International Mouse of Gadgetry @mtcmouse - 10 minutes ago
It’s cool the school is letting me record and upload this presentation. I only hope it goes well, since I’m talking about two marginalised groups.
Well, moment of truth, I guess. Šárka’s year was the first one to come in for the presentation. Not enough space for many more kids in the room. I took a deep breath, and began.
“Well, hi there, welcome to this excuse to not have class.” Pause for snickers and huffs. “Yeah I was on the other side of this whole situation about four years ago. Still fresh in my mind.” I used the remote to move the powerpoint presentation forward. “So, introductions. My name is Bridget Crackspanner, by trade I’m a youtuber with a focus on making tech. I also happen to be a trans woman, and as is fairly obvious from these aditions.” I pointed to my ears and waved my tail at them. “I’m also Emerged! No I’m not going to do a Minnie Mouse voice, I suck at impressions.” Another click, another slide.
“So, we’re here today since the principal kindly asked me to give all of you a quick course about being trans and emergence.” The slide showed the trans flag and quick definitions of trans and cis. Specifically the latin prefix definitions, as in trans meaning crossing and cis meaning not crossing. “I’ll focus on something I have years of experience with instead of months first. I knew I was a girl way before I knew I was a mouse, college is a wild ride let me tell ya.” Turn to the kids again and continue.
“How many of y’all even heard of trans people before Šárka showed up with pink hair and in a dress? And yes you can thank her for getting you out of class. Come on, hands up.” Not that many went up, not unexpected. “How many of you heard about it in a positive or neutral light? Something like Some People Realise Their Gender Is Not What Everyone Says It Is, versus just someone going oh yeah there’s people that get surgery to become women and it’s gross.” Aaaaaaand the hands are down. Except Šárka’s. “Šárka hun you’re an outlier since you’re trans. You don’t gotta raise your hand. You can like, come up here and provide commentary and be distractingly adorable if you want.” She shrugged and blushed and zoomed on over.
“Why is Dare hiding under the table in a cloth covered box?” She was kneeling near said box.
“So that your classmates focus a LITTLE bit before I bring out the robotic fox dragon.” Aw fuck. I did it, I spoiled the surprise, now they won’t focus because there’s gonna be a cute animal present. Even though I only mentioned her. “Yes, I have a robotic fox dragon in a box under the table, no need to murmur, you’ll see her when I reach the Emerged part of the presentation as an example of my powers.” I clapped in an attempt to get attention again. “Anyways, back to the issue at hand. Explaining trans people.” I clicked to move to the next slide. It had a silly little comic that Dare drew to explain it. The panels were almost exactly the same, except for the last one. First panel was a doctor handing over a baby and going It’s A Boy. Second panel was An Unknown Time Later. Third panel was identical looking guys sitting in front of a computer. Fourth panel was the cis one playing, the trans one going “WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE I’M NOT A BOY!”
“I think this comic is a solid enough example of the situation. To simplify it, when you’re born the doctor looks at your crotch and based on what they see they say either It’s a Boy or It’s a Girl. I’m ignoring Intersex people for now for the sake of simplicity, y’all got smartphones and google and the school wi-fi. Anyways, if you go yeah that feels right based on what the doctor says, you’re cisgender. As in you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth.” I moved a bit and gestured towards me and Šárka. “However if like me and Šárka here you go Hold On That Doesn’t Feel Right, you’re trans. Identifying with a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth.” Next slide.
“So someone who the doctor said is a boy, but later in life realises they’re a girl, again me and Šárka’s situation here, is a trans girl or trans woman. Age stuff, you know.” Another slide, another click, I hope I wasn’t losing the kids. “Someone who the doctor said is a girl, but later in life realises they’re a boy is a trans boy. You all following so far.” Nods, yeahs, shrugs. “Good, when I tried to explain it to my mom like this I could have steamed sausages from all the steam coming from her ears as she wracked her mind around it.” Really, jokes not landing? I thought I’d get at least a little chuckle. “I didn’t mention nonbinary people yet. That’s when neither boy nor girl feels right. It’s a massive spectrum.” Click, another page, showing a spectrum and the Gender Unicorn. “You could be both, you could be neither, you could switch between them, you could just not have a gender at all. And all those are fine and valid.” I pointed to the unicorn. “This here’s a handy tool that the folks over at TSER made. As you can see, it has extra columns I didn’t touch on yet. Being trans is not about sexuality, despite the fact the medical term used here is transsexuality.” I pointed to the attracted to lines.
“You can have any sexuality while trans. If you suddenly realise you’re a girl, it doesn’t mean you HAVE to be into boys. Oh hey and now the teachers and parents are going to be mad I’m advocating for sin or something.” Shooting the teacher in presence a glare. “But yeah, you can be straight, or gay, or bi, or asexual while trans. Gender is what you go to bed as. Sexuality is who you go to bed with. Again, google is an okay resource, just used critical thinking while using it.” Another slide.
“Okay now I COULD go into the oppression trans people face due to their gender. Being denied housing, jobs, medical care. Like for example, a friend of mine was gatekept from hormones for six years due to her autism and personality. Since she didn’t want to be a 50’s housewife. Honestly girls which one of you wants to be the stereotypical image of the straight 50’s housewife of your own will, instead of it just being hammered in your head you HAVE to be that?” Hey participation again only one hand.
“Alright cool valid power to you but you get what I mean about it being forced on people, right? That unless trans people perform a stereotype of femininity or masculinity, we’re denied our gender.” Shrugs and confused looks. “Right, anyways, cis folk are usually curious about what we go through. Thinking it’s only surgery, a quick snip down there a boob job and some plastic surgery on the face and done.” I pointed to Šárka. “Not the case! Sweetie if you could use your shifting powers to demonstrate?” She nodded and started changing, effectively going through 5 years of HRT in the span of half a minute, as she held it for a minute more before reverting back, exhausted from the exercise somewhat. I gave her a shoulder pat. “What you saw was the effects of Hormones. Sped up WAY quickly. It takes years to reach the final point you saw Šárka reach there. Some folks do it to deal with dysphoria.” Another slide. The word Dysphoria in a big scary font.
“Gender Dysphoria is the feeling of disconnect between your body and yourself. It’s a horrible thing to go through, which is why I’m thankful not all trans people HAVE to go through it. It’s difficult to explain and articulate, as it’s hugely individual for each person. But what kicks it in most of the time is being misgendered. Imagine yourself. You know what gender you are, you feel it in your heart.” I tapped there to drive the point home. “But the people around you refuse to see it. They tell you you’re not what you say you are. You tell them you’re a girl and would like to wear that cute dress you saw and play pretend. They tell you no, you’re a boy, boys don’t wear dresses and play pretend. They play sports and wear pants. And boring bland colors. And when you grow up you’ll be a man and you’ll have to wear a suit and tie.” Another slide, another comic to illustrate the point home.
“Being Trans isn’t about wanting to be a gender you’re not. Some people word it that way, sure. But it’s not that. Being trans is wanting to be your gender, while the world denies that you are that gender. I think that’s the takeaway you should have from this part: It’s hard being trans, trans people are the gender they tell you they are, what they do with their bodies is up to them and none of your business.” Pause for effect, click the button again.
“And now the fun part. The part where I’m going to have an assistant I built.” The powerpoint slide looked like a secret government report, dating the Emergence and giving a quick overview. Dare climbed out of the box and onto the table. The awws and squeals as she stretched out were audible.
“No touching without asking for permission first kids. Consent is important!” Dare spoke out loud, which made a number of kids be awed. I cleared my throat and began.
“On November 26th of 2018, all around the world a strange rainbow colored storm appeared. It’s effects changing the world forever. People finding themselves with new strange powers, abilities, and more often than not bodies. Cities disappearing as the landscape of the world changed.” Next slide. A number. “This number is the estimate of casualties caused by the chaos of the first night.” Gasps, hands on mouths. “We cannot have exact numbers, as there are still efforts to link people to their old identities, definitely putting the actual number of casualties lower, as many of them are most likely missing as emerged.” Next slide. “Some of your friends or classmates may have found themselves with powers or different bodies. They’re still the same people you knew before. If they decide to change their name or pronouns to reflect their new bodies, respect that. They’re just as scared as you are. Not everyone gets to turn into a mouse girl that can make supertech. Or a girl that can swim through shadows and change her form in specific ways. Some of us turned into fire breathing dragons. That got shot down during the chaos.” I clicked the next slide.
“If you’re expecting me to show that news footage. I won’t. It’s horrifying and tragic and worrying. What if any of you turned into godzilla. And you were scared but could only talk in roars. Think on that.” I clicked the presentation and it says the end. “It’s only been a little over a month and a half since the first Emergence. Research is being done in secret. Things are being figured out and discovered. But we know way less about it than we know about trans issues.” I gestured towards Dare. “Now if any of you want to pet Dare, or have follow up questions, we got about ten minutes left before the school wants you going back to class. Please make an orderly line to pet the robot, I’ll just sit down over here to answer questions.” And I did sit down. And I think in those ten minutes, answering questions from the truly curious kids, I might have cracked some eggs. Hopefully, with the other classes I had to repeat the presentation for, I’d get more Wait You Can Do That reactions.
Oh fuck. Klára is gonna be in one of the class groups. My arm is gonna be so bruised from her teasingly punching me for embarrassing her in front of her entire class. Well, time to start typing out my last will and testament on my phone. Šárka gets everything inside the house, Klára gets to own the house and move into it as long as she lets Šárka stay there. Mom is getting a lifetime supply of boots to the head. There. Sounds solid.
Good speech!
Interesting, entertaining, informative. And yet ... it still wouldn't have helped me much back then.
Maybe may eggshell was just too dense. Or maybe the concepts presented to me were too weird, too not-me.
Had the literature that I had in the 90s not spoken about "identify as ..." or "being a ... in the body of a ..." but instead clearly said "If you wish, your body was born as the other sex, that's a pretty good sign that you could be trans and you should talk about it to someone," I wouldn't have lived through about two decades of secret-kept self-doubt. :/
Anyway, those words of yours will surely be found helpful by much more people than not. So it's good. :)
And when you grow up you’ll be a man and you’ll have to wear a suit and tie.
God, that pain of this expectation ...
I don't expect a response because this story has been finished for years, but I have a couple of edit suggestions for this chapter. First one is a rather egregious continuity error, but the second one is just a sentence that I think could flow a lot better with a fairly minor tweak.
only been a little over a month and a half since the first Emergence.
At this point in the continuity, there has only been one Emergence, no-one apart from Mystrix knows there will be a second one. So it wouldn't be "the first Emergence", it would just be "the Emergence".
Honestly girls which one of you wants to be the stereotypical image of the straight 50’s housewife of your own will, instead of it just being hammered in your head you HAVE to be that?” Hey participation again only one hand.
Swapping this sentence around to end up with something like "Okay girls, I know you've all had it hammered into your head that you HAVE to be the stereotypical straight 50's housewife, marry a man, have two and a half kids, and so on. But honestly, hands up, how many of you actually WANT that for yourselves of your own will?" - would make it flow a bit better. That one's more my opinion though.
You're right in that it's been years since I wrote this, which is another reason why I'm not going to go back to change it. Constantly "Patching" a story with corrections after you post it can only hurt it, because even if it is improved you've erased any sign of your growth as an author and person.
I appreciate your suggestions, but there is an expression we have in Czech: "Jít s rakví po funuse." - To carry a coffin after the funeral. It aludes to the help you're offering or providing no longer being needed and/or wanted. And offering editing suggestions on posted stories is kind of that. Still, I'm glad you read and commented, but yeah, I've only removed a story once hoping to redo it, and I'm never doing that again.
i like the last will, it's funny