Some of the files my great-great-grandfather kept are pretty risqué, really. Not even he liked them, going by the notes he left, but he said they’re necessary to understand his time. That must be why Marian agreed to watch some with us one day.
My apartment was under renovation, so we watched them in my old friend Desmond’s place, with some of his friends. We started with The Thousand Lives of Rita Stewart, and Leonardo loudly remarked, “Look, it’s Tammy Selwein!” The plastic surgery back then didn’t manage much. Exaggerated, unnatural breasts, a less-than-gracile jaw, a grown man’s musculature, all quite visible on the screen. And, guileless creature that she was, Marian expressed her surprise.
“But… he’s a man…”
“Bigot! Bigot! Bigot!”
“Shut your mouth, hypocrite! You don’t even know my point of view.”
Desmond let them quarrel, but I stopped them before Leonardo could say more. “If you’re quite for a bit,” I said sternly, “and let her explain herself, I’ll let you have the last word on this. Okay?”
“Well, okay, let her talk.”
Then I looked at Marian. “Go on, tell him.”
“Well, to start, gender dysphoria exists. Second, it’s serious. Third, telling someone who suffers it that his feelings about who he is are true won’t improve thing. Let’s face it: by now, your species is old enough to know by itself that things can’t get better that way. Even the Party had to admit that two and two are four.”
All the way through, I found myself having to shoot Leonardo irritated looks and give other gestures to make him keep quiet. It seemed to take a half an hour, or more.
“Very good, Marian. Is that everything?” When she nodded, I turned to signal Leonardo. “Your turn, Lenny.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. So, what you’re asking me about isn’t ‘out there,’ because the body’s not a definite thing. It’s in his mind because you’re making a body for him, and telling him it’s the only one he can take. It’s your private interpretation, maybe not his. So, you should let him do what he’d like; what he feels about himself is the truth about who he is.”
That new guy, Enrat, showed interest in the exchange. Or so I thought. So I asked for his opinion like for the others.
“Why are you asking us? We think Mr. Aldeño’s answer’s rather close to ours.”
“‘Rather close’ and ‘the same’ aren’t the same thing. And with all that interest you showed, I think you’d like to say something different. Please?”
“Ugh! Fine! It’s real, and the mind has every right to assign whatever meaning it wants to its body. If not, the body has no meaning. How could it have it? It would be a lump of stupid matter without the mind, nothing more. Be free, make whatever you want of the matter. Are you happy now?”
“When you say the body has no meaning without the mind, do you mean the soul’s whims are all its meaning, or…?”
“No more questions!”
What say you?