies--if Racetack Higgins is trans, and he replies to the message, and confirms it. So is it canon? In a sense, yes; but since it was never a part of the movie, you can argue that it's not. But I've seen among Newsies fans, both 92sies and Livesies alike, thousands of trans Racetrack headcanons/stories/posts/etc. So I'm just one story out of many. There's a lot of us you're going to have to fight if you want to make the argument that Racetrack Higgins is a cis(and het) man.

I don't know if you caught it, but in some places I described Race having ADHD. Not that they had a word for it back then. I headcanon him as having ADHD. So, that's how I'm going to write him.

I just have one question. What do you all think?

No matter what your gender identity is, you are valid <3

Please, no homophobia or transphobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who wishes that all gender-nonconforming people should never feel gender dysphoria, only gender euphoria)