Chapter Text
1985
Anu Nicola Rosberg was born right when the sun breached the Neroberg, spilling light into Keke's life. Keke had been holding Sina's hand, trying to provide all the comfort he could--yet Anu had been an easy birth, popping out barely eleven hours after labor had begun. She'd entered the world wailing, not comforted by the nurse's soft cooing nor the dimming of the lights as the nurse laid her on the scale.
"4.2 kilograms. A strong healthy girl," the nurse says, picking up the crying baby. "She's got some powerful lungs already." Sina laughs weakly and squeezes Keke's hand, though it is barely a flutter in comparison to her normal strength.
"Will blue work?" the nurse asks, taking Anu to the swaddling station. "We have a new shipment of pink blankets coming in tomorrow, but..."
"-That's fine." Sina says, with a tone that Keke knows is her holding her tongue to stop herself from demanding the nurse hand over her child. They swaddle Anu tightly, having to restart after the babe manages to throw an arm up in the middle of it, breaking the fold.
"She's going to be a handful," the nurse chuckles, handing her over to Sina carefully. Sina cuddles with the still squealing baby for a few minutes, then hands her to Keke.
Their child is indeed healthy and strong: all limbs and appendages fully developed, a fear considering she's barged into the world three weeks early. She has a small wisp of blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a pink face, still scrunched up. She's not crying anymore, but still sniffling. One of their little hands is clenched onto the blue blanket, holding it close to them, as if trying already to mimic the warmth of the womb. Keke adores them already, more than he has ever adored anyone upon first sight.
"Hei kulta." He says softly, holding the baby so close she could reach out and grab her mustache if she wanted. He has small tears beading up in his eyes he refuses to acknowledge. "Olen isäsi."
"Our beautiful girl." Sina sighs happily. Anu bursts back into tears.
Looking back on that moment, Sina always jokes between the tears and the blanket, God was trying to give them the signs before Nico could tell them.
✦
1989
From the time Anu's personality begins to show, the Rosbergs quickly realize there is something is quite...different about their daughter. At age three, she begins pulling out the big bows Sina clipped into her straw blonde hair and getting rid of them in escalating ways: hiding them in her toybox, putting them in the trashcan, throwing them out the car window, even giving them to the drivers Keke invites over who happily refuse to take it off. Instead, she steals Keke's flannels, happily drowning in them and running away whenever Lea tries dressing her in traditional Finnish smocks.
"I hate dresses and skirts." Anu declares one Christmas when she comes down wearing one of Keke's button downs over her dress for family photos. "They make me feel bad."
At age four, Anu begins to refuse to go by her name.
"Nico!" Anu demands in tears one evening when Keke had asked Anu how her day with Mama was. "I want to be called Nico!"
"Anu, your middle name is Nicola--" Sina cried to sooth but Anu kicked one of her little feet in protest from her high chair.
"Nicola is girly." Anu sniffed. "I like Nico." And like Nico she did. Soon all the careful name tags Sina had sown into Anu's clothing had clumsy writing reading Nico sprawled over it. Anu's tennis coaches even began calling her that, explaining that she refuses to listen to them if they call her by her proper name.
"I'm not a girl," she explains sleepily later when Keke asks her about it. "I'm a boy. So I'm using my boy name, my real name."
Keke isn't truthfully sure what to say to that.
✦
Though Keke retires from Formula 1 when Anu's only one, cars still roam around their house: from the television playing the races to Keke's racing memorabilia, the house resembles more of a garage than Sina's beachy paradise most days.
Anu of course does not help this.
"Vittu!" Keke mutters, for the fourth time one blistery fall morning. "Anu Nicola! What have we told you about leaving your cars on the stairs?"
Watson had given Keke a twenty-four pack of plastic cars, "for your kid to continue on the family legacy" that Christmas. To say they were a success vastly undersells them - Anu adores the cars. Every day, there's a new race across the hallway, down the bannister, weaving all around the furniture in Isi and Mama's room. It's adorable - or would be adorable if it didn't mean there were now twenty-four tripping hazards scattered throughout their house. Keke's already broken five of them by stepping on them in the middle of the night.
Instead of an apology, Keke gets giggles and another car zipping between his legs.
✦
Sometimes Keke looks at his child and sees only a girl: a girl with big bows who loves exploring Mama's makeup, and who has a big pout whenever she doesn't get her way.
Sometimes though, Keke is unable to see his child as anything but a little boy.
Keke hopes it's not a bad thing.
✦
1990
There's pee all over the bathroom and when he confronts Anu about it, Anu tries to blame it on a dog that doesn't exist.
Eventually, Sina's able to figure out it's because Nicola's trying to urinate standing up, leading to disastrous results.
Keke lets Sina handle that one.
✦
What are we supposed to do with her?" Sina sighed one evening after Anu had used Keke's razor sewing scissors to give herself what could be considered a buzzcut by the optimistic the day before her fifth birthday. Sina had scared Keke shitless by screaming when she'd found Anu sitting in the bathroom sink with little clippings of hair all over the sink and floor.
"Anu is...strange." Keke agrees, remembering how he'd tried unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter, which made Anu grin wider. "But that is not always bad."
"I know." Sina moans. "I know I should just want her to be happy, I'm just...worried, I guess. What if she's sick?"
"Then we'll figure out what's wrong with her and help her." Keke reassures her, pulling Sina into a hug she melts into. "Besides, Anu's happy. How bad can it be if she's happy?"
✦
They enroll Anu in preschool and quickly realize that her behaviors don't stop at home. All of her friends are boys and, as the teachers report, she throws fits whenever the class splits up by gender.
"I'd recommend getting your child a therapist." Mrs. Lorenzi says with a sympathetic smile. "I've never met such a strange little tomboy."
"Not a tomboy. Just a boy." Anu corrects and Mrs. Lorenzi's smile gets more brittle and frustrated around the edges.
✦
1991
For Anu's sixth birthday, Keke takes her go-karting in Ibiza. She's always shown an interest in cars so this seemed like the perfect gift.
The sun is cooking the tarmac when they get there midday. They're not going to go properly karting today: while Keke knows that some F1 drivers wouldn't hesitate to push their two-year-olds straight into competitive karting, Keke sees no point in traumatizing his baby girl. Besides, he had his race debut at twenty-nine and he's now a world champion. They are instead going 'baby karting' as drivers call it, where Anu has control of the steering wheel with Keke controlling the brake, accelerator, and everything else.
They've got a jeep for this so they can both fit, but Keke treats it like a kart anyway, carefully buckling the helmet strap under Anu's chin, flattening the bowl cut she insists on having to her head.
"Now remember Anu," Anu pouts and turns away from him. Keke sighs. "Remember Nico," Keke modifies, and Nico turns right back around, "Cars are not toys. Understand? Cars can kill people." Nico's eyes seem to sparkle at the thought, just as Keke's own eyes had when his Isä had given him this speech so many years ago.
Like father, like daughter it seems.
Keke gets them situated, explains the clutch and brake and pedals to a clearly-impatient Anu. He expects them to be out there for maybe 30 minutes-- probably driving in gentle circles, with a few zig-zags that will hopefully make Anu giggle.
They're out there for five hours, Anu forcing him to drive faster and faster along the track until they're practically rally drivers. "Faster, faster!" Anu demands after each lap, and Keke obliges, burning so much rubber they smell it when they leave the car.
"You're a little star aren't you, An-Nico!" Keke laughs, spinning her in the air. He's never had so much fun with his child. "Such beautiful talent!"
She beams down at him, the happiest he has ever seen her.
That evening, Keke looks into the junior competitive karting leagues in Monaco. They're all small things of course given the size of Monaco, with maybe ten competitors on their best days - a perfect amount for Anu to start with. He imagines how happy she'll be, how good she'll become. She has such raw drive, such talent. Keke has always known his little angel would do incredible things.
It hurts of course, knowing it would be impossible for Anu to enter the formula series or professional racing outside maybe karting. Though there's no laws about it, it'd simply be impossible to get Anu the needed sponsors to continue to F1, even with his last name. Keke hopes she'll at least be content with karting for now, until he can find a way to break that system.
✦
Every morning, Keke spends thirty minutes shaving and shaping his mustache. It's the same morning routine he's had since he began growing it out in 1959 and until he loses his facial hair, he'll keep it up. It's grounding to have a daily morning routine to do, regardless of if he's racing, sailing, or spending a nice day at home. He typically does it alone too, with Sina soaking up those extra minutes of sleep.
For the past few days though, he's had a little shadow watching him.
"Do you want to learn to shave?" he asks her one morning and Nicola, as she's asked to be called - a good compromise from Nico for now, nods dutifully. The next day, Keke takes the little ottoman from Sina's vanity, removes a blade from one of his old razors, and sets out a little bowl of water and shaving cream.
"Come Nicola," he says and Nicola joins him, her little head just appearing in the bottom of the mirror. "Watch carefully, we start on the sides. Nice, gentle, motions."
Over time, it becomes a habit: he shaves and Nicola on her little step-stool uses the modified razors to scape the shaving cream off her face.
It's a bit odd, but she is happy, a rare sight these days.
Ever since starting proper school in Nice, Nicola has been miserable. The kids at school are not kind, she reports back to them over sniffling dinners: they refuse to call her Nico, they make fun of her clothes, they mock her karting trophies dedicated to "Nico Rosberg" (truthfully, Keke doesn't know how Nicola got away with that one, but that's the name she's racing under), and they throw gum in her short hair. They've filed hundreds of complaints to the school at this point, but gotten the same answer back each time: kids will be kids, boys will be boys, a little teasing is good for the soul.
They even get a complaint from a parent. The gist of it is that 'your daughter should act more like a girl' - Keke throws the letters into the fire.
Keke would do anything to see her daughter happy. If that meant not forcing her to change her clothes, allowing her to call herself Nico, even taking her with him to the barber's shop so she gets a proper boy's cut, he would do it.
Even if all he can do is allow her to think she's shaving with him, that's what he'll do.
✦
1992
Basically every therapist in Monaco is affiliated with the church in some way, so they end up finding one in Nice. Her name is Ms. Fabre and Nicola seems to get along well with her, but after only two appointments, she terminates the service.
"Your child is lovely," Ms. Fabre says. "however I believe Nico would benefit from a male therapist." She has several recommendations and they settle on a Mr. Abadie only five minutes further down the street.
The fact she and later Mr. Abadie both call Nicola Nico does not go unnoticed.
✦
"Transsexualism." Sina declares, throwing a heavy book and several old newspapers onto the table one Sunday when Mika had taken Nicola out for ice cream as a reward for finishing first in her league. "I think that's what it is." Keke raises an eyebrow at her over the morning's coffee.
"Trans-what?"
"Trans-sexual-ism." Sina repeats, opening the book up and skimming through it. "Look, here." She points to a journal article, in the middle of the page. "See? Transsexualism: A Study of Forty-Three Cases by Jan Wålinder, translated from Swedish to German this year. It's an old article, from the 1970s or something. And look at this too," she pulls a few of the newspapers out from under the book.
"I made a list of all the countries who have laws about this. Laws, Keke, it's a real thing: Sweden, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France has a law they're debating right now about it--these are countries we know! Countries close to us. Look too, there are people, interviews with them." Sina then adds, pointing to different newspapers. "People living their lives, happily, just as a different person I guess?"
They both take a few minutes to look over the documents: Wålinder's article and the newspaper.
A person born in the wrong body, as they describe it.
"It...could be." Keke says, carefully. "But are we sure she is not just a tomboy?"
"I was a tomboy." Sina argues. "Nicola, well maybe Nico, she does not act like a tomboy Keke. I know you don't spend as much time with us, because you're still working with endurance racing and mentoring JJ and Mika in order to support us, but trust me Süßer, I know our child."
"And you think our child has this transsexual...ism?"
Sina sighs. "Apparently Mr. Abadie and Ms. Fabre both think so. If they think so, I think it's worth looking into a diagnosis."
✦
Keke does not pretend to be a religious man, unless someone asks him why he moved to Monaco, and then it's for religion, not taxes. Still, he grew up surrounded by the idea that you should love the body God gave you, the sex God gave you. He sits with the idea for a long time, long enough that his Äiti notices something's wrong with him when he flies up to see her for her birthday.
"What is it, Keke?" Lea asks and Keke sighs. It's just them for dinner tonight: Isä is out of town, visiting his sick parents, and Sina is taking Nico to a friend's party. It seems after a year in schooling, Nicola's made exactly one friend in primary school, and Keke privately thinks he's only friends with Nicola to make himself feel good.
"Sina thinks Anu (as Nicola is still Anu when they are in Finland) may be a boy in spirit. A proper boy." Lea pauses, resting her fork on her plate.
"She thinks that?" Lea says, tone polite but shocked. "Is that possible?" "
There's medical articles about it, äiti." Keke responds, stroking his mustache, looking into his kalakukko. "It's a thing, clearly, I just..."
"Anu is quite young." Lea responds, picking up on Keke's anxieties like she always does.
"There is that." Keke agrees. "I also just worry it is against God - if God made Nicola a girl, is that not a sign we are crossing him by doubting him." Lea hums. His äiti was a nurse for several years and when she hums like that, Keke often knows that means she's thinking back on her time as a labor and delivery nurse.
"There were several babies born in the NICU where we did not know the sex of them." Lea says carefully "When a baby is born, sometimes it is hard to tell what is a large clit or a small penis."
"Äiti!" Keke groans.
"Hush it is true." She sniffs. "Eat your food and listen." Keke does.
"Anyways, there were some babies where we could not tell at all - genitals are such small things you know." Lea continues like this is a normal conversation to have at the dinner table. "Babies who are born early, well sometimes there was nothing easily visible at all, or it all got twisted in there. We always tell those mothers - poor things you can imagine - that God sometimes gives children the journey of discovering who they are, in several ways. Granted, it's typically not like...Nicola's case, but."
"You think there's merit to the idea?" Keke asks. Lea sighs.
"I don't know." Lea admits. "I'll say the idea unsettles me, I'll admit, but well, before the Christian God, the Norse gods of this land changed sex whenever it benefited them. You said that our Nicola is a good little racer, yes?"
"The best." Keke says. "She hasn't been beaten yet, even by the big boys who like to ram into her kart."
"Then maybe God made Nicola's path more complicated because he realized he gave her the wrong body for her craft." Äiti reaches across the table and gently rubs Keke's forearm. "That means our job is just to fix the physical to match." She then smiles.
"Besides, I've always wanted a grandson."
✦
Keke and Sina travel to Paris during Nicola's winter holidays, the closest place that has proper hospitals specializing in "gender-identity disorders" or so they call them. The Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière is a tall, gothic building with domed iron roofs and large metal gates. The yellow curtains do nothing to make it look more cheery, especially not with the withered gardens surrounding the walkway: it feels like they're leading their child to a mental institute rather than actual help.
Fitting, because as a plaque so helpfully tells them, the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière used to be one of the largest asylums in Paris.
"This is a hospital right?" Sina asks him as Nicola skips down the path, several toy cars grasped in her fists. Isä and Äiti had given them to her from Christmas, the first time they had not given her a smock or dress, and Nicola hadn't put them down since.
"That's what the doctor in Nice said." Keke confirms. Upon the advice of the therapists, they'd tried to take Nicola to their private clinic in Nice, the one near Nico's school, but they said they wouldn't be able to help.
"We're not certified in that kind of practice," Dr. Laurent had told them, giving Nicola a lollypop even though she hadn't had to do anything. "Especially not in children so little as seven. But Paris has some good doctors; I've heard stories from doctors up there about children switching sexes before their teenage years, sparing them years of pain. Apparently, the body not matching the mind can cause severe physiological distress."
Despite the winter weather, the hospital is cold and empty when they walk in rather than the warm inviting entrances of Yule. A small sign in French points to the receptionist's desk through a large wooden door, but there is nothing to make the place look appealing. Keke and Sina exchange looks.
Pushing open the door, they reach the receptionist, who signs in 'their child', then ushers 'their child' and them to the waiting room, where after around ten minutes, a doctor calls for 'the child of Keke and Sina Rosberg' is to see them.
"Children alone." She says when Keke tries to follow. "It's okay, Dr. Moreau will take very good care of your child." Disgruntled, Keke and Sina sit back down, watching the clock ticking down.
"They only referred to him as 'our child,' did you notice that?" Sina whispered to him. There's a few people in the waiting room, none of whom seem to be paying any attention, but they still whisper just in case.
"Maybe it's common practice." Keke whispers back, thinking about the severe physiological distress Dr. Laurent mentioned earlier.
They sit in the waiting room for what feels like hours, watching as other patients and their families check themselves in. Most people come with what Keke assumes must be their partner, all wearing flamboyant dresses, crisp suits, and other formal clothing. No one looks younger than thirty. Keke and Sina are horrifically underdressed.
"Did we bring him in too young?" Sina whispers, looking around. They catch the eye of a woman who smiles at them and they smile back politely. God Keke wishes he'd brought a book or something.
"We'll find out." Keke says. That's all they can do after all.
✦
Dr. Moreau is a tall, thin, blonde woman with tight features and a stern bow. She greets them with a nod, but nothing more and directs them to two chairs across from her desk with no flair. Concerningly, Nicola is nowhere in sight.
"Mr. Rosberg, Mrs. Rosberg." She says flatly. "Thank you for bringing in your child. I have the results of our preliminary tests right now." She speaks with a firm Alsatian Accent, which is oddly comforting. Alsace is only around two hours from Weinsberg after all.
"I'm sorry, where is...our child?" Sina says carefully, clearly remembering the 'your child' language from earlier.
"He is playing in the playroom." Dr. Moreau says, not looking up from where she is organizing the test results. "We have a small room for our younger patients, though typically they are not that young."
"Did we do something wrong?" Keke blurts out, unable to continue it any longer. "Did we bring him in too young?"
"I would say no." Dr. Moeau says, though her tone is far from reassuring. "I'd typically say yes, but our preliminary tests as well as his lived experience do provide a good base for a diagnosis at this age."
She leans over and hands a collection of papers to them. Keke looks and then pauses. "So did our child....pass? Is that the correct word?"
"It's inconclusive. Nico's close to that, but not there yet. Instead, what we need from you is a lived-life experience test in order to draft the proper paperwork." She adjusts her glasses. "If you want my honest opinion, I'd be happy writing up a plan and signing the diagnosis forms now, but the law requires it to be much more difficult than that so lived-life experience may be your best bet."
"What is that?" Sina asks and Dr. Moreau shoots her what can not be described as a nice look. It occurs to Keke that she must deal with people who know what they're talking about most of the time instead of well, bumbling fools like them.
"I would describe it living like...your child is a son." Dr. Moreau says. "Call him Nico, dress him only in boys clothes, everything. Consider homeschooling. While your Nico has identified as a male since birth basically, still, children can have very pure motives and sometimes it's just that they want to play pretend for a while." She looks up at them and they both nod politely. She looks back down at her paper.
"Additionally, get him examined for autism, ADHD, schizophrenia. Get him tested for everything." Upon seeing their confused faces, her tone softens. "I don't think your child has any of these, I should say. This is just so when you come back in a year, we know that there's nothing else that could be contributing to Nico's confusion."
Keke nods slowly.
"Alright, so treat Nicola like a Nico, and get her tested for all other mental abnormalities and illnesses." Keke restates and Dr. Moreau nods.
"Him. And exactly. To be frank, as I said earlier, you're doing a very good thing bringing your child in this early." Dr. Moreau says. "The earlier we find out, the earlier we can treat this in order to have a happy child."
She pauses, then puts down the papers.
"If you want my honest advice, off the medical record." Dr. Moreau says. "I'd say if you both should consider subscribing to magazines about transsexual people and read more about it. Our offices have a PO box in America and the UK so we can send you quarterly versions that may be helpful."
"There are magazines about this?" Sina says hopefully and Dr. Moreau nods.
"Several actually." Dr Moraeu confirms. "Chrysalis started publishing last year in 1991 as did the Transsexual News Telegram. For both of those, you'd need to use the PO box, but that's only a small additional fee. Transgender Tapestry and Transformation Magazine have been publishing for years too. There are some books as well, but magazines are more commonplace."
"And it's normal." Keke confirmed.
"Well it's not normal." Dr. Moreau countered. "But your son's not sick - he's just well, in my opinion, your son."
✦
1993
Nico is delighted to not return to Nico for the spring semester. When they tell him they'll be home-schooling him, he gives them a big smile and hugs them both tight, thanking them. Keke and Sina share a look - if they had known school really was that bad, they would have taken him out of Nice years ago. Sina buys all the proper books and supplies for it, and draws them up a schedule: she teaches languages on Mondays and Thursdays, and they have tutors come in every other school day to teach their subject.
Nico's eight now, old enough where Keke and Sina's combined college-level education isn't the best base for schooling. He is however a little vexed by the realization it is still a school schedule.
"I thought I'd have more time to kart if I was being homeschooled." He complains when Keke refuses to unlock the garage until Nico finishes his French. "What's the point?"
They don't properly tell Nico what the point is - nor do they tell the neighbors. Whenever people ask, they say Nicola is sick, a gut disease, very bad and scary and contagious. It's harsh but people tend to leave them alone after that, though they do get a few well-meaning get well soon cards in the mail. Sina tried hard to stash them in a place Nico would never look (her underwear drawer); however, one day the truth comes out when some of Sina's laundry gets mixed up with Nico's at the dry cleaners and Nico is helping her put it all away.
"Why are they telling me to get well?" Nico says with a laugh, ruffling through all the cards, clearly hoping some of them included monetary well wishes. "I've never been better." In truth, Nico's right. Though the family has been quite isolated, particularly Nico, who only leaves the house to kart or follow them around when they go shopping, Keke can tell they're all doing better. They laugh more often, Keke eats better, and even Mika comments on how good the family looks when he joins them on their vacation to Ibiza.
"I don't know what those docs in France told you, but Nicola's looking incredible." Mika says, watching as Nico takes a running jump into the pool.
"Nico," Keke corrects instinctively. The name has oddly been the easiest part: Nico's been begging them to call him Nico since he was three after all. Keke still messes up the pronouns a bit, but Nico pouts and stomps away from him when that happens so it's been a quick learning curve.
"Nico." Mika repeats. "Huh. Guess that explains a bit. So he's like, what, a reserve Coccinelle?" Keke grunts in agreement. Coccinelle was one of the several figures Keke's learned about through the magazines they've had delivered to their house. Every night, he and Sina choose a new article to read and then summarize it to compare against the other stories and papers they've read. Some are delightful, some are terrible (both in grammar and in content) but it's left them at least feeling like they're more in control of themselves.
They also found some books. Most of the published books out there are about trans women like the autobiography of Christine Jorgensen and Man into Woman by Lili Elbe; those are helpful, but not what they're dealing with. It's hard but they end up finding a few by trans men like Mario Martino, Michael Dillon, and Karl M. Baer. They're lucky they raised Nico to be multicultural: Mario wrote in Italian and Baer wrote in German. Nico sometimes reads it with them, but often doesn't.
"They're my feelings." He says. "I don't think I need to read about them, I just feel them."
Keke privately disagrees. He's read the chapters about how hard puberty and teenage-hood is for transsexual men, and all of them say 'if they had had a story like this, it would have felt better.'
Keke trusts their word a little more than he trusts that of his eight-year-old who hasn't lived through puberty yet.
✦
A lot of the articles they read are from America. They work together to paint an idealistic yet fragile image of a community of people like their son, people with whom their son could relate to.
Keke won't deny he is worried that his child has no friends, and certainly here in Monaco will never have friends who are gay or who have a gender disorder in any sort of way. Several of the books highlight that being an outsider means they reached for a second family, sometimes first family if their biological family was not accepted.
Monaco has no such resources.
He and Sina have discussed moving to America, Singapore, or Sweden several times - the countries that seem the most accepting of children like theirs, the most likely to have these small second families. All their conversations however have come away with a negative. Singapore is too far away, Keke has bad memories of Sweden, and the spread of HIV in America scares them away from it.
There are more queer (Keke has learned that is the best term to encompass gay people and people like his son into one group) people in America, but there are also more people who are aware of trans people like their son and hate him.
No one in Keke's life or community knows what being transsexual is, if they know the term at all. Keke sees this as the better of two evils - if the world is never going to be accepting, it is better for the world to think their son is a little strange, than to know the language to hate him, or hurt him.
Here in their little corner of Monaco, the world has not caught up yet, and that is safer for their Nico.
Keke hopes he's making the right choice.
✦
Mr. Abadie delights in the experiment they're doing.
"He's already doing so much better mentally." He chats to them after one meeting. "I've never seen a treatment curve depressive symptoms so effectively."
Severe physiological distress, Dr. Laurent had said. It's terrifying to know how close they were.
✦
Over Christmas, they fly back to Germany and stay with Sina's family, a scary act in and of itself. Sina's parents never approved of her marrying a Finnish racing driver - "too much instability, too little German" - but Sina had never cared much for their opinion. She's frankly never been one to care for tradition, as seen by her saying 'why not?' instead of 'I do' to their wedding vows. It's one of the endless reasons he loves her. Their dual decision to move to Monaco (which the Gleitsmann-Dengels see as Keke's decision to move him and his family to Monaco) had been the final straw and there has been rare contact between the two parties since. They had refused to show up to Nico's Christening, every Christmas the Rosberg's spent in Monaco, and fully cut contact with Keke's parents.
Good riddance, in Keke's opinion, but they are still Nico's grandparents and deserve to know about their son during this time.
He and Sina had weighed the reality of stopping Nico's lived-life test when they went to Germany to see Oma and Opa, but they had decided against it. Every day, it becomes more and more clear in Keke's eyes that their child may well indeed be a son and to ask Nico to go back into acting like a girl just for his family seems...well, Keke isn't sure how it feels outside of bad.
They arrive at the house late the night of the 21st, and Keke sees their smiles twitch slightly upon seeing Nico. Indeed, as soon as Nico, tired from a day of travel and in general quite a sleepy child, goes to bed the questions start.
"You have allowed her to dress horrifically." Margarete Dengel sniffs, virtually as soon as Nico's door closes. "She looks like a boy."
"An ugly boy." Heinrich Gleitsmann adds. "A real ruffian."
"Thanks Papa." Sina says dryly before Keke can give his in-laws a good talk. "Look, we need to talk to you both about our child actually."
They sit at the kitchen table, the air dry and the mood curdled. The Gleitsmann-Dengels still like using candles at night time so the faintest whiff of lilac fills the air, contrasting horribly to the ugly shadows thrown over everyone's faces. The Gleitsmann-Dengels offer some sort of brandy and despite the fact Keke and Sina both hate the liquor, they both accept and drain at least a full shot off their glasses upon it being served.
They both know it'll be that type of conversation.
"Becoming alcoholics are we." Heinrich says. It could have been a funny joke if he had bothered attempting to make it sound like one. "Very Finnish of you." Keke lost his grandmother to alcoholism. Heinrich knows this. Keke wants to throw his glass in Heinrich's face.
"Funny." Keke says, using the same tone Heinrich did. Margarete's lips thin.
"So." Margarete says, tossing her hair behind her neck. "What's wrong with our granddaughter then?"
"Our child," Sina says, steel in her voice. Keke has rarely been as proud as he is now. "has what's called a gender-identity disorder. It's a type of mental illness that can be incredibly easy or incredibly difficult to live with depending on how the people around the patient respond." Sina takes a breath and Keke squeezes her thigh under the table gently. She gives him a grateful smile. "What we're doing is following the advice of specialists we've seen in Paris. Nico's specific type of illness is called transsexualism so--"
"He's a tranny?" Heinrich says, disgust clear in his tone. Both Sina and Keke falter.
"Don't call our child that." Keke snaps back immediately. Internally however, his mind is racing. He had prepared for many things: worries that Nico's too young, general unacceptance, even accusations of selling their child to the devil. He's read about those. He hadn't expected them to know the term, let alone the slurs for it.
"Are you serious?" Heinrich says. "You raised our grandchild to be a fucking tra--"
"--Don't call my son that!" Sina yells back, raising her voice to match his.
"She's not your son!" Margarete snaps. "She was christened Anu Nicola. She was born a woman, she will stay a woman."
"And then what, he kills himself at twenty-one?" Keke replies back. Keke hasn't seen the statistics, but he's read the stories. He reads the newspaper and remembers the stories of children led to believe the only place that would accepet them is heaven. Margarete scoffs but before Keke can say another word back to her, Heinrich interrupts, standing up and yelling red in the face.
"Better dead than alive." Heinrich yells back and all the air leaves Keke's lungs as Heinrich had reached into Keke's lungs and stolen it himself. That bastard. That utter bastard - how such a man made so beautiful and lovely a woman in every way Keke will never understand. Sina's staring at her father, jaw dropped. The betrayal in her eyes slices Keke's heart even though it isn't even directed at him.
"What?" Margarete says, even she caught off-guard from the pure hate in her husband's heart.
"You heard me." Heinrich scoffs. Out of the corner of his eye, Keke sees Nico's little head peep around the corner, clutching his teddy bear in one hand. Oh God, he doesn't want his poor son to hear this. There's a hiss of breath as Sina notices too, but if Heinrich does, it doesn't stop him. "A tranny" Nico recoils like he's been slapped. "-is no better th-"
Heinrich's sentence is interrupted by Keke's fist smashing him right in his perfect fucking teeth.
✦
"Trouble with the in-laws?" The midnight receptionist at the nearest hotel asks with an awkward smile. Sina and Nico's eyes are both red-rimmed and Keke's got a black eye and bruised stomach. Heinrich can hit hard, but Keke hit harder - Heinrich had two black eyes and multiple missing teeth by the time Sina had gotten them all out of there. He hopes he broke a rib.
Bastard deserved it.
"One could say that." Sina replies with a tight smile.
They never end up seeing her parents in person again.
✦
1994
For Nico's birthday a few months later, they invite Keke's parents. Keke hates how his son watches their reactions to him so carefully, always carefully like he's scared of saying the wrong thing, of being the wrong thing.
Nico crawls into bed with them the day before their formal brunch, the way he always has when he gets scared. He asks Keke if he should wear his dress, the only one he still has, a garment that Nico has never once wanted to wear. He says that he'll wear it but he can't reach it because Mama had packed it away in the highest shelf in Nico's room.
"No baby," Keke says, pulling Nico into a full cuddle that Nico curls into. "Why would you think that, hm? Your Vaari and Mummu love you just the way you are."
"Oma und Opa didn't." Nico replies back. "What if Vaari and Mummu have changed their minds?"
Lars and Lea got Nico a shirt that reads best grandson ever.
It's a bit on the nose, but it makes Nico and Sina cry, and his family's happiness is all Keke ever wants.
✦
One of the advantages of having Nico home is that it means Keke can bring Nico with him to professional racing events. He's taken Nico to a few, especially when Nico was only about one or two and Keke was still wrapped up with the damn Finnish broadcasting. He hadn't taken Nico for several years by this point, but now with Nico more comfortable with himself, he's more comfortable bringing his son places like this where other people will be noticing them. Despite no longer being chained down by the Finnish broadcasting service, Keke's been managing JJ and Mika for a few years in the junior categories so his presence isn't questioned. Bringing Nico gets him a few odd looks, but Keke's a world champion so no one says anything. The perks of winning, truly.
He shows Nico the garages, the pitstop location, even takes him fully behind the scenes into the driver's rooms where he runs into a few drivers. Most recognize him only as a world champion, but there's still a few oddballs still in the Formula One circus that know Keke as himself and not his title.
"Hey Keke," Gerhard greets him, breaking up from the group. "And this is, uh." He looks to Keke for confirmation. Keke can't blame him: Nico today is wearing a white t-shirt with a blue and gray flannel over it. His hair looks less like a short girl's haircut and more simply that of an eight-year-old boy when paired with his clothes. Nico also however has no Adam's apple, his face is deeply feminine and he's holding Keke's hand tightly. If Keke didn't know Nico was his son, he frankly would have no idea Nico's sex.
Gerhard's a joker. Keke can't help himself.
"Well, it's my child." He responds, pulling Nico out from where he had been basically cowering behind Keke's legs. "See the resemblance?"
"Of course I see the resemblance!" Gerhard laughs. "All the kid's missing is a mustache. I mean, uh, what's." He looks back at Keke, basically begging for an answer on if Nico's his son or daughter. The fact he's unsure sends a burst of pride through Keke's system.
"My son." Keke says, no subtleties used to hide his pride. "Say hello Nico."
"Hi." Nico says, a small bashful smile on his features.
"Trying to make a family legacy?" Alboreto asks, smirking.
"Well, he's the best little racer in France and Monaco." Keke confirms. "I'm looking to enroll him in competitive karting in around a year and a half, when that new season starts up." He squeezes Nico's shoulder gently. "I'm already proud of him."
The drivers coo and mock Keke for the rest of the day, teasing him for going soft, but Nico holds his hand and keeps his head held high. If it provides a history of drivers knowing Nico as a man, well, that's an added bonus.
✦
Around a year and a half after they started the lived-life test, they take Nico back to Dr. Moreau. They have all the correct papers, all the negative psych evaluations, even notes from his therapist, but truthfully, although they know what they're doing this time, it feels more tense than before. All the magazines and books empathized that the type of medical treatments that follow a diagnosis are completely irreversible.
If this diagnosis is positive, which Keke is already sure it will be, then the next steps are ones far more challenging and costly in every way.
The receptionist greets them with a nod this time, clearly remembering them from last time. Can't be hard, considering Nico's still by far the youngest person there. Just like before, they take Nico back by himself and the couple reads books as they wait. They hadn't brought anything last time; they are better prepared now. He'd brought an action novel though Sina had thought it topical to bring the newest books about gay culture she'd found at the library.
"Excuse me," a voice asks softly. "Is that Le Chemin des Fugues, by Sullerot?" Keke looks up as a person approaches his wife, hands clasped nervously in front of them. He can't tell if they're a man or a woman - they're around Keke's height, at 179 cm either hinting to a tall woman or a shorter man. They've got a smart button up with a blazer, but also a patchwork skirt on. Their cornrow braids aren't decorated. Keke did read in books about people that were neither male nor female, perhaps this is it.
"It is!" Sina says, delighted at the question, tapping the chair next to her in invitation. "A good friend of mine found it for me in a library in Antibes. Have you read it?"
"I haven't." The stranger says, slinking into the chair next to them. Their voice is soft, gentle, almost whispery. It drifts through the air like smoke from a candle. "I have heard of it. From friends in my support group. They say it is very good."
"I'd recommend it." Sina says happily. "Oh, I'm sorry. I, my name is Sina and my husband, Keke. We're here for our son, Nico - he's the little eight-year-old you may have seen. We're from Monaco though I'm German and Keke's Finnish so truthfully we're from all over."
"I am Dominique." The stranger says. "I am here for myself, from Menton."
"Nico to meet you." Keke says, politely. He offers a hand and Dominique shakes it. Their hand is rough and thick with callouses, but their nails are painted a shade of light pink and clearly manicured, small perfect almonds.
"Your son is quite young." Dominique says. "I am glad you are supporting him. Many would not." She? He? doesn't say it judgmentally, but the words still somehow sting.
"Well, what else could we do?" Sina says, laughing nervously. She clearly feels the same way about Dominique's sentences. Heinrich clearly came to her mind as it came to Keke's "We love our child, no matter what, even if we do not really know what to do sometimes." Dominique tilts their head, causing a few of the braids to slip down her? his? shoulders.
"Do you have some support?" Dominique asks. "People who could help outside of doctors?"
"We've got books." Keke answers gruffly. "And magazines." Dominique hums in understanding before pulling forth a small business card from a small black clutch. It's good leather, Keke notes, looking at it. Expensive. It's quite similar to Dominique's shoes - small black leather pumps, also clearly expensive.
"There is a group I meet up with in Nice," Dominique says, their voice pitching quite high on the word meet. "For people like me and your son. I would not recommend you bring your son as he is very young. It may be good for you, however."
"Thank you." Keke says, taking the card and carefully tucking it into his wallet. The purse. The shoes. The small bit of eye shimmer, pink as well, The manicured nails. The skirt. The hesitance on words, like the wrong syllable might blow their cover. "Mademoiselle?"
Dominique smiles, her first of the conversation, but before anything else can happen, the Rosbergs are called in by the doctors.
✦
The plane ride home is silent between them. Keke's fingers play with the card Dominique had given to them as he tries to breathe the thin airplane oxygen. The diagnosis was positive, as they had expected of course. As when he was racing, Keke tries to think about this logically: about what these permanent changes would mean for his and his life, Nico and...his life, and for their family, immediate and widespread, their family friends and acquaintances, for their future.
They would have to move, at least to the other side of Monaco to re-establish their life, if not into France or Italy. They'd need to enroll Nico in a new school, they'd need to do an official name change, then there were all the other details the doctor had mentioned: makeup, clothing, voice and speech therapy, and then all the surgeries and medicine like the hormones.
Nico's always hated shots and now he would have to do them for the rest of his life.
There's also the complications that come with the fact Keke is a minor celebrity - how many people in the world grew up knowing Anu or Nicola Rosberg? How many could be convinced to turn a blind eye? If Nico wanted to race, because he's already shown that he wants to race and has the talent for it, how easily would that stay under wraps? How hard would it be for his baby to race in a world that doesn't accept women and doesn't accept men like him? Would the other boys be nice to him - if they knew or not?
It's not fair.
Of course, Nico ends up noticing.
"Is everything okay?" he asks quietly, holding Keke's hand as they navigate through the airport when they land. "Did I do something wrong? I just answered the questions honestly, I could have lied if you had wanted me to, but you always said never to tell a lie." Keke squeezes Nico's hand gently.
"You did nothing wrong, kultaseni. You understand me? Your mama and I, we are...worried for you, but you did nothing wrong." Nico nods solemnly.
"I like Dr. Moreau." Nico says, carefully. Careful, careful, everything Keke's child does is careful. "She said I was clearly a boy, and she called me Nico. She's like Mr. Abadie."
"That's good." Keke says. "What else did she test?" Nico shrugs.
"She just asked me questions about me. Like when I knew I was a boy or why I want to become one. They were kinda weird."
"Well you passed!" Sina said with a strained smile. Nico blinks.
"Well of course I did. I am a boy after all."
✦
They know they should talk about it, once they've sent Nico to bed. Instead, they lay out all the new terms they were given and taught, written on notecards like vocab words on the bed and sit in silence.
Transsexualism. Testosterone - shots versus gel versus patches. Vocal masculinization. Binding. Jaw and hip shaving surgeries. Body dysmorphia. Exercises to broaden the shoulders, narrow the hips. Deadnames. Top and bottom surgeries. Makeup to mimic an Adam's apple. Hormone blockers. Dominique's support group. Hate crimes.
It's so much. And yet somehow it barely seems like enough.
It's right then that they notice one final clause on the test: 'please mail back your acceptance by May 31st in order for this test to be used for other applications or documentation.'
It's April 29th.
✦
Nico's lost three baby teeth over the last month, giving him a crooked smile. He'd skinned his knee tripping over one of his RC cars the other day. His shoelaces are stubbornly untied and he's got a ratty old Scuderia Italia t-shirt on. His legs dangle in the chair and his freckles are on clear display. His hair is cut neatly but he's got a stubborn cowlick, giving him a few more extra inches. He likes holding his parent's hands still, but also swinging their arms as they walk, giving Keke a crick in his elbow. He likes glow in the dark stars and karting and running after geese.
He's every bit his age.
He's only nine.
He looks so small when Keke and Sina sit him down to have a talk it feels like no parent should have to have with their child at this age. "So Nico," Sina starts. "You're not in trouble." Nico immediately relaxes. For some reason, whenever they tell Nico they want to speak to him (and they often do, Keke loves talking to his child), Nico always assumes he's in trouble. It sometimes worries Keke - how much Nico thinks he should be in trouble for.
"We got your test results from Dr. Moreau." Sina says. "She said what you're been telling us for a while."
"That I'm a boy, not a girl?" Nico pipes up.
"Yes." Sina agrees. "Now that we've got the results, we need to decide what to do next. Your options are well, to not do anything in which case we can still call you Nico but you won't be able to get any sort of medical procedures to make you feel more like a man." Nico nods slowly.
"So, is the other option doing it?"
"Yes." Sina says gently. "That one would probably be much harder however."
"Harder how?"
"Well, if you want to have a successful time always being a guy," Keke says. The words cut him in his mouth, imperfect and odd. "There's going to be a lot of sacrifices you will have to make. Firstly, we'll have to move. You'll have to go to a new school, get new coaches, and potentially new tutors too. You can't be in contact with anyone from your old life, except Mr. Abadie, Dr. Laurent, and Dr. Moreau."
Nico's eyes widen. "Even Julien?" Nico asks, asking about the one friend he'd made at the International School of Nice.
"Even Julien." Keke confirms. "We'll have to put you in a different karting league--"
"--But I race as Nico!"
"You do," Sina soothes. "But your gender is listed as a woman. We need to go to a competitive league where no one would have ever heard of you. Not only that, but it will be very lonely. You can never tell a soul about this. You can't say goodbye."
"I can't?"
"No." Keke says. "We need it to look like we had to move suddenly. We don't need people looking for us."
Nico nods. "So that's it? We'll have to start over? I'm okay with that. That's not too hard."
"It will be very very hard." Keke says, reaching across the table to hold Nico's little hand. Nico takes it immediately though it's clear he's a bit confused why Keke's offering it in the first place. "That's just the easy part. You will have to take shots, every week, for the rest of your life. And these shots will hurt. You're going to have to get lots of surgeries, and watch the way you talk. You won't be able to have sleepovers anymore or go to pool parties." Nico nods.
"If you want to be a racer, you'll have to get more surgeries too." Keke says. "They'll cut open your skin and use a saw to thin your hips and jaw, and even then there are some things surgeries can never change. Your neck muscle is smaller than a biological man's. It may be impossible for you to ever build up the standard muscle they have." "
Additionally, you'll have a target on you for the rest of your life." Sina adds gently. "If this news ever breaks, there are several people in the world who would want...who would want to hurt you, baby."
"Like Oma and Opa did?" Nico says meekly and Sina nods, tears in her eyes.
"Yes. Like Oma and Opa."
"But also physically." Keke says gravely. "They would want to hurt you physically as well; even if the news isn't revealed, some people may still want to hurt you if they think you don't look like a biological man enough."
Nico nods, eyes to the table and Keke sighs, reaching across the table to cup his son's face.
"We're not trying to do this to scare you, kultaseni." Keke says gently.
"Well you are." Nico says, voice trembling. Keke sighs, opens his arms and a second later, is pulling his son into a big hug.
"It's a big decision." Keke says, pressing a kiss to his son's golden hair. "It's a very big and very scary decision, but unfortunately and unforgivingly, you need to make your decision now if you want to live a boy publicly. Your test and our paperwork only allows thirty days for us to approve it, and either way, we can't hide you away from the world forever."Nico sniffs again, curls deeper into Keke's arms.
"If I want to drive, do I have to be a boy?"
"No." Keke says. "Remember Michèle Mouton? Lella Lombardi? There are several good female racers."
"Okay."
"Is that what this is?" Sina asks gently. For a split second, Keke deeply hopes so. He knows that's not what's happening, but the hope of an easier life for his child is so overwhelming, Keke hopes for a split second his daughter is just deeply confused and has somehow been deeply confused since she was three.
"No. I know I'm a boy." Nico says carefully, not even dashing Keke's hopes because Keke had known they were delusions. "It's just...scary."
"It's very scary." Sina agrees. "You don't have to make a decision now. But we need an answer at the end of the month to send back to Dr. Moreau so we can't give you all the time we should." Nico nods in understanding, except with his age it really feels like Nico may not know what he's walking into.
"So, if I say yes, do I do all of that?" Nico says quietly. Sina and Keke exchange glances.
"Well, you would choose how much of that you would like to do," Sina says carefully. "But in an ideal world, you'd be able to do as many treatments as you'd like in order to feel most like a man."
"But Nico? Most importantly, you can never tell a soul." Keke says, looking into his child's big wide eyes, praying to a God that has made their journey so difficult that Nico understands the severity of this moment. "Never. Do you understand me, Nico?"
Nico nods. "And if I do all that, will I be a boy then? A real boy?"
Keke hunches down, gets eye level with Nico. "You were born a real boy." Keke tells him. "No matter what your biological body looks like, baby, you are a real boy already." He can't put ideas in his nine-year-old's head that in order to be a real boy, he needs several surgeries he medically can't consent to yet.
"But if I want to call myself a boy in public, I need to do all this?" Nico asks.
"Not all of it." Keke says gently. "But the books we've read say you may want to and it feels unfair to not make you aware of everything you may want to do."
They don't make a decision that night. They tuck Nico into bed and then Keke drinks several shots of vodka just to get out of his head. He cries.
A few days later, Nico approaches them.
"I want to do it." Nico says.
And that is that.
✦
1995
The first step to the process that Dr. Moreau recommends is getting Nico a new name, and for that, they need to go back to where Nico was born to change his passport. Sina doesn't hesitate on it - as she puts it, Nico's already nine, almost ten, so they have no time to waste. After all, if Nico wants to be fully transitioned by the times he's ideally racing in Formula One, which is to say his early twenties, they've only got around ten years and at least five of those years will probably be paperwork. She takes a trip to Wiesbaden and returns with a thick book tucked under her arm, a massive collection of German legal code.
"This is bullshit." Keke declares on page three. The German's so horrifically convoluted Keke gives up reading it on page three. Sina snorts.
"I had to carry this around in my bag for miles." She laughs. "The least you can do is help me read it." "It's still bullshit."
After hours and with Nico playing with cars in the room next door, they finally find the pages on the Transsexuellengesetz. All their hopes are quickly dashed.
"They require more diagnoses." Sina mutters, leafing through the five pages dedicated to the cause.
"Think they'd accept France's?"
"Doubt it, knowing Germany." Keke says.
"Scheiße, and we spend so much money on it." Sina curses. He laughs.
"At least we have it. We can use it for school - that and money should make Monaco schools call Nico by the right name." They've kept homeschooling Nico since the appointment and plan to do so until they can get the name changed. If this goes well, they have a plan to enroll him in a real school next semester. They keep looking and the more they read the worse it gets.
"It requires sterilization. Scheiße, all of these places required sterilization," Sina whispers. "Germany, Finland, even Sweden. Monaco and France don't even have rules."
"And it's not possible to change a name for other reasons in any of these countries?" Keke asks and Sina clicks her tongue.
"Look." She says, using her finger to underline a sentence buried within a thick paragraph. "It says we have to go to the standesamt, and then they have to decide if it's valid."
"Valid?"
"If the name is embarrassing enough to justify a name change." Sina mutters. "How stupid. If we consider it embarrassing, that should be enough."
Keke looks back over the book, flipping the pages over again and again, as if the answer would magically leap from the page.
"Oh, hold on." Sina says, looking at a column Keke hadn't reached, under Einwanderung. "Look here, if, quote, 'immigrants who acquired German citizenship wish to change their names, especially if their original names were difficult to pronounce or write in German, to something more Germanic, please submit a claim to the standesamt.'"
Keke and Sina look at each other.
"Anu is a very Finnish name." Keke proposes.
"Very finnish." Sina agrees. "Anu is very hard for the Monégasque to say."
"And it sounds like a boy's name in Monaco, we could spin that." Keke says, gaining speed.
"It's unpatriotic for a German abroad to not have a German name." Sina adds.
"Very bad. Very bad indeed."
"Truly dreadful." Sina says, almost giggling with glee.
They have their in.
✦
Keke has never left anything up to chance, especially not when it involves his family. Two months before their meeting at the standesamt, Keke reaches out to an old friend Leon in Germany. He asks Leon, who's involved with the government, to arrange a dinner between them, him, and a few other people involved in the standesamt. It doesn't include the person who actually handles the paperwork - Florian Hoffman - but Keke knows how shitty German bureaucracy works: it's all in people you know who know other people who (and so on).
The dinner is deeply casual and by the luck of the gods, Judge Fischer, the person Leon noted to Keke as having the closest connection to Florian Hoffman, is a Formula 1 fan. As dinner is happening, Keke mentions his friends in Formula 1, his son's desire to enter Formula 1, and how impossible it would probably be because his wife gave his son a bad name.
"She named him Anu, which is a feminine name." Keke bemoans. He's acting drunk, like he's properly drained the seven beers that have been served to him over the course of the evening. In truth, he had emptied many into his pants - Keke needs to be bone-cold sober to make this work and a small annoyance like wet pants won't stop him. "I was away racing and so she, trying to be kind, named him Anu because she thought it was a cute nickname for Antti, which was my grandfather's name, not realizing Anu itself is a women's name in Finland." This is all lies of course. Not only was Keke there at Nico's birth, but Keke's grandfather was named Kaarlo - Keke's proper name, Keijo, is in remembrance of him. The table though, of course not knowing this, oohs in sympathy.
"It gets worse." Keke continues. "I then find out she gave him Nicola as a middle name after her great-grandmother so my poor Nico has two girly names." The table laughs and groans.
"Could you not get it changed?" Someone asks and Keke shudders.
"That is the problem!" He says. "The German system is so shit!" That gets a cheer of agreement across the table. "They would think I am trying to change his sex or something, taking his name from Anu Nicola to Nico Erik and then refuse it or bury us in paperwork." Keke and Sina, with Nico of course, had agreed on Nico Erik a few nights ago. Nico is the name he's been going by, at least in some form, since he was three, and Erik is Keke's middle name. Plus, Erik sounds German.
"I know the guy who handles a lot of that paperwork." Judge Fischer pipes up. "If you, well if you can get me a few autographs, I think I can convince him to turn a blind eye..."
"Deal!" Keke says, his exuberance not needing to be faked. "And can he double-check that my Nico's still classified as a boy? I know after the wall fell-" Another cheer arose. "-a few of the genders and paperwork got swapped around and such."
"I'll make sure your boys a boys Rosberg." Judge Fischer hiccups and Keke can't stop the tears of joy running down his face, though he says they're from laughter when asked.
It's not a clean way of doing it - getting a judge drunk and bribing him with Michael Schumacher birthday cards. It is, however, the most effective.
✦
They take a trip to Germany. They tell Nico that it is to see where he was born, but in reality, it's to go to the standesamt. They find out there that they can't change the legal birth certificate without sterilization, annoyingly, but they can apply to change the gender and sex of the German passport and all other German identification that comes from the courts.
They do.
Anu Nicola Rosberg, female, enters the country with them -- Nico Erik Rosberg, male, leaves a month later.