When I set out to tell the story of Bob Isle and Mattie Grant in I’ll Grant You My Wish I decided to draw heavily from my youth. In my original outline, Bob’s a twelve-year old boy who is dragged into femininity by a domineering Mrs. Grant who is seriously disturbed by the loss of her own daughter. In the end, Bob decides he has to stand up to Mrs. Grant and rebels. Since he is basically a nice boy, when he puts his foot down it is done quite gently.

To Mrs. Grant even that small amount of rejection for the grand life she has planned for him is reason for action. She has lived on the farm all her life and knows the difference between a ferocious bull and a docile steer. The story I had planned ends with Bob feeling the mental fuzziness that indicates he has been drugged with the Thorazine Mr. Grant used to calm cows, that had a penchant to kick when milked. An incapacitated Bob/Linda watches in horror as Mrs. Grant sharpens the pocket knife Mr. Grant used to castrate pigs and calves, knowing in his drugged state he can do nothing to stop her.

I struggled with how to label such a story so as to warn away those who would have been offended, without giving away the story’s punch. Because of certain incidents on other websites I rethought the use of a minor in such a macabre tale.

Further I started to check certain historical references and came by information that reminded me how far the world had gone out-of-line on labeling “psychotic” behavior in the fifties. In the early sixties I ran into Skinner’s teachings in college. After struggling with the ethical considerations for months, I dropped my psychology minor, even though I had enough credit hours to qualify. I would have had to take one more class in behavioral psychology and had rejected his mental games and their shaky morals.

By going to a slightly older protagonist it seemed more authentic for Bob to be able to detach himself from the humiliation others may have felt. His worries are not about what people will think of him — only what they will think of Mrs. Grant. He doesn’t trust those in authority to make the right decision. He is still young enough to hold his mother’s wishes as paramount. This shift in where the story would go allowed me to move outside the cliché to a piece that studied love and compassion rather than cynicism and sadistic glee.

As a TG author I’ve used young protagonist because they fit the genre for so many logical reason. One important aspect is they have an easy time finding clothes to fit. Their bodies are very much like their female counterparts, before each goes down a much different developmental path. In a lot of ways they are a twig to be bent to a patch of sunlight, rather than the sturdy adult tree that can barely be reshaped. The story Amelia and I told in Peaches could only involve a boy whose ideas and body were still developing.

Over the last few days I’ve rethought every story I’ve written involving a young protagonist and have concluded that three of them do not properly reflect who I am as a writer. Let me be clear — I don’t think any of what I’ve written is pornographic. These three stories simply have aspects to them that leave me uncomfortable.

All of us have lines that we shouldn’t cross. When we do cross them our writing becomes something it shouldn’t be; it loses authenticity. The version of I’ll Grant You My Wish I posted reflects a young man very much like I would have been in that situation. At nineteen, I pretty much thought I had the world “by the ass”. I didn’t give a damn what people thought of me, daring to be a non-conformist in a time when conforming was a religion. By sticking close to reality I told a story that I think made sense.

The castration story would have stuck in your minds, but would not have been remotely truthful to the characters I had developed. This version will also stay with you as it has that kind of open-ended quality that allows your mind to take over.

There are writers on this site that can put themselves into youthful characters in trying situations and the story comes across as valid. I’m not one of them. I admire what those writers can do.

In a few days I’m going to pull Residue, Bringing Good Cheer, and There Were Never Such Devoted Sisters. I wrote those three for varied reasons. Residue was meant to express how much I dislike stories that seem to condone forced feminization of young males, because those stories generally don’t acknowledge the intense damage (residue) that ensues. Bringing Good Cheer was a counter piece to my intense Real Life Test, which I wrote to suggest that life on the other side of transition isn’t always Shangri-La. There Were Never Such Devoted Sisters was a rewrite of a fairly disgusting piece I read on Storysite, back before I quit reading the stories posted there. I wanted to show the author that all the rape and incest in her story was totally unnecessary to achieving a compelling piece. I had her permission to rewrite. Unfortunately that author’s comment to me about what I wrote indicated her piece was meant as a vehicle for rape and incest — which I just don’t understand.

I’m not suggesting that other authors remove any general classification of stories. I’m not you and you’re not me. Erin has suggested I put certain stories under another pen name. That’s a great suggestion, but I have enough trouble keeping Angela and Jill segmented, without pushing my feeble brain into another whole set of thoughts.

I’m only telling you this so you can read those stories one last time, if that is your want.

Jill