tent warningsdescriptions of transphobic violence, implied child abuse

  [colpse]Chapter 7: sequences2023 December 18MondayToday must be a special occasion, because for breakfast we get our choice from a multipack of cereal boxes.

  When I’m about halfway through my bowl of Cheerios, Tabby stands up and says, “We’ve got a special annouhis m, so I need everybody to head straight to the on room when you’re doing. Thank you.”

  “I wonder what it’s about this time,” or says.

  I reply, “I asked Beth the ht about that thing you mentioned. Maybe it’s about that.”

  “What thing?” Seb asks.

  I’m not very excited to discuss my nipples over breakfast, but or doesn’t seem to have any issues.

  “Last weekend I told Joe that my chest was getting puffy, and my nipples were gettiive.”

  “What? Is the same thing happening to you, Joe?” Seb asks.

  “Yeah. I bumped into the doorframe by act a couple nights ago and it hurt like hell. Tabby told or that it probably has something to do with the Goserelin impnts so… Are you OK, Seb? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Seb shakes his head aurns his focus to or and I. “Sorry, just an intrusive thought. Ridiculous, really.”

  We’re finished with our breakfasts after a few more minutes, so the three of us head into the on room together.

  Wheer, I see they’ve rearrahe furniture. The four metal tables in the room have been spread out in an arc like some kind of unfortable theater seating with the dining room doors as the stage. There is also a chair sitting behind the arc of tables.

  We’re quickly ushered to specific tables by our respective sponsors and told to sit down with our feet tucked under our seats. From my right to my left, there’s A a table by himself, Ethan and Tyler sharing a table, myself with my own table, and or aian sharing a table.

  With the exception of or, each of our sponsors stands o us while holding their taser. Ames takes a spot o or, and after a minute, I see even more womeer the on room from the main hallway, all but one of them also carrying a taser. The one exception, a brue who looks vaguely familiar, is carrying a ptop. She sneaks to behind where we’re sitting. I assume the extra chair is for her.

  “Beth, what’s going on?” I ask.

  Beth simply looks at me and shakes her head. I’ve never seen her look so serious before.

  The doors open once again, and Tabby walks in, carrying a stool. She drops it he dining room doors, sits down, aly rests her heels oool’s bott.

  Tabby starts talking in a versational tooday’s the big day! Before we get going, though, a reminder: violence will not be tolerated. If you attack your sponsor or any of the other women in this room, there will be sequences. If you attack each other, there will be sequences.”

  Why would I attack Beth? I’ve actually been warming up to her tely.

  Tabby tinues, “You must uand we are not giving you a choice about what I’m about to announce. We are not accepting ents or criticism at this time, either. The main rule has not ged: you either gh the programme or you wash out. Are there any questions before we begin?”

  I think we’re all a little too nervous about whatever is about to happen for questions.

  “Good!” she says. “So, by now you may have noticed some ges to your bodies. Maybe you feel the ore than you did before. Maybe certain body parts are more or less sensitive than you’re used to.”

  I take a quick look around the room. Everybody looks fused about what Tabby is getting at with the exception of Seb. His eyes are growing wider with each thing Tabby mentions.

  Tabby tinues, “These ges are deliberate.

  “When you arrived and twice sihen, you were given Goserelin impnts. Those have been suppressing your testostero’s a procedure we’ve used in other years with our male io reduce aggression. Our success with them, however, has been mixed. In fact, in all the years Dorley Hall has served as a rehabilitation facility, we have had siderably poorer outes with our male ihan our female intakes. It turns out it is extremely difficult to cure the endemic violence of toxic masity, and we have had to wash out the majority of our male programme partits. So this year, ierest of being more humane, we’re trying something new.”

  I still don’t uand what she’s getting at, but Seb doesn’t seem to have such issues.

  “The vitamin shots,” he says quietly to himself.

  “Sebastian is correct,” Tabby says. “In addition to your testosterone suppression, for the past month and a half, we have been administerirogen, in appropriate doses, uhe pretense of giving you vitamin supplements. We io tinue doing so indefinitely.”

  Wait, what the hell?

  While I’m still reeling over what Tabby said, or raises his hand, shakes his head, and starts speaking without being called on.

  “Tabby, isrogen what trans women take to look like women?”

  “It helps them look more like what society expects women to look like, but yes. The physical ges you have experienced were caused by the estrogen you were given, and they will tinue. amphlets avaible if you’d like to know more about what to expect.”

  She gestures toward a pile of pamphlets on a et he TV. I barely make out the NHS logo on some of them.

  “But why?” I ask. “What good is the estrogen going to do?”

  “As I alluded to,” Tabby says. “We have data going back two decades showing atempt to rehabilitate you as males would be to abandon you. And so this year, we are going to rehabilitate you as women.”

  “Yoing to chop off our dicks?!”

  “Joe. You know by now that some women are born with a penis and choose to keep it… We do io remove your testicles, though, at a ter date.”

  “This is insane! Beth, you don’t agree with this do you?”

  Beth simply looks at me. Her eyes are so cold.

  “e on,” I say. “You know this pn isn’t necessary. I do better without it. I’ve been doing the reading. I’m learning to be tolerant. You don’t o do this!”

  “A you still haven’t addressed the main reason we brought you here. Fortunately, though, it makes for an excellent example of why our programme is necessary. Christine?”

  Before I have time to figure out why that name sounds familiar, the TV clicks on and dispys a photograph of myself, posing with a football as if I’m about to throass.

  Beth rests her left hand on my right shoulder.

  “Joseph ‘Joe’ Thompson,” Tabby says. “een years old. Retly started studying psychology. A bigot with a short temper who thinks rules and responsibility for his as are cepts that don’t apply to him.”

  “I’m not a bigot! I have no problem with you for example.”

  Tabby sighs. “I never said you were a racist Joe, but your ent does make me wonder.”

  She tinues, “Christine: , please.”

  My photo shrinks into the top-left er of the s, and a list of dates, events, and their sequences for me appears in its inal pce.

  Tabby gestures toward the s. “We have acquired aensive list of is dating baiddle sost of these is involve an altercatioween you and others who were then or would ter e out as some form of queer.”

  “I expin.”

  “I’m sure you . , please.”

  The list scrolls up to reveal newer is, most from junih or early high school. There’s eveime I trashed a lesbian uppercssman’s Homeing mum.

  Tabby tinues, “Something you might notice is that the sequences for these is tend to bee less severe over time, aually—, please—by the time you finish high school, you’re able to avoid meaningful sequences entirely more often than not. As you suggested, you learo expin.

  “. We only know of a few is from after you graduated high school, probably because you were more easily able to associate with only those you approved of. During the summer of 2022, you punched another young man while visiting a bar in Austin, causing minor injuries. For this i, you were issued an arrest warrant which wouldn’t be served for another six months, and the only reason it was served was you getting into another bar fight the following January. Unsurprisingly, you mao avoid any sequences actually stemming from the tter i.”

  Knowing what’s ing, I interrupt. “You stop now. I get the point.”

  “I’m afraid I ’t, Joe, because this st eve illustrates exactly what we’re dealing with. It is, in fact, the event that brought you to our attention. Now, thanks to a handful of sed-has and a transcript of the victim’s owimony at your college disciplinary hearing…”

  “Are you even allowed to have that?”

  “Were we allowed to have your middle and high school records? As I was saying, thanks to these sources, we have a good idea of exactly what happened during the i.”

  Beth tightens her grip on my shoulder as Tabby begins to describe how I came bay dorm room unannounced one evening to discover my ostensibly male roommate Lily presenting as a woman. How I locked the door and started questioning her about her habits and her friends. How I smacked her after she started making up excuses in an effort to calm me down. How I threateo do more.

  I ’t stand to tinue listening, so I distract myself by looking around the room. Andrew has his face down against the table, his head buried in his arms. Ethan and Tyler appear to be holding hands to fort one-another. or looks appalled by what he’s hearing about me, and Seb…

  Seb doesn’t look disgusted like or. Nor does he, as some dark part of my mind expects, look excited that I nearly did for real what he’d only described with words online. Instead, Seb has the same look that Lily did when I had her trapped in our room. Seb looks afraid.

  Tabby’s story tinues: Lily hits me with pepper spray.

  “Please stop,” I say.

  Lily pushes past me and opens the door.

  “I expin.”

  Lily runs into the hallway while yelling for help.

  “It’s not my fault.”

  I chase after Lily and tackle her to the ground.

  “IT ’T BE MY FAULT!”

  I swing my right arm up to knock Beth off my shoulder.

  Someone yells, “Beth!”

  I hear a crash.

  I feel taser darts hit my arm.

  * * *

  I’ve been in my cell for a few hours now, and nobody has told me anything since dropping me off. I don’t know what happeo Beth. I don’t know if I’ll be washed out.

  What I do know is that, assuming I’m not washed out, I’m going to spend the several months in a body that is slowly turning more and more feminine. And at some point, they’ll remove my balls.

  2024’s going to be a terrible year.

  I’m relieved to hear the familiar ce of Beth’s heels. She approaches my cell door while carrying a ptop.

  “Beth!” I say. I el my momentary excitement into the anger I should be expressing. “I had to knock you off, you know. You were gripping too hard, and besides, you all have been lying to us this whole time, and if I’d been a minority, you wouldn’t be ing down so hard on me, and…

  “Joe. Shut up. Your excuses stop making sense when you use too many at once.”

  I take a moment to breathe.

  “I am angry, though.”

  “And that’s valid.”

  Beth pces the ptop she’s carrying on the ground outside my door. She groans as she sits dowo it. She must have fallen hard when I pushed her away.

  “Beth…” I start.

  “I’m fine.”

  Beth opens the ptop so I see the s.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “You still o see the end of the presentation.”

  “I know what happened, Beth. I don’t o be reminded again.”

  “I insist.”

  She presses a key oop, and the s is taken over by the same list of post-high school events that were oV when I was tased.

  Tabby’s voice starts pying over the speakers in my cell.

  “So… as I was saying before we were interrupted. Joe has aensive history of getting into altercations with others and failing to cim responsibility for his as. He even avoided fag up to what he did during this final i by deing to attend his own disciplinary hearing. Not that his attendance would have affected his iable expulsion.”

  “Beth, please.”

  “Shh,” she says.

  The rec tio py. “But that’s not to say this is Joe’s ‘natural state’. Christine: , please.”

  The list reverts back to the earliest is, except now there are additional rows listing school absences interspersed between them.

  “While there is no way to firm these two sets of data are reted, it appears Joe underwent a moderate length period of absence from school after each of his early is. .”

  The list scrolls again to reveal the newer is.

  “Curiously, the likelihood for and duration of the absences appears to decrease alongside the likelihood for and severity of the sequences for his is.”

  Tabby stops talking for a moment, as if she gave everybody time to draw their own clusions from what was being shown.

  “I ’t say for sure, and I do wish Joe were still here to provide his perspective on what I’m about to say, but these data suggest that Joe’s tendency to avoid personal responsibility was deliberately enced by one or both of his parents, possibly through physical reinfort. I would vehat his rather regressive views on others unlike himself likely stem from the same source.

  “Joe may argue that he ge now that he knows to distance himself from these particur influences, but as a society, we are far too willing to make sure his ge will never happen. We are more than willing tive men, especially—and in direct opposition to what Joe would cim—white cisgender men of means such as him, for any harm they cause, and that feeds directly into the kind of habits that brought Joe here to begin with.

  “Tell me, have any of you ever heard of Charlotte Church?”

  Beth presses another key to pause the presentation.

  She begins to speak. “Joe. You were at least mostly, if not fully responsible for all of those is. We ’t pretend otherwise. But if what Tabby said is true about your parents…”

  “My dad.”

  “Right, your dad. A bit of refle and some reading are not going to be enough to undo all of what you were taught. Do you really believe, if you left as you are now, that you would be able to keep the progress you’ve made since you got here? Because I don’t. I wish I did, but I don’t. You’re so seeped in toxic masity at this point, and our society is so willing to ence it, that the only solution we see is to remove it entirely.”

  Beth closes the ptop, and stands up with noticeable effort. “I know you need more time to process, so I’m going to leave you aloil tomorrow m. Someone else will e by soon with lunch.”

  Beth starts to walk away. I want to scream at her to e bad open the door. I want to remind her of how iheir pn is and expin why it ’t work.

  I want to do something to advocate for myself, but all I do is picture that list of is that led me here ahe shame of never owning up to them to avoid them in the first pce.