Just a Normal Girl

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Morgan is not progressing, so I figured I'd repost something I wrote for the Crystal Hall fan-fics.
Just a Normal Girl
by Brooke Erickson

Hi. I'm Jessie Craighead.

I can recall exactly when my life came apart. That bitch, Lenore Schippers, was ticked off that I'd beaten her onto the girl's basketball team. Especially when the coach told her that even if she had been better at the game, she was worried about her being able to maintain her grades

OK, I can understand being upset about that. But she had to drag her father into it. Mr. Schippers was head of the local MCO office and Lenore gave him this sob story about how I had to be a mutant to have beaten her out and have a 3.8 GPA on top of it.

I thought I was embarrassed when I was told I had to be tested for all this stuff. I was wrong. Real embarrassment was when they dragged me out of gym class saying I was a boy!!

I knew I hadn't had a period yet, but we just thought I was a late bloomer. Turns out I have a genetic condition called complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. CAIS for short.

It means that even though I've got XY chromosomes my body doesn't respond to testosterone or other "male" hormones at all. So I developed mostly as a girl from back in the womb. I don't have a period because I don't have a uterus. I do have a vagina and small breasts. And wider hips than most boys. In short, until they did the testing, even the doctors thought I was just a girl who was developing a bit slowly.

Between that and that fact that I have some of the metagene complexes (like 5 percent of the population does) that was enough for Mr. Schippers to get me classed as a mutant. Even though I don't have any trace of actual abilities. I'm good at athletics, but that took a lot of work. I'm smart, but I still have to work at things.

Being declared a mutant was bad. But worse was that he got a judge to agree that I was a boy, regardless of what I look like.

Y'see, I live in Ohio. And some years back a man died without a will. His family wanted his estate. And challenged his wife's right to inherit. They claimed the marriage was invalid because his wife used to be a man. And the judge ruled that regardless of surgery or anything else, if you were XX you were and always would be legally female. And if you were XY you'd always be male.

I understand that the wife's lawyers even tried to bring up folks like me, but the judge ignored the evidence. So the judge Mr. Schippers went to ruled the precedent applied to me. And that made me legally a boy.

Mom and dad are still trying to appeal the decision, but it may take years. Meanwhile I had to get all my school records changed and get a new ID card. The MID card the MCO gave me doesn't help either. It says I'm a boy and that I'm an exemplar-1. The doctors mom and dad have taken me to say it's more likely that I'm not a mutant at all, but there's no real way to prove it. We're appealing the MID stuff anyway, but they say the odds of being able to fix it are pretty low.

Because everyone heard the news, I kept getting called "pervert" and worse by folks who thought I was a boy pretending to be a girl.

I'd always been a bit of a tomboy because I like sports. But I thought I was 100% girl. Now, I get hassled if anybody recognizes me and I'm wearing anything remotely female.

I don't even want to talk about having to take boy's PE. At least the coach let me change in his office and since I had it as my last class of the day, I could skip the showers.

I couldn't be on any of the teams either. That hurt.

We live in a fairly small town so going to another local school is out of the question. Ironically, mom and dad moved here because they thought it'd be a better place to raise kids.

It got so bad that they asked around and heard about Whateley. I'm not real thrilled about it, but at least nobody will be hassling me about being a mutant. And I can go as a girl.

Anyway, that's how I wound up here in Poe.

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I wonder,

NoraAdrienne's picture

Once she's at Whateley and they do THEIR testing... the doctors there plus a good lawyer could probably put a nice law suit in place against the girl's asshole father, the Judge, and the MCO for putting a minor through all that aggravation just because the jerk's daughter is a major bitch.

You *can't* go after a judge

Brooke Erickson's picture

You *can't* go after a judge for stuff he rules on the bench. Period. At *best* you can try to get higher judges to remove him from the bench.

And, alas, I'm not making up that stupid court ruling (though it may have been Texas rather than Ohio). A judge did indeed invalidate the marriage and in doing set set the legal precedent (which I believe has survived at least one challenge) that in *that* state, you if are XX you a legally female. Period. And if you are XY you are legally male. Period.

Getting around that stupidity will require lots of time and money, and probably going to a much higher court (I think the Texas one went to the state supreme court and was upheld).

As for Whateley's testing, see the next installment. :-)

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Fucking intollerance, fucking mco

Woah... A CAIS-girl beeing hassled by the MCO. And she's at Poe... Why the hell? She's a normal girl and not even a mutant, if it wasn't for some ashole MCO fucktard.
Couldn't they just have changed school and enrolled her as a TG-girl? There ought to be understanding people...

Interesting story about what happens if you're victim to scrunity by people who abuse their office.

Thank you for writing,

Beyogi

See reply to previous

Brooke Erickson's picture

See reply to previous comment.

Under an actual *real world* legal decision in at least one state, somebody with CAIS would be considered legally male.

So that makes her a legal male living as a female. Which says Poe. If nothing else, the folks there are more apt to sympathize with her plight. And be able to give her some support.

With an MID card, she's going to get treated as a mutant regardless. Add that to there not *being* another high school, and the area *not* being tolerant, and Whateley looks better and better.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

I guess you're right. I'm

I guess you're right. I'm always amazed what kind of bullshit comes out of the american courts. They tend to put the "stupidest american judgements" in the joke sections of magazines over here in germany.
Don't you have anti discrimmination laws against bullshit like this? I always thought it was harder to get the bureaucracy to "correct" something than anything.

I wonder what TG's have to put up in that state if they're this way to CAIS women.
Well considering the mutophobia in Whateley universe this was probably the smartest action. Someone would have killed the "monster" sooner or later anyway.
Since she's no exemplar for real, maybe Whateley is really a good thing for her. She might get a mage or a devisor to change her into a xx woman.

Oh, there's never been a

Brooke Erickson's picture

Oh, there's never been a ruling that I'm aware of regarding someone with CAIS. And I suspect that if someone with it challenged the ruling in that state, it'd be a lot more likely to get overturned (more likely, modified).

But the original decision involved a post-op TS married to a genetic male, and after he died, his family (who had hated her and he disliked) filed a lawsuit to get his estate. Alas, he'd not had a will, so once the marriage was ruled invalid, the family got everything.

Anti-discrimination laws? Don't make me laugh. In most of the US it's still quite legal to discriminate against you because you are gay. And if you are trans, its much worse.

There are bright spots. Its getting better, and some places have had decent laws for years. But it's been less than a decade since Oregon got a statewide anti-discrimination law that covered gays & trans folk. Portland had done it some years before that.

But 30 years ago, a ballot initiative *overturned* an order by the state governor that forbade discrimination against gays in state employment. And 2 years later, a measure that would have denied gays (and "witches" and "sado-masochists") any sort of state, city or county issued license (and arguably could have been interpreted as not even allowing them to do *any* kind of paperwork with any level of government in the state came *way* too close to passing.

We *still* have an amendment (voted in by initiative) in the state constitution that forbids gay marriage. Though there may be an attempt to repeal that in 2012.

Remember, this is the country where the state of Georgia, rather than repeal their sodomy laws after a straight male was sentenced to prison for 10 years after foolishly admitted to having oral sex with his wife during a divorce hearing instead passed a special bill in the state legislature to get *him* out of prison, so they wouldn't have to release any of the gay men convicted under the same law.

And they only did that because of the huge amounts of negative publicity the state was getting.

Heck, now that the Supreme Court ruled that laws against consensual sex between adults are unconstitutional, there are quite a number of states whose legislatures have voted *against* bills to remove those unconstitutional laws from their state's legal code.

While *overall* the public is a lot more tolerant of gays, in many states the majority still views them as evil or worse.

Trans folk have it even worse than that.

BTW, *40* years ago, a gay friend I had a crush on had to warn me to ot show any signs of affection in public, because we'd likely get beaten badly. Or worse.

And even now, we've had a number of assaults on gay folks in Portland, even though it's one of the most GLBT friendly towns in the state.

As things get better in general, the folks who are against GLBT folks are getting more rabid *because* they see that they are losing ground.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Oregon

LibraryGeek's picture

When Oregon became a territory of the US, we came in as a free territory, no slaves. But... the constitution also forbade free blacks from living in the territory. That clause remained in the state constitution until 1925; it hadn't been enforced in a while, but it was still there until removed in 1925. My father, born in 1925, remembered Salem, the state capitol, having "sunset" laws; no blacks in town after sunset.

For many years the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) was very active in their anti-homosexual legislative attempts. I haven't heard anything about them for a bit, but they and their ilk are still very much out there. Overall, Oregon is a very conservative state, with liberal enclaves in some of the metropolitan areas. Unlike Washington State, which has registered domestic partnership laws; which is still pretty amazing, given the conservative bias of vast sections of the state.

Yours,

JohnBobMead

Yours,

John Robert Mead

Scott Lively is still out

Brooke Erickson's picture

Scott Lively is still out there pushing hate. He's behind a lot of the anti-gay marriage stuff.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

I'm normally not a fan of

I'm normally not a fan of the limited free speach laws in germany, but at least they're good to shut up such hate preachers. They put it into the constitution after ww2.

The danger is that it is used to shut up people who say stuff that the establishment doesn't like... On the other hand you can use it to stop people from spreading hatred and intollerance.

Law declaring all XXs female and XYs male

I wonder if all the bigots supporting that law would still support it if/when some XY girls start having legal gay marriages with other women using it (because it says they're legally men, even if they are basically a lesbian couple in reality)...

Although like you pointed out with the sodomy thing, they'd probably still support the law, but want exceptions made for them. Heck, they probably want anyone presenting as other than their XX/XY status to be unable to marry at all.

I think overall, things ARE getting better, although sexual orientation and gender seem to be two of the last things it's socially acceptable to be bigots against. Doesn't help, as you pointed out, that as attitudes change and improve, the extremists get... well, more extreme. And we see that in general with other things. Anti-abortionists getting more violent as it gets accepted, creationists attacking science more fanatically the more evolution is an accepted scientific fact, etc...

Incidentally, we're all "mutants", in that we all have hundreds or thousands of genes we didn't inherit from either parent, but rather from mutations. But I assume in this context, mutant has a more specific meaning. I'm not really familiar with the whole Whateley universe.

Dr. Lisa
Mutant Biologist

Whateley mutants

In a nutshell, in the Whateley world, a mutant is someone who possesses something called a "metagene complex". It can be detected, but it's probably virtually impossible to study. In general, it tends to 'activate' at puberty, usually giving the person extraordinary abilities. It can also change physical appearance - for the better (Exemplars) or for the worse (GSD). For more information, check out the fan wiki: http://crystalhall.wikia.com/

 

Bike Resources

There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

In some states the

Brooke Erickson's picture

In some states the laws/amendments forbidding same sex marriage made it *impossible* for trans folks to marry *anyone*. Washington state was that way for a few years.

Of course, that's a slam dunk for overturning the law as clear back at Loving v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court ruled that marriage is a fundamental right. So having folks who are legally not allowed to marry anyone would be an open and shut case *if* you could get them to hear the case.

For what it's worth, some trans folks have used anti-"gay" marriage laws to marry folks of the "same" apparent sex.

An FtM friend chose *not* to do that in California. He was able to marry his boyfriend early on in the period when same sex marriage was legal in CA. And since the courts rules that Prop 8 *didn't* invalidate those existing marriages, they are still married.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

One joke I've read in a book

Was that the demons from Abyss found exactly three things they wholeheartedly approved of, and implemented at their own dimension, taken from 20th century Earth:

---The gas cameras, of Nazi
---The GULAG, of Soviet Union
---The judiciary system, of USA

Makes one think, eh.

BTW, IIRC Russian Empire pre-revolutions had the same case law, and a single ruling once made terrorism legal, which resulted in death of an Emperor among other things. The original case person, later in life, divulged she regretted her actions and their consequences.

Faraway


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Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

Faraway


On rights of free advertisement:
Big Closet Top Shelf

Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

It's not just the US. Read

Brooke Erickson's picture

It's not just the US. Read up on the infamous Spanner case in the UK. Went all the way to the House of Lords and resulted in a decision that basicly says if it hurts of causes "damage" and you get any enjoyment out of it, you and the person doing it to you are guilty of assault.

The case involved a police raid on an SM club. And one of the arguments the defense brought up was that both boxing and rugby would be assault if you didn't make an exception for "consensual" activities.

Instead, because it involved gay men, they ruled that getting "pleasure" out of it made it assault. And yes, that meant that the "victim" of the (consensual!!) "assault" was an accomplice.

One of the silly results (never enforced to my knowledge) was that if you got a piercing, it was ok if you didn't like the process, but assault if you did!

Rather obviously a case of "we think it's icky, so we'll make it illegal".

Trust me, *every* country has that sort of thing in it's laws or court decisions.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Yeah... that always stroke

Yeah... that always stroke me as rather strange. I learned about the NAACP in america and how they had to stage processes to get the supreme court rule some laws unconstitutional. I mean what the heck? Why can't people just go there and complain about the law.
This only leads to unconstitutional laws being in use for years until someone finally get's through to the supreme court.

Kind of reminds me of child custody over here. The european court ruled that it was against european constitution to have people in court system for 12 years until a judgement has been made. Or something like that.
But then child custody cases are a really ugly issue.

Well, part of the reason is

Brooke Erickson's picture

Well, part of the reason is that the courts have limited resources and there are folks who'd try to get rulings on *everything*. So you can't get a court to look at something unless there's an actual case. Ie, someone has been arested or someone has been sued.

You have to have a "stake" in the case.

That's going to be coming up soon in the appeals of the court overturning Prop 8 in California. The folks appealing the decision (the ones who put Prop 8 on the ballot) technically don't have "standing" to appeal. The courts haven't ruled on that yet.

If they rule that they don't have standing (only the state does and they declined to appeal the decision), then that'll be the end of it, and the law will be thrown out and same sex marriage will again be legal in CA.

If it is ruled that they *do* have standing, it opens up a nasty can of worms that could lead to a lot of wasted court time. On the other hand, it could also lead to the US Supreme Court ruling on the issue sand there's a decent chance (but not a certainty) that they'd rule that bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional.

So:
No standing = same sex marriage legal in CA, no effect on other states.
Standing = maybe same sex marriage legal in all states, maybe same sex marriage still illegal in CA.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

The State of Georgia

The State of Georgia executes children of fourteen years by so called 'Due Process' for God's sake!

That's illegal under the United Nations convention of Human rights but when has the United States ever stuck by any agreement it has been signatory to? Ask the Native Americans about their treaties but then, for hundreds of years, all men WERE NOT endowed with certain inalienable rights! Talk is cheap in America but paper, pen and law is as cheap as it is in the UK.

That's the sort of fucked up state Georgia is!!!

Beverly.

Growing Old Disgracefully

bev_1.jpg

Just a Normal Girl

A neat change from the usual fare. Wonder if she will develop a power?

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

What did you expect from lawyers and doctors.

The former profession have about as much perspicacity and compassion as a trip hammer; the latter profession have just about the most insensitive, arrogant, conceited and incomprehensible attitude to healing that ever stirred amidst the primordial slime.
What does either profession know of our world, what do they know?

Nothing!

Bev.

XZXX

Growing Old Disgracefully

bev_1.jpg

Ok, let's relax a bit here...

and admit that she's just a poe boy making the best of a bad situation.

"legally a boy"

wow. what a tough place to be in.

DogSig.png

Ouch

Tas's picture

Well, that, um, that really sucks. Going to Whateley without any sort of powers whatsoever is bound to be... Difficult.

Anyway, to the next chapter!

-Tas