By: Frank
Copyright 2008
The following conversation takes place in a future when you can change your sex back and forth after you’re 18. The participants are two 12 year old boys. One who wants to become a woman as soon as he hits 18.
“I just don’t get you man, that’s so weird!”
“What’s weird about it? People do it all the time.”
“Mike, dude, they do it when they are adults, not when they are 12”
“I can’t do it until I’m 18, I’m just saying I can’t wait.”
“It’s not normal. People do it when they get married or if they’re born wrong. You’re totally normal, or I thought you were.”
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with me Freddie. I just think women are better.”
“That’s dumb. I can beat up any girl.”
“I said women, not girls. Also I said they were better, not stronger.”
“I don’t know what that means? Better? We learned in school that men and women are different, not better than each other. Why do you say better?”
“Dude, they can have babies and feed them. They’re so soft. Nothing beats a hug from mom or putting my head in her lap watching television. Besides being able to make milk, their breasts are like nature’s pillows. Their bottoms look so plump and soft. I just imagine what it must be like to live in a body like that. It just must be so incredible to be submerged inside your own softness. Man, I…” Mike stopped talking and just stared dreamily into space.
“Mike, we learned that’s what your penis is for, to submerge it in all that softness.”
“That’s sex Freddie, it’s not the same thing. Besides, women can have multiple thingies.”
“Thingies? Um, they’re called orgasms. You’re going to embarrass me at parties aren’t you?”
Laughing, “I’ll try and remember orgasms.”
”Seriously though, you don’t want to be a Dad when you grow up? I mean we can be both over time if we want and swap back and forth with our mates as often as we want, it’s not normal to switch before you even get married. How will you know how to be girly without a wife to show you?”
“I have a mother and sister you know.”
“And they’re cool with this?”
“I haven’t told them yet. You’re the only person I’ve talked to about it.”
“What happens if you don’t like it?”
“Well after a year I can change back, so it’s not a problem. I mean I know I won’t be the same person exactly after a year of soaking in estrogens and female feelings, but if I like it then I don’t ever have to switch back unless my husband wants to switch some day.”
“What if you turn out to be a lesbian when you’re female?”
“Oh, I dunno, I guess whichever one of us is the ‘male’ in the relationship changes to get the other one pregnant.”
“What about now? Are you gay and like boys and stuff?”
“No, I love women, I wish I could be female now and grow up as a girl would blossoming and all that.”
“But you don’t feel like a girl in a boy’s body?”
“Nope.”
“Good, there is a pickup game of football at the park want to go?”
“Hell yeah, let’s go kick some ass!!”
Comments
Nice
A very nice idea. I like this, but I am disappointed about one thing. In such a world, I would hope that even twelve-year-olds would have escaped the dichotomous view of gender and recognized the billions that there are. But that, of course, would be a whole 'nother thing.
(Don't you hate it when comments try to turn your story into something else? Sorry. But it would still be nice.)
Joy; Jan
I think that kind of wisdom would come with growing up
I don't know, I may write another more detailed story using this world model. Depends on my muse I suppose..
Huggles
Small Discordancy
A phrase popped out at me in this story that I found sort of distracting. While the mechanism of change isn't really discussed, the implication that it's fairly high tech is very strong. The statement that you can switch back and forth after a year in each sex reinforces this. Add to that, the fact that we're talking COMPLETE transformation, down to fully operational genitalia and fertility, and the following phrase just seems archaicly out of place. "[A]fter a year on estrogens...."
Wouldn't "after a year of living in the body of a woman" be more appropriate? It's not like someone with fully operational ovaries is going to specifically be taking exogenous estrogens, not unless they're taking it as part of a birth control regimen.
Anyway, cute idea. I just think it would be stronger if more internally consistent.
What I meant was
Hey Pippa! :)
That the brain would be under the influence of estrogen not that he'd be taking it. I edited it and changed it to read:
“Well after a year I can change back, so it’s not a problem. I mean I know I won’t be the same person exactly after a year of soaking in estrogens and female feelings, but if I like it then I don’t ever have to switch back unless my husband wants switch some day.â€
So as long as no one thinks he'd be taking baths in the stuff, I think it should be okay. It is coming from the mouths of 12 year olds..
Huggles!!
Alexis
estrogen baths
are only for when you contract a mysterious martian virus. But that's a whole 'nother story.
Sounds like a great future, but ironically---if Freddie's views represent the majority---there's
still a bit of stigma hanging around, not the gender change itself but when, the sequence,
what's considered proper, and maybe: "Do you have to be such a voluptuary about it?"
Short neat interesting bit of real science fiction (start with an idea, build a world around it.)
~~hugs, Laika
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Laika, you're not thinking like a 12 year old..
Hmm..for some reason I never thought I'd say that :)
Freddie is thinking in terms of being a 12 year old boy and doing what boys like to do...he's not ready to think about growing up and doing adult things like changing sexes yet. He just wants to play :) Also part of him just wants to understand what his friend is talking about..like okay you want to be a woman, but until then we can still do all the regular stuff boys do..
Hugs!!
Alexis
Gender euphoria
The term "gender dysphoria" has for a long time seemed to me rather small minded. Like the boy in this dialog, it seems perfectly reasonable that someone would want to change gender because they wanted to trade up. Not from a feeling of being wrong, but for the desire to be something better.
The grass is always greener ...
would seem to apply plus kids aren't as set in their beliefs or as convinced things *can't* be than adults. Plus they often talk in a far more blunt manner, they have yet to become accomplised liars.
Oh, does his winning the Minnesota US Senate primary mean we may soon have the Al Franken Senate?
-- obscure Saturday Night Live reference --
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Good little story
I liked your story. In a few lines you have managed to evoke a whole range of emotions and relationships - husbans and wives switching back and forth exctera.
Keep up the good wook!
Love
Mona
I want to be a girl...
....they're so soft... Soft like in comforting. It actually would be cool, like a much better made and written episode of Star Trek...to be able to change back and forth...At least once, I suppose. Either way, it makes me appreciate my mom and my sister even more, and certainly my wife! She's so soft!
She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Possa Dio riccamente vi benedica, tutto il mio amore, Andrea
Love, Andrea Lena
A Conversation by Frank
Hi Frank!
I loved this and I liked reading it from the 12 year old's perspective. The let me experiment or the let me experience is what most all the preteen kids at least imagine doing! All they have is their concepts and can't wait to have real experiences of their own.
Huggles dear friend, great writing!
Angel
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"