not finished thing...
Apr. 13th, 2008 04:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hooloovooso i saw this request for submissions for a queer project thing. they want performances pieces that have some thing to do with glbt stuff written by young people. because i'm crazy, my first thought was oh, it'd be awesome if people could just randomly switch sexes, whenever they felt like it. and it'd be even cooler if those people not only weren't ostracized, they were respected and important to society. so. i'm writing that. it's a monologue, and i can't decide how long it should be. on one hand, it's prolly 7 or 8 minutes long now, which seems kinda long. but i still have more things i could add! i dunno. so. this is not finished, it will probably get cut down some later, but i want people who aren't me to read it and see if it makes any sense outside of my head. :D
Yeah, my first time I was about twelve. I was looking at this dress, right? I remember thinking it was pretty cool, and next thing I know, I’ve got the body to wear it. I was really surprised, because no one else in my family was Gifted. I was at a department store with my mom, so once I got over my shock I ran to show her. She was excited; both my parents were. And proud, I guess. Who wouldn’t be? I mean, I guess I’ve heard parents of normal kids say they’d rather not have a Gifted one, but I don’t know anyone Gifted whose parents say that.
There are definitely kids who would rather not be Gifted, at least sometimes. Everyone says you should feel proud and honored, and we do, but it’s also a lot of work and pressure and responsibility. Gifted high schools are different from typical schools. It’s boarding school, for one, since there are only one or two in each state. And the classes are different. Harder, of course, but also different. We learned four languages and spent hours each day on international politics. Lots of history, and business and law. Not as much math and science. People did different fine arts, everything from marble sculpting to rock and roll drumming. No one really did sports. Pick up Frisbee games, yeah, but nothing organized.
I don’t mean to say it was miserable. Even when it was hard, it was fun. How could a school full of teenagers able to change their bodies at will be anything but fun? It’s a good thing you can only change so much, or we’d have all had to wear name tags. You can’t change bones, or external things like hair and fingernails. But pretty much everything else is malleable. Fat and muscle distribution, most primary and secondary sexual characteristics, even little stuff like eye color and vocal range. It was pretty amazing to be in a place full of people who literally couldn’t divide themselves on along any physical lines. Everything that could possibly separate us we chose. Race, sex, appearance, they were all just choices, and every possibility was valid.
They still are, for that matter, though most of us grew out of wanting to look completely different everyday. I change my sex more than anything else, now, and both ways I try to look pretty androgynous. But I’ve spent time, out in the real world, as pretty much every kind of person, just to see what it’s like. It’s expected of us, and it’s enlightening. That’s why the Gifted make great diplomats, or judges, or politicians or CEO’s. We can see both sides of an argument because we’ve been on both sides.
That was frustrating at school. When you grow up Gifted, you grow up knowing you’ll change the world. So you can’t blow off school or the model UN or anything like that because what if you miss something that could make the world better? But it’s how things are. There are a couple of small groups who don’t like it. They think it’s anti-human discrimination that some jobs are only open to Gifted people. It’s mostly stuff that requires a total lack of bias, like judges, and high ranking government people, from Congressmen up to the president. The rules don’t really matter though, because no one would vote for a candidate that wasn’t Gifted.
The Gifted have always been the leaders, since the Coming Out in the 1600’s. We think the Gifted population had been increasing in the centuries before that, but numbers are hard to come by since many of them were killed or hidden away by their families. Then, around 1605, the first Gifted settlement was formed in England. It wasn’t just Gifted people, of course, everyone was welcome. But it was the first place where they didn’t have to hide. Unfortunately, the rest of England was not as accepting. Parliament even passed laws making it illegal for Gifted people to work in most industries. Which, hello, not at all effective. You can’t tell someone is Gifted by looking at them. If they don’t want you to know, you won’t.
Anyway, the growing town started hearing about all this free land, far away from the English government, in a place called America. They were all about that, and soon a fairly impressive immigration had begun. They settled near this colony called Plymouth. The Gifted immigrants named their town Boston. When they got there and started building, they met the Native Americans. As it turned out, the Native Americans valued Giftedness highly. They considered Gifted People, who they called Two-Spirits, to be sacred and holy, closer to the gods than normal people. So the Native Americans and the Bostonians quickly agreed to fair terms about the land, and even convinced them to stop attacking Plymouth.
Both Gifted people and normal people who wanted to live in a place of equality and respect started coming to America. Eventually we won our independence, and ever since, all our leaders have been Gifted. My favorite part of the story is that it caught on with the rest of the western world too, and by now nearly every country elects mostly Gifted people.
So, that’s Gifted people 101. My life is pretty standard; I’m studying Latin America, working on my masters degree. I’m engaged to a very nice lady. She’s not Gifted, since I’m sure you were wondering. How could we call ourselves unbiased if we only dated each other? People marry people. We wouldn’t stand for anything else. Oh, pronouns, I almost forgot. Pronouns are based on presentation. Every few years someone wants to make up special Gifted pronouns, but then you have to correct people all the time. So address people based on how they look like they want to be perceived. But don’t stress about it, since we change a lot, we’re not very invested in gender identities.
Like I said, I really only change my sex now, appearance wise I’m pretty settled in to this. I’ve gone weeks without changing anything, and I’ve switched back and forth more than once in a day. It just depends on my mood. It’s odd to talk about, because I don’t really think about why I’m male or female on any given day. It’s almost like asking why I’m wearing blue socks today instead of black. [laugh] Although, I do occasionally still look at a cool dress and accidentally switch to the right body to wear it.
Yeah, my first time I was about twelve. I was looking at this dress, right? I remember thinking it was pretty cool, and next thing I know, I’ve got the body to wear it. I was really surprised, because no one else in my family was Gifted. I was at a department store with my mom, so once I got over my shock I ran to show her. She was excited; both my parents were. And proud, I guess. Who wouldn’t be? I mean, I guess I’ve heard parents of normal kids say they’d rather not have a Gifted one, but I don’t know anyone Gifted whose parents say that.
There are definitely kids who would rather not be Gifted, at least sometimes. Everyone says you should feel proud and honored, and we do, but it’s also a lot of work and pressure and responsibility. Gifted high schools are different from typical schools. It’s boarding school, for one, since there are only one or two in each state. And the classes are different. Harder, of course, but also different. We learned four languages and spent hours each day on international politics. Lots of history, and business and law. Not as much math and science. People did different fine arts, everything from marble sculpting to rock and roll drumming. No one really did sports. Pick up Frisbee games, yeah, but nothing organized.
I don’t mean to say it was miserable. Even when it was hard, it was fun. How could a school full of teenagers able to change their bodies at will be anything but fun? It’s a good thing you can only change so much, or we’d have all had to wear name tags. You can’t change bones, or external things like hair and fingernails. But pretty much everything else is malleable. Fat and muscle distribution, most primary and secondary sexual characteristics, even little stuff like eye color and vocal range. It was pretty amazing to be in a place full of people who literally couldn’t divide themselves on along any physical lines. Everything that could possibly separate us we chose. Race, sex, appearance, they were all just choices, and every possibility was valid.
They still are, for that matter, though most of us grew out of wanting to look completely different everyday. I change my sex more than anything else, now, and both ways I try to look pretty androgynous. But I’ve spent time, out in the real world, as pretty much every kind of person, just to see what it’s like. It’s expected of us, and it’s enlightening. That’s why the Gifted make great diplomats, or judges, or politicians or CEO’s. We can see both sides of an argument because we’ve been on both sides.
That was frustrating at school. When you grow up Gifted, you grow up knowing you’ll change the world. So you can’t blow off school or the model UN or anything like that because what if you miss something that could make the world better? But it’s how things are. There are a couple of small groups who don’t like it. They think it’s anti-human discrimination that some jobs are only open to Gifted people. It’s mostly stuff that requires a total lack of bias, like judges, and high ranking government people, from Congressmen up to the president. The rules don’t really matter though, because no one would vote for a candidate that wasn’t Gifted.
The Gifted have always been the leaders, since the Coming Out in the 1600’s. We think the Gifted population had been increasing in the centuries before that, but numbers are hard to come by since many of them were killed or hidden away by their families. Then, around 1605, the first Gifted settlement was formed in England. It wasn’t just Gifted people, of course, everyone was welcome. But it was the first place where they didn’t have to hide. Unfortunately, the rest of England was not as accepting. Parliament even passed laws making it illegal for Gifted people to work in most industries. Which, hello, not at all effective. You can’t tell someone is Gifted by looking at them. If they don’t want you to know, you won’t.
Anyway, the growing town started hearing about all this free land, far away from the English government, in a place called America. They were all about that, and soon a fairly impressive immigration had begun. They settled near this colony called Plymouth. The Gifted immigrants named their town Boston. When they got there and started building, they met the Native Americans. As it turned out, the Native Americans valued Giftedness highly. They considered Gifted People, who they called Two-Spirits, to be sacred and holy, closer to the gods than normal people. So the Native Americans and the Bostonians quickly agreed to fair terms about the land, and even convinced them to stop attacking Plymouth.
Both Gifted people and normal people who wanted to live in a place of equality and respect started coming to America. Eventually we won our independence, and ever since, all our leaders have been Gifted. My favorite part of the story is that it caught on with the rest of the western world too, and by now nearly every country elects mostly Gifted people.
So, that’s Gifted people 101. My life is pretty standard; I’m studying Latin America, working on my masters degree. I’m engaged to a very nice lady. She’s not Gifted, since I’m sure you were wondering. How could we call ourselves unbiased if we only dated each other? People marry people. We wouldn’t stand for anything else. Oh, pronouns, I almost forgot. Pronouns are based on presentation. Every few years someone wants to make up special Gifted pronouns, but then you have to correct people all the time. So address people based on how they look like they want to be perceived. But don’t stress about it, since we change a lot, we’re not very invested in gender identities.
Like I said, I really only change my sex now, appearance wise I’m pretty settled in to this. I’ve gone weeks without changing anything, and I’ve switched back and forth more than once in a day. It just depends on my mood. It’s odd to talk about, because I don’t really think about why I’m male or female on any given day. It’s almost like asking why I’m wearing blue socks today instead of black. [laugh] Although, I do occasionally still look at a cool dress and accidentally switch to the right body to wear it.
