luca yang was born in london, england to a traditional chinese family. his birth was overshadowed by the twin brother who had been born mere minutes before him; this would become something of a pattern throughout the rest of his upbringing. born female, autistic, and queer into a traditionally patriarchal world did him no favours. his childhood was spent being ignored, overlooked, and trying desperately to escape into his books any chance he got.

socially he was years behind his peers from the start, but academically he was so far ahead nobody quite knew what to do with him. he had a near eidetic memory, could do just about any sum in his head, and grasped new concepts faster than his homeschool teachers could keep up with. his mother frowned upon his academic success; young girls were supposed to be wives and mothers, not academics. luca was kept behind and forced to slow down. anything he did that might overshadow his brother was a punishable offence. luca kept to himself and to his books and spoke as little as possible.

he was not completely without a rebellious streak. by sixteen, luca was deeply in love with marine life. he saved up money where he could to pay for an annual ticket to the local aquarium and escaped there whenever his parents were not paying attention to his whereabouts; which with a star athlete of a brother, was an awful lot of the time. his presence eventually got the attention of one of the marine biologists working at the aquarium. she offered luca a chance to watch her do some work, and quickly realised how brilliant he was. she offered him work experience with her and he took it. mary-anne was the first person he came out to as trans, and the first person to use his proper name. she bought him textbooks so that he could study for the a-levels that his mother forbade him from taking and drove him to the exams his parents forbade him from sitting. she helped him apply for university; and when he got in, she helped him figure out how to go without retribution from his parents.

four weeks before his eighteenth birthday, luca took a train hundreds of miles away from his parents, all the way to st andrews in scotland; straight into the second year of a five-year-long masters degree in marine biology. he came out as trans, started transitioning medically, and spent every day and night in the university library. he was broke, alone, and terrified of everything; but he was free.