Posted 9th June by @Eunuch_Onegin in series The Call-Out
content warnings: nerds
tags: asexuals; vegans; lesbians; jism
Rewind again. When the frosts finish
gibberellins encourage the seeds to grow
and as Kate’s levels of estrogen diminish
she too feels stirrings down below.
Her testes go to work supplying
her body with T. It’s mortifying:
what a germination to undergo!
And when the first shoots begin to show,
tentatively peeking above the soil,
on her face, on her chest, everywhere
out peek the stems of manly hair.
I’m assuming she’s also in emotional turmoil.
Hormones fuck up your feelings too:
they change your body, but your body’s you.
Aashvi has set out a plan, according
to which the next step is to joyfully confirm
an uptick in fertility. They’ve been recording
video of Kate’s cum, looking for sperm
(there’s a phone attachment, which holds the jism)
but in spite of Kate’s monthly onanism
the sperm-test app (obscurely named YO)
keeps on asserting her levels are “low.”
After five whole months of such insistence
Kate sits herself on the bathroom floor:
—“Maybe my junk doesn’t work anymore.
I mean, my entire adult existence
I’ve been taking estrogen, like fifteen years.
So what if my sperm never reappears?”
—“But we knew this would happen. It’s all as expected.
We discussed that this would be very slow.
You mustn’t become so dejected.
This is a commitment . . .” —“I know, I know,
but Aashvi, it’s weird, I feel so brittle,
like something’s bending me, little by little
and I’m going to snap. I’m not serene.
It’s like how I felt when I was seventeen.
I’ve even got zits. And it’s hard to feel
hopeful. I’m sorry, I know, I’m upset,
but it’s hard to believe we’re going to get
to have a child. Like, that can’t be real.
and if it’s not then I don’t know why
I can’t shoot some hormones into my thigh.”
—“I know that it’s hard. But such a formulation
deresponsibilizes you. You forget you’ve grown
into an adult, you have skill, determination,
you are highly impressive, and you’re not alone:
I’m here. I love you. Of course you’re stressed,
but it is not the case that you’ve regressed
simply because of this chemical change.
Also perhaps we need to make strange
this idea about real. That if we’re pursuing
this thought of making a new life live
we envisage it through homonormative
reproduction narratives. What we are doing
isn’t ‘having a child.’ If such a frame
makes us unreal, let us change the name.”
—“You can’t just wave this away with theory.”
—“I’m not! I’m only trying to suggest . . .”
—“But Aashvi, I’m out of juice. I’m weary.
I mean, I just feel like I need a rest.”
Kate sighs. —“Oh such demonstrative sighing!
But I don’t think I’m wrong. We should be trying
to remember that the body’s possibility
is larger than discourse allows it to be.
So: I have tenure, my family are wealthy,
and even if I’m not what is seen as slim,
and refuse to go to the bloody gym,
I am still under forty, and extremely healthy . . .”
—“Yeah, so I guess you’re good to go.
Just a pity I’m, like you say, slow.”
—“Oh Kate, this isn’t a fair accusation.
I wasn’t attacking you.” —“Yes. You’re right.
I was overreacting, out of frustration.
So I’m sorry, okay? I’m being contrite.
But that’s just it. I don’t know whether
I can keep on holding my shit together
if this takes much longer.” —“Oh love, come here.”
Kate stands. They embrace. “Of course there’s this fear.”
—“So many fears. Like, there’s your mother.
If you have a baby with me, she’ll go nuts.”
—“Please, no more with these ifs and buts.
We put one foot in front of the other.
I do not have time for all this despair.”
—“Oh well, so now who’s being unfair?”
And they might have been processing their emotions
in the bathroom forever (that’s dykes for you)
amidst the shampoos and body lotions,
if Aashvi didn’t have so much shit to do.
With predictably dramatic timing
her phone begins an insistent chiming
reminding her she should be elsewhere:
Aashvi’s too important to care
about the second half of most conversations.
Off she goes. Kate looks pissed,
but she’s just a freelance journalist
without any pressing assignations,
so she texts somebody. Who could it be?
That’s right, gentle reader. She’s texting me.
—“What’s up?” she begins, “I’m agitated.
Wanna get a drink?” I see it, and reply:
—“I always want to be inebriated.
There’s a Trans Ladies Picnic. I might stop by,
if you were there to give me a reason.”
—“There’s a picnic already?” —“First of the season.
It’s in Prospect Park. It started at one.”
—“Haven’t been in ages. Sounds like fun.”
—“You overstate. But there’ll be drinking.”
I’d been planning to try to write today
but I think, well, sometimes you just have to say
fuck it, I’m going to go and get stinking
drunk with some trannies in the open air,
so I commit: “I’ll see you there.”
But enough about me. This is Kate’s drama.
She slips through the door, without goodbyes,
and presently the panorama
of the TLP assaults her eyes.
About twenty transsexuals are confusedly milling
around on the grass. There’s a woman grilling
vegan hot dogs, two girls embrace
noisily on a blanket, someone brought a case
of Straw-Ber-Ritas and—so distressing—
people are drinking them. There’s a girl on a lead,
a girl with cat ears, there’s obviously weed,
there’s a VR headset, there’s a girl who’s undressing
to show off her implants —“Look, they’re new!”
Kate takes a moment. It’s quite a view.
Then she ambles over, vaguely saluting
a few of the revelers along the way
and sits down by a group who are eagerly disputing
which Star Trek character is the biggest gay.
—“Remember when Jadzia had that flirtation
with her wife from her previous incarnation?”
—“Yeah that ruled, but it’s still not as queer
as my OTP, which is Garak and Bashir!”
—“Well Picard’s so ace, it’s almost excessive.”
—“He’s heteroromantic. That means he’s het.”
—“Careful, the asexuals will be upset.
Calling people het is now oppressive.”
—“Asexual discourse was a mistake.
Anyway, what about Rom and Jake?”
Kate doesn’t attempt any intervention.
She makes a face, and then, with a sigh,
she turns away and shifts her attention
to another little group sitting nearby.
One girl is complaining about the vilification
she endured on her way to the subway station:
—“There’s all these dudes who just stand about
outside the building, and they always shout
stuff at me. It’s not even witty.
They’re like ‘looking fine!’ And then they laugh.
It makes me feel like I’m going to barf.
I only just moved to this part of the city,
but I might have to leave. I don’t even know.
Don’t they have anywhere else to go?”
—“Men,” her friend sympathizes,
“It’s like they’re territorial, like a spider or an owl,
and it’s weird, but everyone normalizes
their behavior. I never realized how foul
men are, until after I, like, transitioned.
It really changes how you’re positioned.
Things are so fucked up in this society
but when you’re a girl you suddenly see
everything from like, an oppressed perspective.”
Kate scowls again, and digs in her pack
and finds a beer, but turns out to lack
an opener, so she makes an ineffective
search for a tool that might do the trick:
all she turns up are a rock, and a stick.
She wanders over to the woman who’s cooking
the processed alternative vegan meat
and stands there for several seconds looking
expectant. —“Do you want something to eat?”
the chef demands. Her facial expression
behind her sunglasses, suggests aggression.
—“I just need something to open my beer.”
The woman pulls out her keyring. —“Here.
Don’t think we’ve met. The name is Janet.
So you like the picnic? You having a blast?”
—“Oh, yeah. I’ve been to these in the past.”
—“I was the one did the work to plan it,
so if you don’t like it, I’m the one to tell.”
—“Oh thanks! It seems like it’s going well.”
The woman’s anger appears to lessen
slightly. —“None of these little punks
have thanked me for being their delicatessen.
Bunch of hungry ungrateful drunks.
But I guess someone’s gotta do it.
Being trans sucks. If I’ve lived through it
it was only because of this sort of shit
and if you’ve had the benefit,
you owe something back.” —“Agreed. For real.
I helped with Camp Trans, but years ago.”
—“You helped with what?” —“The protest. You know.”
—“It’s new on me. So, you want a meal?”
Kate gives her a look of disbelief,
which changes, as she sees me arrive, to relief.
She runs to greet me. After hugs and effusions
(“Oh man, it’s been ages”; “Well you’re looking great!”)
I take her up on her earlier allusions:
—“It sounds like you’ve been in a bit of a state?”
—“A state? I guess, a state of depression.
Well okay, so listen, I have a confession:
I’ve gone off hormones. We’re trying for a kid.”
I keep my lack of surprise well hid:
—“OMG, that’s great! Congratulations!”
—“I’m not sure I want one! I feel so alone,
and I fucking hate testosterone,
and now this picnic, like the conversations,
are making me think it’s not just fear
of like, commitment. They need me here!”
—“I’m not sure I follow?” —“So this new generation
of trans girls, like all the ones at this
picnic today, need education
and I feel like I’ve just been really remiss:
their theory is unsophisticated,
they barely see gender and race as related,
they have an essentialist approach to identity . . .
There were older women who adopted me
when I was new, and there’s a tradition
I’m part of, of radical feminist
transsexual dykes. It’s why I exist,
It’s all that got me through transition,
and it’s something these girls also need.
Someone has to tell them what zines they should read!
Instead apparently I’m planning on spending
my energy on biological parenthood:
eighteen years carefully tending
to a cisgender kid, when my priority should
be my fucking sisters. What am I thinking?”
—“Fucking hell, Kate. We need to be drinking
for this conversation. You got more beer?”
She sounds insane, but she’s being sincere,
I realize. She has this dedication
to virtue. It’s a very lesbian trait,
and one I admire, but can’t imitate.
I drink, and consider her declaration:
—“Okay, I get that you’re under stress,
but trans community is always a mess.”
—“I don’t believe in your pessimism.
I think you just pose as a misanthrope.”
—“Let’s say I’m suspicious of separatism.
You might be putting too much hope
in this vision of us looking after each other,
or of being some fuck-up’s tranny mother.
I mean, we’re okay, but that can’t be all,
this community is simply way too small.”
—“What’s the alternative? Assimilation?
Inclusion is just a transparent device
to get us, in return for the promise of a slice
of privilege, to consent to our co-optation,
and to help to govern our own form of life.”
—“Yeah, says the one with the rich cis wife.”
—“She’s not my wife! We aren’t married.”
I try for some levity. —“Oh bitch, like, please,
there’s no need for you to sound so harried.
I get it. Okay. Your girlfriend. Your squeeze.”
—“No, I mean, I’m not downplaying
how important she is, I’m only saying,
well, Aashvi’s amazing, she’s funny, and kind,
and hella clever, like, a brilliant mind,
and we love each other, but there’s limitations.
There’s stuff that you and I know and share
that she just doesn’t. That sounds unfair.
I’m being a bitch.” —“Self-flagellations
are unnecessary. You’re safe. I’m your friend.
So, is your relationship about to end?”
—“Is that how it sounds?” —“Well you sort of implied . . .”
—“I mean, I hope not. Oh, I don’t know.
It’s true I’m feeling dissatisfied,
but I do love Aashvi. I love her so.”
—“I’m only asking for clarification.
Do you want encouragement or commiseration?
I mean, I get that you’re freaking out
but if you’re not, actually, about
to upend your life, my recommendation
is to quit this picnic, and go to a bar.
I know a good one, not too far.
You need some rest and relaxation.
A girls’ night out. What do you say?”
Kate smiles. —“Yeah. You’re right. Okay.”
As we leave, the sun kisses our arses.
The picnic’s ending, it’s the end of spring,
over, like everything that passes,
which is to say, like everything.
Spring begins, and things start growing,
you blink, it’s May, and spring is going,
summer’s upon you, it gets too hot,
ripeness is just the beginning of rot,
but not quite yet. First there’s talking
and laughing in the bar, watching the light
in the windows fading. Then there’s the night.
We devour some pizza, and then start walking,
and reluctantly take our separate ways
to sleep, to wake to summer days.