As I got close to the truck the driver stepped out. They were surprisingly androgynous: short, heavily set, wearing clothes that hid their figure, and middle aged with short salt and pepper hair. I partially wondered if they were a de-transitioner, face and body still softened a little by estrogen. Though, they might have also been a soft cis man or a grisled cis woman. It was hard to tell either way.

“Hello,” they said in a gruff voice. “It’s Cawhill, right?”

I stuck to a tired glare and a small grunt of reluctant acknowledgement.

The driver gave a small shrug in reply and then stepped back into the truck. I reluctantly sat in the passenger’s side, staring out the front window. While I was staying quiet, the driver made some vague attempts at starting conversation. Or maybe explaining what they had planned at this ‘boot camp’. I didn’t really listen. About the only thing that stuck with me from the various things the driver had said that if all my outfits were as ‘fem’ as what I was currently wearing it was probably for the best I hadn’t brought more clothing.

As they rambled I silently fumed and thought about how thoroughly my parents had just ruined their relationship with me.Whatever apologies my parents might try in the future I decided I had no interest in ever going home. Or, well, no. I’d have to go home to pick up my car. After that, though, I’d find a place in Calgary.

I was deep enough in pouting that I nearly didn’t notice when we rolled to a stop. We’d arrived at a small cluster of buildings, wooden panelled and rustic while sitting on the edge of a wooded hill. The driver got out and I used the brief moment alone to pull out my phone to check for a signal. Not only was my phone nearly dead, but there still wasn’t a single bar. The joys of being in the one part of Southern Alberta with hills.

Reluctantly, I got out of the truck, and found myself being led to a pair of SUVs that must have just arrived. Each one had a driver that looked similar to the person who’d driven me over, while the passengers still filing out were mostly girls about my age. They generally looked like they’d been on HRT rather longer than me, some having a heavier build that was apparently working well with their hormones to give them curves I had to envy. There were also a few I would have never guessed were trans, and it boggled my mind that anyone could have looked at them and decided they’d be happier living as men. Two or three, though, looked like they might be earlier in their transitions than I was. 

I was a little annoyed to see that most of them had bags, though. They probably had chargers and changes of clothes. 

“Alright, ladies,” one of the drivers shouted in a voice that I was pretty sure was feminine, though very rough. “Now that we’re all assembled, let’s head into the common area. It’s time for your haircuts.”

My eye twitched slightly and I noticed a few of the other women swallowing nervously. We began filing in, however. I went with them as I had no idea what else to do. We were out in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn’t like I could make a break for it on foot. Stealing any of the trucks or SUVs would also be a… a bit extreme. At least at this point.

The common area had a number of chairs set up along a wall, with hairdress-cloaks (or, whatever they were technically called) hanging beside them and an electric razor plugged in next to each of them.

“Come on, princesses,” one of the bootcamp workers shouted. “Get lined up.”

What followed was a flurry of quick and efficient haircuts. Sides of heads were buzzed to almost nothing while the tops were allowed to be about as long as the razors allow. Creating something in the middle between a crew cut and an undercut. 

It was still rather a dramatic shift for nearly every girl there, however. I felt slightly out of it, shocked by the suddenness of it all, after such a normal morning. A couple of girls ended up crying, though they were doing their best to hide it. 

“Time to find your rooms. They’re in the attached communal cabin,” a worker announced. “Each one has your surname on it. You’ll find your working clothes for while you’re here in the dressers. Change your clothes for the rest of the day.”

“The washroom and shower are at the far end,” another worker stated, pointing towards the hallway.

The crowd of girls were quiet as we wandered down the small hallway connecting the two buildings. The interior of the building was as basic as the exterior. I found myself nudged along by the small crowd until I reached a room with my name on it and went in, not sure what to do. The room was small, the bed (or, cot, really) taking up almost a third of it. A minimalistic dresser sat in one corner, and there was a small window, looking out on the rolling prairie hills across from the bootcamp. Staring out of it, I couldn’t see a single farm or other house, and I didn’t know the area well enough to know which direction to go. Knowing this part of the country, it would easily be kilometres until the nearest neighbours, and even further if I picked the wrong direction.

Feeling a bit defeated, I sat down on the firm bed, staring at the wall across from me. I needed a plan. Was just making a break for it a good idea? In countryside I didn’t know? Or would the bootcamp staff just drive after me and drag me back?

Or would I get eaten by a bear or a coyote out there? That also seemed plausible. Or a cougar. Cougars were much more likely to attack someone. 

Or maybe a farmer would shoot at me for trespassing.

Thinking about those risks, I figured it was probably better not to set out on foot. The smarter move was probably to get my hands on a phone. They had to have a landline or something out here, surely? People needed to phone fire departments or police or whatever. And to be contacted by the parents of girls being sent here.

So, I supposed there was nothing for it but to cooperate until I could figure out where the phone was. Then I would call for help.

To my surprise, when I opened the dresser to pull on some clothes, there were two sports bras. They were minimalistic and somewhat compressing on my already minimal chest, but, all the same, it was a surprise. I supposed they were a basic practicality, however. Especially for some of the other women present.

The outfit also consisted of basic socks, work pants, and a white t-shirt. There was also a small bottle of sunscreen on top of the dresser, which I tucked into a pocket. Whatever else might be going on, avoiding sunburns was a reasonable thing to do. 

Just as I was finishing up there was a loud knock on the door of the small bedroom.

“Hurry up, Cawhill. We’re waiting for you,” the driver from before bellowed.

“I’m ready, I’m ready,” I groaned, leaving my own clothes on the bed and putting my hormones in the pocket of my new pants.

The driver seemed unimpressed with my tardiness and followed me back to the common room. They’d swept up the hair from the floor and now had all the girls lined up in a sort of military presentation style. I fell in at one end, mimicking the rigid posture of the others.

“We’re going to hit the gym now,” the one worker said. “We’ll run assessments of how fit everyone is, to know who’s going to take more work to get into shape. We don’t want any of you princesses hurting yourselves and slowing everything down.”

The worker then gave out a small chuckle that a few of the girls in the lineup made vague efforts at mirroring. I was still in too bad of a mood to bother with that, however. A few others were also staying quiet as we went to the entrance of a metal building that looked like it had once been a storage shed for farm equipment. Now there was a half decent looking spread of weights in place. Before we started lifting the bootcamp employee with us ran through some warm up stretches, showing that they were at least reasonable with their fitness routines.

Jumping jacks and a jog followed as a further warm up, taking us around a small portion of the property. It was only a kilometre or two of jogging, however. Just part of the warm up, rather than a full work out on its own. I heard some of the other girls whispering among themselves, but the employee shushed them and I was in too foul a mood to bother listening. My mind was mostly still focused on fuming about my parents and the whole situation.

How was a camp like this even legal? Wasn’t this sort of stuff banned?

Getting back to the weights, we all went through some quick tests to see what we could handle, and I found myself stuck on 10 lbs weights for the moment, which surprised me. I’d not exactly been a gym rat in high school, but I’d lifted a few weights now and then and had been able to handle 20 lbs back then about as easily as I was managing the 10lbs now. 

It was impressive what a few months of hormones did to one’s muscle mass and upper body strength.

The weights test had been pretty thorough and my arms felt like jello afterwards. I had to admit to being a bit embarrassed at how out of shape I’d apparently gotten. Getting some muscle mass back might be a nice silver lining to this nonsense, since I had noticed jars were getting harder to open lately.

All the same, I was glad when that part was over. The cool down stretches felt like a delightful release. 

I was then surprised when we were led back into the common room to discover it had been transformed into something of a cafeteria. We lined up with trays, the two other employees having apparently spent a good chunk of our workout period preparing dinner for us. A surprisingly large dinner, with quite decent food. I was given a hamburger, a hotdog, and a generous heaping helping of fries. All of it looked freshly cooked. We also had access to a buffet of sauces and toppings to add.

Having loaded up with ketchup and mustard, I found a seat and dug in, too tired to spend any effort wondering about the meatiness of the food and if that was meant to be ‘unfeminine’ due to gender stereotypes. I’d just wanted to eat. My muscles craved calories and protein.

“You did acceptably today, ladies,” the gym instructor said as we all wolfed down our meals with voracious hunger.

She gave a bit more of a speech, but I tuned it out, not really caring about whatever effort they might be making to tear us down… and a bit too hungry to listen to even an interesting speech. Finishing up the last of the meal, though, I didn’t have anything else to distract me from what the instructor was saying.

“—show you to the garage. We have tractors and other equipment you’ll learn how to fix from her,” the instructor was saying, pointing to the woman (apparently) who’d driven me here.

“Once again, we’ll be assessing where each of you are starting. Those who have stronger mechanical skills will be paired with those who are weakest, to help the cohort move at the same pace,” she explained.

We piled our plates on the counter beside the kitchen entrance and then followed the driver out towards another prefabricated metallic garage, this one filled with things closer to its original expected contents. There were two tractors, a few bits of farm equipment I recognised but didn’t know the precise names of, as well as some more normal domestic equipment. Snowblowers, dishwashers, a fridge. Things like that. 

“We’ll be starting with something basic. There’s a false wall here, with some wires running through it. We’ll want each of you to wire one lightbulb to a switch. 

It was basic stuff. Middle school tech class material. I’d done soldering and wiring for electronics in high school, having had an interest in electronics. Until I’d started to realise why the sexist comments from the ‘other boys’ that had dominated it had made me so uncomfortable and I’d stopped applying for the classes. It was still fresh enough in my memory that I’d finished rather quickly and moved on to a similar mocked up plumbing exercise. 

That too hadn’t taken long, and I’d ended up being allowed to sit around and wait with the others who were finished. Two of the three girls who’d finished around the same time as me were among the small group that I’d thought looked at least as fresh to hormones as myself. 

“My arms were still shaky from the weights,” the one muttered, letting out a sigh. “It was annoying, doing finicky work above our heads when we’re all so tired.”

“Tell me about it,” the third girl said, her voice matching her face in passing so perfectly. “Still, it’s a bootcamp. We can’t exactly expect them to give us much down time while they try to butch us up.”

The word sent a shiver down my spine as it made me think about my grandfather. Burt ‘Butch’ Cawhill, an absolutely trash and sexist man who I was glad was living in an old folks’ home in Lethbridge these days, so I no longer had to deal with him. All those childhood weekends of him calling me names over a lack of manliness. Even when I’d been trying my best to play sports or only watch cartoons for boys or… whatever. None of it had ever been enough.

Looking back, I supposed it was vaguely gender affirming to know he’d always seen me as a failure at being a boy, but the idea of being pushed to act more like him made my stomach churn. 

It took about thirty more minutes for the rest of the group to finish their wiring and plumbing exercises, a few clearly having no idea what they were doing. I found myself partnered with one of the weakest girls. She was lanky and was likely First Nations. She also had cheekbones that left my heart softly fluttering with envy, softly tanned skin, and dark hair. Short dark hair, of course. She hadn’t escaped the razors.

“I’m Hannah,” she all but whispered.

“Madison,” I replied in just as quiet of a voice.

We didn’t have much time to talk about anything else, however. We were sent to go to bed. 

Going back to my room, I found there was a towel, a toothbrush, and some other toiletries on my dresser. Brushing my teeth, I then waited for a chance to use one of the shower stalls, glad we were at least being given privacy when showering. 

After drying off, I found myself laying in bed, trying to come up with a plan. Only to be too tired to manage much coherent thought. I ended up drifting off after only a few minutes.

“Gooood morning, ladies!” a voice amplified by a crackling megaphone from the hallway.

The fright of the sudden noise caused me to flail and fall out of the cot. Blinking and looking around, I saw the sun had barely begun to rise.

It was going to be another long day.