(aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2154 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
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I had explained to Danni there were consequences to everything, now I wanted to have the boys who chased her understand the same thing. She had spoken with Pia who managed to put names to Danni’s descriptions. Armed with this list I accosted the headmaster and insisted he give me an urgent appointment. Given my earlier veiled threat he agreed to see me after assembly.
He came back to his office where I’d been sitting doing the Guardian crossword. I’d pretty well completed the puzzle and was irritated he’d arrived before I’d got five down.
“How can I help you, Lady Cameron?” he asked though I was aware he was looking at the wall clock behind me. This was a total chore for him, but I felt I’d change his mind or his employment status.
“You’re aware of what happened to Danny in France?”
“Yes, I’m afraid despite the best planning, these things can always happen.”
“I’m aware of that, Headmaster, but ever since that and what Peter did to himself as a consequence...”
“You can’t be certain he did that because of what happened on the school trip.”
“Perhaps not, though I’m sure my lawyers could find an expert witness who wouldn’t necessarily agree.”
“Are you threatening me, Lady Cameron?”
“Not at all, I’m just exploring options of a parent whose child has been sexually assaulted whilst away on a school trip.”
“I see.”
He didn’t because I hadn’t placed my trade off in front of him then. I wasn’t suggesting that if he played ball, he’d be off the hook, just that I wouldn’t look to sue at the moment. I was holding most of the trump cards but I needed him to do the trumping for me. I explained what had happened.
“So let me get this straight, you’re letting your son run around in dresses and makeup and then get upset because some of his schoolmates think it’s weird and want to tell him so.”
“He’s being supervised by a paediatric psychiatrist who’s familiar with gender non-conformity in children, and she like us, is convinced it all arises from the assault.”
“Okay, so what d’you want?”
“I would like you to discipline those boys who chased her around the town.”
“But they weren’t in school at the time, so it’s hardly my responsibility, is it?”
“They were suggesting what they’d do to her if she came back to school.”
“Perhaps it would be for the best if you removed Daniel from the school?”
“That is an option I’m exploring, as well as a law suit.”
“I thought you’d removed the threat for now?”
“On the understanding of cooperation, I don’t believe you want to cooperate.”
“Of course I do, but I’m also obliged to report weird behaviour.”
“You don’t find it stranger that a teenage boy who is sexually assaulted has some strange behaviours afterwards? So in your book they just get on with things and live happily ever after.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that at all, Lady Cameron.”
“No, but a judge might think you did?”
“I can’t punish boys for doing something on a weekend.”
“No? I’ll bet you can, especially for bullying an already vulnerable schoolmate.”
“What d’you want me to do?”
“Tell them in no uncertain terms that they’re not to do it again.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“If you don’t know, I have little confidence in your skills to manage this school. An alternative might be that you allow me to speak with them, with you present of course.”
“And if I allowed this, you’d back off?”
“Yes. See it as being in the vanguard, the family of a victim show they’re not prepared to allow bullying.”
“I’m not convinced their parents will see it that way.”
“Progress usually means some sacrifices.”
“Yeah, all of them mine,” he sighed.
“On the contrary, they’ve been paid by Danny and Peter.”
“All right, when d’you want this to happen?”
“Tomorrow, just before they go home.”
“Very well. I must insist you don’t threaten them or we’ll be in trouble as well.”
“I won’t threaten them, I just want them to accept there are other equally valid forms of behaviour they might have adopted and that I might also adopt depending upon their behaviour.”
“That sounds like a threat to me.”
“I assure you, it isn’t.”
He accepted my assurance and agreed to a meeting the next day. All I had to do now was to talk Danni into agreeing as well. I wasn’t going to have them confront each other unless she wanted it, but I wanted her to confirm the identity of her would be assailants. She agreed she would.
She almost considered reverting to boy appearance, except her hair and dyed eyelashes would make that look somewhat incongruous. In the end we drove to the school and met with the headmaster. The headmaster didn’t recognise her or twig she was a boy until he saw me walk behind her a few moments later. Now he got very tense and Danni began to wonder if this might work after all.
To be honest, she looked an absolute babe, Phoebe had dressed her and done her makeup and hair, which had been perfect for her age. It wasn’t overstated, but young teens don’t do subtlety either. It was just perfect.
The boys had been told to report to the secretary’s office in the next room, into which he had a peep hole. Danni nodded at each one.
“Are you going to stay for this?” I asked her and she nodded. We had her sit in the corner behind me, they wouldn’t see her until I was ready and she was still in agreement.
The boys walked in. “This is Lady Cameron, she would like to speak to you about an issue that happened this weekend just gone.”
They all shrugged, presumably having memories of the same capacity as an earthworm but being far less useful than that lowly Lumbricus, on whom we all depend so much.
“Yesterday, my daughter was chased by a gang of boys whom she has identified as you four boys.”
They all looked at each other and were shrugging or shaking their heads. “Not me,” said one and they all agreed it wasn’t any of them. Then one gave me an opening, “Just that little woofter in John Lewis,” and they all sniggered. It was as much as I could do not to punch him on the nose.
“I see, so you have no understanding of gender different children?”
“Wot?” asked one, probably the tallest of the bunch.
“It means that the child has a different gender to that of their original biological sex. Some call it gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder or...”
“Being a screaming woofter,” said the tall kid and I decided I would take him down in front of his friends.
“That is not helpful, Warton,” admonished the headmaster.
“So, Mr Warton, I suppose you’re completely male, it’s written in every cell like a stick of Blackpool rock?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Yet chromosomally, you’re all half female.”
“No way.”
“But you are, you have an X chromosome, that’s the female one.”
“No it isn’t, you gotta have two of them.”
“Have you now, okay, so I’ve got two X chromosomes and you’ve got one. That still makes you half female.”
“Nah, the Y makes me male.”
“So two Y’s would make you extra male?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced at the headmaster who rolled his eyes. “No, that would make you dead.”
“Eh?”
“You need the X chromosome, the state of being exclusively male of female doesn’t exist except in the malicious imaginations of teenage morons who have nothing better to do than to bully or persecute those smaller than them, despite it being illegal for them to do so.”
“No it ain’t.” Warton was walking on thinner ice with every step.
“I’m afraid it is, it’s against the law to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of their age, sex, gender, race or beliefs. This school has a definite policy supporting the law–I checked before I came, or my barrister did. You boys, in chasing my daughter, who was scared for her very life, transgressed those laws and are thus guilty of discrimination.”
“He ain’t got the right to walk down the road dressed as a girl when he ain’t one.”
“She has, actually and she’s been seeing a medical specialist who agrees with her doing it. Would you like to argue with her?”
“I always knew there was something funny about him–no wonder them guys in France ’ad ’em, the two of them–he ain’t cut his dick off too, ’as ’e?”
“That’s enough Warton,” snapped the headmaster looking more angry with every minute that passed in the company of these four imbeciles.
“But it’s true, the other woofter sliced off his dick, so they say.”
“You have no idea of Peter’s sexuality, do you?” I addressed the loudmouth directly.
“Yeah, he’s a poof.”
“You mean you think he’s homosexual?”
“Yeah,” he laughed in derision.
“On what basis d’you make this diagnosis?”
“Well ’e is, in ’e?”
“And this was pure logic, was it Mr Warton?”
“Yeah,” he said and laughed only this time only one of his friends laughed with him.
“And you’re well aware that the people who declaim others the most do so because they suffer from the same problem but wish to distract by pointing out others who may or may not be what they accuse them of. It’s called a witch hunt because the same tactics caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people three hundred years ago. It’s okay to be a witch today, but not it seems a homosexual. Tell me, Mr Warton, are you homosexual?”
“No, course I ain’t.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Yeah, get yer knickers off...” the other boys began to snigger and blush. The headmaster nearly had a fit he was so embarrassed.
“How dare you?” shouted the headmaster.
“Well she asked, din’t she?”
He was about to take issue with the discourtesy of referring to me as she, when I interrupted.
“Had I removed my lingerie, assuming you didn’t put it on yourself, what would that prove about your sexual orientation, other than being an opportunist who has probably never even seen a real woman naked let alone made love to her.” Warton blushed and his colleagues laughed.
“You see, you can’t prove these things just like that, the majority of men who cross dress are heterosexual, so running round in dresses isn’t necessarily a sign of being gay. But jumping to conclusions without any real information is both hypocritical and dangerous–it might just mean you’re a small minded bully disguising his own failings by pointing the finger...”
“I don’t have to listen to this shit,” Warton walked towards the door.
“Warton, stay where you are,” ordered the headmaster.
“No way, she’s mad.”
“And you aren’t?”
“No I ain’t.”
“But you are gay, aren’t you?”
He went very red, “No I ain’t.”
He was, but he ran off before I could ask him again.
The headmaster read the riot act and I called Danielle to come with me as we left in front of three astonished schoolboys. I wouldn’t allow her to return to the school whatever happened to her or him and we left it for the last time my arm round her shoulder and three red faced schoolboys being dressed down by the headmaster.
Comments
Yay!!!
So glad to see another episode of Bike, there were a bunch of addicts in one particular chat seriously jonesing!
Should be interesting to see what happens with the little hooligans. I'm glad the school got to see such a clear example of their behavior and I'm glad Cathy decided to yank Danni from that school.
Welcome back and thanks for another great episode!
Abby
Agreed Abby
it was so nice to see the little hooligans get there comeuppance, Mind you it was always going to be a one sided contest, Can't help but think if this was a boxing contest the fight would not have got much past the first round, There was no way that Cathy would allow Those little scroats to win an argument against heR..
So what now for Danni, There is no chance of a return to her old school, Being taught at home might appeal on a short term basis, and quite obviously cost is not going to be a factor to her parents, However as we all know Danni is a social creature . Not being at school could mean those that were her friends fall out of the habit of seeing Danni , Once those friendhips are broken they are sometimes very hard to replace....
Kirri
PS welcome back Angharad , Hope you had a lovely break and have come back all refreshed :)Hopefully Monday morning was not top much of a shock to the system
Nice argument from Cathy
A pity someone only left my body half female at birth instead of finishing the job properly.
S.
PS I hope you enjoyed your weekend, Ang.
It Is Only A Matter Of Time...
It's Only A Matter Of Time, Susan, before the shrinking wee human Y Chromosome, with its mere 45 genes left on it currently, and still declining, is no more! This means that, according to the famous Australian Lady Geneticist, Professor Jenny Cais, who found the single gene on the human Y chromosome that actually instructs a foetus to develop testes instead of ovaries, in 4 500 000 years, at the rate it has been losing genes and importance over the last million years, by the end of year Current Era 4 502 010, or thereabouts, the HUMAN MALE WILL BE EXTINCT (You can listen to her being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 Program "The Life Scientific", using the UK's BBC Radio-I-Player, just after 9,00 British Summer Time, this morning.)
Most species that live together in societies have reduced their males to a small number, used for breeding only. Termites have both males and females working equally, but bees, wasps, and ants have their nests, hives, cities and empires run by the working females. There is one species of woodlouse who have eliminated the male completely (Trichoniscus pusillus provisorious), no males have ever been seen, they produce young parthenogenically, and have been around for several hundreds of thousands of years.
Just looking at the speeeding up of discoveries in biomedical research since I was a new researcher back in the 1950s, I feel sure that we could accelerate our evolution. We probably should eliminate the blundering males, with their aggression and greed, whose favorite sport is war and who are raping the Planet, making it likely we will not survive another thousand years unless we stop them.
Briar
Back in harness; so early!
I'm impressed you've got stuck in straight away.
It confuses me a little that some gay people can be so uptight and fraught about their own and other's sexuality, so much so that they're antagonistic towards any others that might somehow reflect their issues, or worse, inadvertently expose them. I can only conclude that such individuals have been made fearful and secretive of their sexuality by the main external influences in their lives namely their parents and/or immediate family.
It's such a sad reflection on society that this intolerance and antagonism still endures especially amongst teenaged males. Why oh why, are so many men (gay or straight)so abusive to any individual they see as 'different'?
Good chapter Ang.
Thanks for the story and the convivial company during the Gabycon.
Hugs,
Bevs.
It's Worth The Wait
... to read such a well written and thought out chapter. The four miscreants may never get it, but the Head Master did. That's a good start. I just hope that whatever decision Danni comes to and that she (or he) is happy with it for the rest of her life.
Portia
Bike's back! Thanks,
Bike's back!
Thanks, Angharad. Another fine chapter.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Black is not black nor is white so white
Thanks again for a educational and informative chapter. The whole idea that the world we live in, thinking that everything is so simple cut and dried when it comes to defining what is completely male or female, is all a fantasy. In nature as well as in the human species, there is no set definition as to what completely makes male and female. There are variations on an infinite scale between the polar ends of the XX and XY which defines human sexuality and gender. I love how you have brought this to light in an understandable way and incorporated it into the story line. There is no end to what people will do to bully and hurt someone they don't understand or who is different than themselves. We are all individually different in our own strange way. We should celebrate our differences and varying shades of black or white for this is what makes life amazing. If we were all cookie cutter stamped the same, what a boring world to live in.
It's even more...
It's even more unusual than just XX to XY... There are documented cases where a person has XY chromosomes and is female AND gives natural birth... Even one case where there's a 46,XY grandmother, Mother & Daughter! (Don't know if it goes beyond that... Last I heard the daughter was still to young.)
Annette
Is there a link...
Where this can be read about online, i.e., the 46,XY grandmother, mother, and daughter? I would like to see it if there is one.
I just finished reading this article online about a mother and daughter being predominantly 46,XY: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/
Although I couldn't understand some of it due to the level of technicality involved, what I could understand proved to be very interesting. It seem there is a history in that family of, and I quote:
"An extensive family pedigree across four generations revealed multiple other family members with ambiguous genitalia and infertility in both phenotypic males and females, and the mode of inheritance of the phenotype was strongly suggestive of X-linkage."
As I said already, I wouldn't mind reading about the 46,XY grandmother, mother, daughter, it sounds quite interesting
Hmmm...
Can't see that happening over here... Though, it might be effective.
I have seen young (and not so young) males (and a few females) acting like that group of boys. In my experience, there's generally one who edges all the others on (alpha), and maybe one or two that echo well (betas)... And the rest either willing followers, or to scared (of becoming a target) to not follow. With just four, no telling how many of which were in the group... But, it was obvious one was the "leader" and that's the one Cathy attacked the hardest.
And, when kids (or adults) try to deny who they are, it's not at all uncommon for them to be in the front of those accusing others of that very thing... Nice to see that in play here...
Nice to see that the headmaster did finally come to understand that he needed to do something. Yes, I've seen some be so out of touch with their kids (over here) that they had no clue, but most seem to try to understand and get to know the kids.
Thanks... I do wonder where things will go from here and how Dann* will get to play more football...
Annette
P.S. Welcome back. Glad you had a good time (or I hope so anyway). We missed you.
A neat turn of thought
Reading this expertly written episode has made me realize something, perhaps. What if my stepfather beat me so viciously because he himself was a latent homosexual in a time when admitting that would be suicide? Admittedly, I was an extremely feminine boy, so perhaps I arroused feelings in him that so terrified him that he beat me for it.
How is that for twisted logic?
Gwendolyn
That was a lot of very
That was a lot of very effective Hand bad swinging.
https://mewswithaview.wordpress.com/