Beyond Binary

by Brit Mandelo

  Shalini gazes at all the pictures of Veena that cover the walls, marveling at how quickly time has passed: There is Veena, a few months old, wearing a fluffy pink dress and a darling wreath of pink roses on her head. There is Veena in an embroidered blue silk lehnga and choli, toddling toward the camera at her uncle’s wedding. There is little Veena in a sari, dressed up for her school’s annual play.

  And here is the actual Veena coming up the stairs, twelve years old already, tall and lovely in her wonderful white dress, her long dark hair coming undone from the chignon in which Shalini had put it up…where did the time go? How did we make a beauty like this child? She smoothes her own unruly curls, and looks adoringly at her daughter.

  Veena’s brought her presents upstairs to show her parents. From the Snow Queen, a brilliant snow-globe, beautifully made. In the center are two polar bears and a fir tree. When Veena shakes it, it plays a delicate tune. Something Western classical, Shalini thinks. Maybe Schubert? Then there’s a remote-controlled truck, with a small GPS installed. A pin with a built-in cell-phone; Star Trek is enjoying a revival. A battery-powered holographic game that fills their living room with enemy soldiers for Veena to shoot at…huh? Shalini picks the box off the floor. The card attached says, “Happy Birthday, Vik.”

  “Vik? Veena, why are your friends calling you Vik?”

  “They don’t. Only Ajay, he’s my buddy. The others call me Vikrum.”

  “What’s wrong with Veena?”

  “It’s a girl’s name.”

  “Aren’t you a girl?”

  “I am! But why?” she demands. “Who decided?”

  “We did,” Shalini says after a pause. She remembers their decision, to choose their baby. She and Jayesh had mulled it over, considered the expense, considered the payoff. They wanted a designer baby. It’s the most important thing we’ll ever do, Jayesh had said. Let’s get this right, and damn the expense. This is an opportunity our parents never had, tweaking DNA.

  She remembers the hours and hours they had spent with the specifications. Sitting in front of the screen, calibrating, raising this and lowering that. The massive spreadsheet with all those linkages to be considered. Physical specs, pre- and post-puberty. Talents. Temperament. Which part of it was causing this dissatisfaction, this questioning? Was Veena doomed to go through life never quite happy in her skin? Was it their fault? What had they done wrong? She says nothing of this to Veena. Instead, she says, “We wanted a little girl. We got you. We were thrilled.”

  Veena rolls her eyes. “Okay for you, Ma, but what about me?”

  “Would you rather be a boy?”

  “Duh-uh.”

  Shalini looks helplessly at the other two adults.

  “I told you not to select the gender,” says her mother, “Something like this was inevitable.”

  “Darling,” Jayesh says to Veena, “Wait until you’re eighteen and then you can choose.”

  “I want to be a boy now!”

  “How long has this been going on?” asks Jayesh.

  “Always. For ever.”

  “Your friends called you Veena last year,” says her mother, “Or Vee. It wasn’t that long ago you only wanted to wear pink. Remember when you wouldn’t talk to boys?”

  “Mo-om! That was years ago! I was a baby! I’m grown up now. I told them to call me Vikrum. They have to get used to my boy-name.”

  Shalini and Jayesh look at each other. “Sweetie, we can’t just shift your gender like that,” Shalini says, “It’s very expensive. Universal insurance doesn’t cover it. I don’t know how we could afford it.”

  “You know,” says Mummy-ji from the background, “Gender selection never should have been allowed in India. First we had a huge number of boys being born, and hardly any girls. Then girls and hardly any boys. Now, confusion.”

  “All the other kids’ parents let them,” says Veena.

  “All your friends are changing gender? Ajay’s always been a boy, as far as I know.”

  “That’s just Ajay. But what about Preethi? She was a boy before.”

  Shalini sits down heavily on the floor. “Why?” she asks Veena. “Women can do anything they want. Even years before you were born, India had a great woman Prime Minister.”

  “Oooh!” says Mummy-ji, “How can you admire Indira Gandhi? What about the Emergency?”

  “That’s not the point, Mother!” says Shalini. “Besides, she herself lifted the Emergency.”

  “Only when she was forced into it,” says Mummy-ji.

  “How many dictators do you know who actually restored democracy within two years?” argues Shalini. “Are any of the countries that gained Independence when we did still democratic? Isn’t it so, Jayesh?”

  Jayesh diplomatically makes no comment. Instead, he turns to Veena. “It’s true, what your mother says. You can be anything you want. Even Prime Minister.”

  “I don’t want to be Prime Minister!” says Veena, “Anyway, not now. But boys get all the cool stuff! And they do all the cool stuff!”

  “I told the Parliamentary Committee,” says Mummy-ji. “I said it would worsen the gender divide, polarize the genders. Dr Mukherji, they said, thank you for your testimony, and just went ahead anyway. Isn’t it so, Jayesh?”

  “Girls can play with cool stuff, too, and do all the cool stuff,” Jayesh says to Veena.

  “But they don’t,” Veena picks up her toys. “I’m going to my room.”

  “Veena, sweetie,” says Shalini. “Please….”

  “Don’t call me Veena!” Her voice sounds close to tears as she stalks off.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” Shalini calls after her. It’s a wretched end to the birthday.

  Jayesh silently busies himself with putting out the fire. The ice outside has melted away, and the temperature is rising again. He turns on the air-conditioning.

  ∞

  Veena is the only girl wearing jeans. In the two years since the Snow Queen birthday, she has stopped wearing dresses altogether. But instead of graduating to the tunics and slender pants of the Punjabi suit, or even to sarees, she only wears jeans or slacks. Her hair is clipped short, and she’s already running around with a group of boys, all engrossed in a new Alien Splatter holovid game released in Japan only this week. They are shooting at the escaped alien monsters that run across the park.

  Veena races ahead of another child, dodges round a tree, crouches and fires. A huge green creature with horns running from its forehead down its back and sides rears up on ten legs to twice the height of a person, and then falls heavily sideways, spurting fluorescent purple gore. Behind it, an even larger crimson thing with eyes on eye-stalks shifts in and out of invisibility. “Vik! This way!” someone shouts, and Veena runs to the next tree to reinforce the attack.

  The girls, dressed in designer Punjabi suits, watch and cheer occasionally as someone scores a particularly good splat. Some of them wear short white lace gloves, the latest fashion. They are waiting for the last guest before they take off to their own games in the clubhouse. The birthday twins have split up: Rizwan is killing monsters, and Ria waits with the girls for the friend delayed by traffic. Her party’s theme is Fashion-show. But Veena has joined Rizwan’s party, Alien Monster Safari.

  The parents stand around under the trees, signing off on releases that limit the hosts’ liability, and watching their children play. Shalini dreads the questions she knows she’ll get about her daughter, but can think of no polite way just to leave. Sure enough, Ajay’s lawyer mother, Mrs. Zaveri, together with Preethi’s father, bear down on her.

  “Shalini, why have a girl if all she wants to do is dress and play like a boy?” Mrs Zaveri says. “I just cannot imagine making my child to remain the wrong gender. If I can afford to change it.”

  Fine for you, thinks Shalini. Your Ajay’s not agitating to be a girl. “Veena is going through a phase of exploring her gender identity,” she replies stiffly.

  “It might warp their personalities,” says Preethi’s father, as though Shal
ini hasn’t spoken. “Once Preetam wanted to be a girl, I told his mother, ‘Even if we have to spend for it, we must do it.’ Otherwise it is just child abuse.” Preethi, the former Preetam, is with the group of girls in lace gloves.

  The crimson monster goes down to the combined firepower of the attackers in one of its brief moments of visibility, falling over with a roar and a gush of brilliant green blood. Immediately, a massive black alien rolls ponderously onto the field. It extrudes tentacles, seemingly at random, but as it comes closer to the trees where the boys shelter, they reach for the young hunters. Veena, Ajay, and Rizwan the birthday boy race around to get behind it. A tentacle darts out at the trio and hits Ajay on the shoulder. He goes down, and the strike badge on his shirt turns black. “Shit! I’m hit. Ten minute time-out.” He retires to the edge of the field while Veena blasts the creature with her weapon. It shrieks loudly. Rizwan and Veena dance out of range of its tentacles. Another group of boys take advantage of the distraction to score another hit.

  “What I don’t understand is why you are thinking gender confusion is good?” says Mrs. Zaveri.

  Preethi’s father nods vehemently. “Veena should….”

  “What is all this gender-switching like Broad-barred Gobies?” interrupts Mummy-ji. “It is not human to choose the sex at all. And then change if someone doesn’t like it? Why?”

  “Mother!” says Shalini, not appreciating this parental assistance, “We can talk about it another time!”

  Fortunately, a car stops near them and disgorges another fashionably dressed youngster. Shalini grabs the opportunity to wish Ria a happy birthday, and leave with her mother before the debate becomes any more heated. “Mummy-ji,” she says as they walk to the car, “You know their little girl started out male.”

  “I know that very well,” says Mummy-ji “That does not make it right. Just look at that park. It’s like the 1960s. Demure girls in pretty kameezes. . .”

  “Mother, I wish you wouldn’t get into these arguments.”

  “What if Veena wants blue eyes? Or augmented quick-twitch muscle fiber? Are you just going to keep doing these changes?”

  As they get in the car, they hear a huge cheer of Shabash! Vik! Score! Apparently she’s brought down the last alien.

  Shalini had been concerned about spoiling Veena if they gave in on the gender change. But now, she feels she must talk to Jayesh. Was their decision abusive, as Preethi’s father had implied? Maybe they can break into the money they’ve kept for Veena to go abroad for further studies.

  ∞

  Shalini looks out of her window to where Vik stands tall beside his dad, directing the workers who are stringing party lights in the gulmohar trees by the front gate. A wonderful camaraderie has developed between them over the last two years. They watch cricket together in season, and he’s begun to take an interest in his father’s business.

  The expense has been worth it. They’ve forgone all the little luxuries, the overseas trips, the new car. Of course they kept up appearances, but only she and Jayesh know how much debt they took on when she took six months’ unpaid leave to help Veena through the transition.

  Shalini wonders now if Jayesh would secretly have preferred a son all along, but had gone along with her desire for a girl. She wishes, momentarily, that they could have afforded two children. It would have been nice to still have a daughter. Girls are closer to their mothers, like she is to Mummy-ji. If they’d also had a son right from the start, would Veena have wanted to be Vik?

  She brushes away these thoughts as disloyal. Vik is as handsome as Veena had been pretty. The girls love him. Yes, he seems more substantial, somehow, than Veena. She realizes she’s said it aloud when her mother joins her at the window.

  “It’s the same person,” Mummy-ji says, looking out at her grandson. “Veena, Vik, what’s the difference? He’s a good child now and he was before.” She points to a van entering the driveway. “Look, the people from Flowers & Phool are here. You get ready, no? Some of the guests always come early.”

  Shalini nods. Some Westernized people actually will arrive at seven-thirty as invited instead of eight or eight-thirty. She goes to change from jeans into a heavy silk peacock-blue sari, her birthday present from Mummy-ji.

  She pauses at the mirror. Just for a second she visualizes a male self, Shailen: a distinguished man with short hair graying at the temples. She imagines dominating the weekly research meetings and drawing covert glances from the young women scientists in her lab. Then what would Vik and Jayesh think?

  Smiling to herself, she dresses, adjusts the drape of her sari, and goes down to deal with her birthday flowers. When Jayesh asks what is amusing her, she doesn’t tell.

  ∞

  Self-Reflection

  Tobi Hill-Meyer

  The resemblance is uncanny. At first I don’t notice anything because her short blonde hair standing in spikes is so different from my own dark curls working their way to my hips. Yet something about the way she holds herself draws me in. She clearly doesn’t mind standing out in the crowd. She’s wearing baggy pants with a tight-fitting tank top and a leather jacket with the word DYKE embroidered on the back. In this moderately conservative town, her outfit clearly screams “Fuck you!” at the straight world. At the same time it enticingly coos “Fuck me!” to the queer world.

  I stop and can’t help but stare as everyone else walks by. As she gets closer, I begin to notice little things. Her face is fairly distinct from mine, but there are definite similarities. Then when I catch her eye she flashes a particular smile at me: a crooked half smile that I’ve never seen on anyone but me before.

  “That looks like my smile,” I say with a touch of amazement in my voice.

  “It is your smile,” she replies.

  I stare at her dumbfounded for a moment, not sure what she means by that. Then the other pieces begin to fall together: The same arc of her eyebrows. The same look she’s giving me right now. The same skin tone. The same double-Venus symbol tattoo just below the left side of her collarbone. The same smart-ass tone of voice she’s using with me. She is even wearing a handmade TRANS PRIDE button I designed.

  “You’re me,” I say, “Aren’t you?” She sits down on a bench next to me and takes her jacket off. I notice the embroidery again. It’s a technique I’ve been learning, but it’s far tighter and more orderly than my skill can produce. I look at her eyes and see small laugh lines beginning to develop. “…But older.”

  “You’re a smart study, I never doubted that,” she says, smiling.

  “Does that mean you’re from the future? How does that work? Can you tell me about what happens? Why are you here?”

  She laughs for a moment. It’s odd to hear my own laugh. It sounds different when it isn’t coming from my own head. “I’m not really supposed to tell you those kinds of things. I’m not really sure how it all works myself.” She leans over and in a hushed tone says, “But you might want to transfer your inheritance money out of the stock market before the end of 2007.”

  “It’s 2009.”

  “Oh, well, you’ll be fine. You’ll get by without the money anyway.” She gets up and pulls me into a more secluded space. The crowds disappear.

  “So if you’re not here to give me a message or a warning, what are you here for then?”

  “I need a reason to visit now?” The joke seems more odd than funny. “The truth is that I’m here for a while before I can move on, and I don’t really know anyone else here. I figured I might as well look you up. You’d understand better than anyone else we know. In 2012, I visited Mom and she almost had a heart attack.”

  I don’t know why, but it kinda makes sense to me. I look back at her. She glances at the ground, and for a moment her face looks very tired and somewhat sad. I don’t understand anything that’s happening, but I realize that I don’t need to. I put my arm around her shoulder. She looks back at me and smiles again, then embraces me in a long, comforting hug.

  “Somehow I knew you’d underst
and.” She looks at me a moment longer. “You said it was 2009. Does that mean you’re dating Saphira right now?”

  “For a year and a half.”

  “And you don’t know Cayne yet?”

  I think for a moment, then nod.

  “And you’re still poly, right?”

  “Yep.” I cock my head to the side. I can’t really imagine a future where I’m not poly.

  “Good, I just had to make sure. You can’t always assume that all the details are still the same.” She pauses then shoots me a smoldering look. “Anyway, if that’s all true, then unless I’m mistaken, you haven’t seen a trans cunt up close yet.”

  I perk up. “No, but I’ve been curious.”

  “That’s another reason I wanted to stop by,” she says, looking me up and down. “How would you like me to give you the opportunity?”

  “No way,” I say in disbelief, “But I’m non-op.”

  “You might be, but I’m not.”

  I’ve thought off and on about how I’d like to check out a trans cunt up close, but I didn’t feel like it would be appropriate to just go ask someone. Having my future self here creates a valuable new opportunity. Before I know it we are back at my place, in my bedroom.

  She gets on the bed and starts to take her pants off. A pulse of excitement runs through my body. Everything feels surreal. Like I’m not even sure if it’s happening or not.

  “Before we begin, we should check in about things. Part of why I haven’t had the chance to do this yet,” I explain, “is because as much as I want to know what it can look like and what it can feel like, the more significant part to me is that I really want to explore the sensation of it, how it feels to you.”