Since my period had started, I’d convinced Mom to let me use the Internet to research menstruation, feminine hygiene, etc. And Sophia had given me a book about puberty for young teens that Mom had given her a couple of years earlier. Between those, and the TG fiction I’d read online (not the most reliable source), I sort of knew what to expect from a pelvic exam.

---

Pioneers

part 10 of 15

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with permission, in dkfenger's Trust Machines universe. It's a prequel to his stories, however, and I've written it to stand alone for readers who haven't read them.

Thanks to dkfenger, clancy688, MrSimple, Karantela, Icaria, and JAK for feedback on earlier drafts.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

---

---

Dad went to run some errands while Mom took me back to school for the last couple of classes of the day. She was back to pick me and Sophia up a couple of hours later, and we drove down to the nearest Walmart — not way over in Greensboro like before. I guess after so many people had seen me and talked with me at church, and after they’d decided to let me testify at the school board meeting, she didn’t mind having people we knew see us shopping; but as it happened, we didn’t run into anyone we knew. Sophia wanted to get some things for herself, too, but Mom told her not while she was grounded, and she was only getting a few things for me because I had almost nothing that fit.

“So,” I said, “did you and Dad hash out what exactly he meant by ‘not too feminine’? I know he said no skirts or dresses, but are Capri pants okay, for instance?”

“We didn’t define it,” Mom said with a wry smile. “But I think Capri pants would be fine...”

So we dove into the racks of teen girls' clothes and picked out a bunch of things for me to try on, both pants and tops. Mom wouldn’t let me get anything that bared my shoulders, and I didn’t want anything that bared my midriff, but that left a lot of room for things that Mom didn’t think would set Dad off too badly. She called a halt after just an hour and a half, though, when I’d only found three sets of things that fit me: one pair of jeans, two pairs of Capri pants, a girl’s T-shirt in solid light purple, a lace-up top, and a ruffle-sleeve top. “We’ll get more on Saturday,” she said. “We need to get home in plenty of time for homework and supper.”

---

I was ecstatic when I walked into school the next morning wearing my new aqua Capri pants and matching lace-up top. Dad had winced a little when he saw me in them at the breakfast table, but agreed that it wasn’t a skirt or dress. Lily beamed at me when I walked into homeroom.

“Meredith! You look awesome! So your parents finally got you something to wear?”

“Yeah, just a few things after school yesterday. Mom says I can get more this weekend...” I told her some of what had happened the day before, though not nearly all the details of what I’d talked with Ms. Hewitt about.

“That’s great!” Lily said, and Emilia and a couple of other girls agreed. Lily went on: “I mean, I know it’s still not ideal, but my cousin’s friend Brooke had it way worse. She didn’t dare come out until she was earning enough to live on her own, and when she did, her parents wouldn’t let her come home for Christmas or Thanksgiving or anything.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about a lot of trans people that’s happened to,” I said. “My mom’s pretty much convinced I’m a girl now, and Dad seems like he’s starting to maybe consider it. The counselor they got me could be a lot worse, but I’m glad I don’t have to depend on her for permission to start hormones or get surgery.”

When I walked into Biology and said hi to Andrew, he said hi back, looking up from his textbook with an air of distraction, but then gave me a big smile as he saw how I was dressed.

“Your parents let you get new clothes?”

“Yes! Mom took me shopping yesterday after school. I think she wanted to earlier, but Dad talked her into waiting until we saw the counselor yesterday.”

We didn’t have much time to talk about it until lunch. After I told him a lot about the appointment with Ms. Hewitt and lunch with Mom and Dad afterward — about as much as I’d told Lily — he told me about his second date with Emilia on Saturday. They’d gone to a putt-putt course in Greensboro and then to dinner at a Mexican restaurant afterward.

“I wish we had the same lunch period,” he concluded. “But I’ll be seeing her again Friday or Saturday. She wasn’t sure if her family might have something going on next Saturday, so we might be going out Friday evening instead.”

“Cool,” I said, forcing a smile.

Evan and Ian had been half-listening earlier, but when Andrew started talking about his date, which they’d already heard about at lunch on Monday, they tuned us out and started talking about something else. When Andrew had finished telling me about his date, I realized they were talking about the school board meeting.

“I saw a poster about it in the hall between homeroom and first period,” Ian said, “but it was gone by the end of first period.”

“What did it say?”

“It was talking about how the school board’s making new rules and they’re probably going to say nobody can come to school when they’ve been changed by the machine, so people should turn up at the meeting and talk to them about allowing any kind of change that doesn’t disrupt classes.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “I’m going. Ms. Novacek told me about it yesterday and asked me to testify to the board about how it helped me, and Ms. Hodge offered me a ride to the meeting, but when I asked Mom and Dad for permission, Dad said they’d probably drive me themselves.”

“We should go, too,” Andrew said to Evan.

“I don’t know why they’d listen to somebody like me,” Evan said.

“When and where is it?” Andrew asked.

“It’s at the main county administration building in Catesville,” I said. “Thursday at seven p.m.”

“I’ll talk to Dad about it,” Evan said.

---

Wednesday afternoon after P.E., Mom picked me up again and took me to see Dr. Chaudhari, her OB/GYN. By then I’d seen several of the posters Ian had mentioned; they’d been stuck up in various places around the school, and at first they kept getting taken down because they weren’t authorized and the language used for the school board’s intended policy was kind of inflammatory, but then new ones appeared that were more moderate in their language although still just as unauthorized, and the staff stopped taking them down. I learned some of the behind the scenes info on that later, but at the time, I just knew I’d seen two copies of the new poster (describing the proposed policy as “overcautious” rather than “stupidly reactionary”) right on the doors to the gym.

I was a little excited and a lot nervous as I got into the van with Mom and we pulled out of the school parking lot. Since my period had started, I’d convinced Mom to let me use the Internet to research menstruation, feminine hygiene, etc. And Sophia had given me a book about puberty for young teens that Mom had given her a couple of years earlier. Between those, and the TG fiction I’d read online (not the most reliable source), I sort of knew what to expect from a pelvic exam, and wasn’t looking forward to it; but I knew it was something every girl went through (at least every girl lucky enough to have decent health care available), and was hoping in a vague way that it would bring me closer together with Mom, Sophia, Lily... maybe even Emilia.

And, on further reading, I realized, of course, that having periods is necessary for being fertile, but not sufficient. I hoped Dr. Chaudhari would confirm that yes, my girl bits were all in working order.

On the drive to the clinic, Mom talked to me about what to expect. I squirmed a little in embarrassment, but listened, hoping she’d have some insight or bit of information I hadn’t gleaned from my intense reading over the last week (and more casual reading over the past couple of years).

“Normally I wouldn’t think you need this so early,” she said. “I didn’t have my first gynecology appointment until just before I went off to college, and Sophia hasn’t needed one yet. Girls your age aren’t at much risk for cervical cancer, breast cancer, and so forth yet. But... we don’t understand what that machine did to you or how. Obviously, since you’ve had a period, the change is more than skin deep, but I’d like to know more about how thorough the changes are.”

“So would I,” I said.

Mom checked us in, and I sat doing homework for about fifteen minutes before a nurse called us back. She checked my vital signs and asked me some basic questions, like whether I was taking any medicines, when I’d had my first period and when my latest period had started and ended. She seemed shocked at first that a girl my age had only just had her first period, until I explained how I was trans and had just changed into a girl a couple of weeks earlier. I’d thought Mom had told Dr. Chaudhari about that, and she had, but apparently the nurse hadn’t gotten the memo.

After a bit, the nurse asked Mom to leave for a bit, and asked me if I wanted her to come back and be with me during the pelvic exam.

“Yes, please,” I said.

So Mom left, and the nurse started asking me more private questions — questions some girls wouldn’t want to answer honestly with their mom listening — like whether I’d ever had sex (no), whether I’d ever been sexually assaulted (no), whether I was planning to start having sex anytime soon, whether I’d ever drunk, smoked, used illegal drugs... Then she gave me a gown to change into and left me alone for a few minutes.

Mom came in a little later and sat with me while I tried to do a little more homework, and then Dr. Chaudhari joined us. She was a woman of Indian heritage a few years younger than Mom, with no accent — I found out later she was born in Atlanta, and her parents had come over from India in the early eighties.

“Hi, Meredith,” she said. “Your mother tells me you’re transgender, and you used the new machine at the library to change into a girl?”

“That’s right.”

“And you started your first period last Thursday?”

“Yes, and it ended Monday.”

She asked me a few more questions about how heavy my flow was, what my cramps were like, and other symptoms, and then started checking my breasts and armpits for tumors, and talking to me about how to check myself for them, “which is a good habit to get into early, though your risk for them is pretty low at your age.” The pelvic exam wasn’t as hellish as I’d expected, though it was far from comfortable; Mom held my hand all through it, and it occurred to me that after sharing this experience, she’d have an even harder time thinking of me as a boy. I think she was surprised by the little smile that came over my face at that thought, but she didn’t ask me what I was smiling about.

And then Dr. Chaudhari gave me the good news. “You’re in good health as far as I can tell, and I see no sign that you were ever anything but a girl. Of course we’ll send a couple of samples for testing, but the odds of any problems at your age are extremely low. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t had a patient a few days ago who entered menopause a few years back, and wanted me to check out her new body after she got rejuvenated by the machine.”

“It’s pretty amazing,” I agreed happily, giving myself a little hug.

“I went to see the machine for myself this past weekend,” Dr. Chaudhari said. “My husband was kind of leery about it, but we set it for the minimum period, eight hours, and tried out some small changes. It was an eye-opening experience, but I think I’ll need to collect some more data on how it’s affected my patients before I can talk my husband into doing a longer-term change.”

“Have you seen or heard about any serious problems resulting from people using the machine?” Mom asked.

“I only know of two of my patients who’ve used it, you and this other woman whose name I can’t mention. I’ve done some reading, but I haven’t run across any problems people have had that couldn’t be solved by going into the machine again and changing back to normal, or changing into another form without the problems of the first one they tried.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Then Dr. Chaudhari asked Mom to leave us alone for a few minutes, and said to me:

“I don’t see any reason you’d need to see me regularly at your age, Meredith. Come back if you have any unusual symptoms — a period where the bleeding lasts a lot longer than normal, unusual discharge, itching in your genitals... anything like that. Or when you start being sexually active and want to start using birth control. Otherwise, you can probably wait until you’re eighteen to start having these exams yearly.”

I blushed. “I... don’t want to have sex until I’m married. But if I’m ever un-grounded and able to start dating, I guess I’m going to be tempted sometimes, and maybe it would be safer to be on birth control just in case?”

“That’s a good idea, yes. Both waiting until you’re married, and recognizing that you might not have the strength to do that. What do you mean, ‘if you’re ever un-grounded’, though?”

I told her how Mom and Dad had grounded Sophia for a month and me for a month plus however long I stayed a girl. “And I think Mom’s changed her mind about it since then, but Dad still thinks I should turn back, and I don’t know if Mom can talk him into un-grounding me after a month or so.”

She frowned slightly. “I see. I’m sorry I can’t do much about that — except talk to your mother, and it sounds like she’s not the one we need to convince.”

So she sent me to the waiting room and had a brief, private talk with Mom, and then Mom and I went home, as it was too late to get back to school for Spanish.

I had a weird experience when Sophia got home from school a little while later: she asked me what it was like to have a pelvic exam. Back when I’d first transformed, I’d never expected her to be the one asking me about some feminine thing I’d experienced and she hadn’t. But then, the stories I’d read had given me the impression that all girls had gynecological exams every year or so from the start of puberty to menopause; Mom often took us to the doctor at different times, and I’d never felt comfortable asking Sophia about her doctor’s appointments, just assuming she must be having those weird girl exams I’d read vague mentions of. So I told her what it had felt like, and how Dr. Chaudhari had reported that my girl bits were all in working order, and the conversation drifted to the topic of babies and how many we wanted to have and when.

“I don’t want to have babies until I’m at least thirty,” Sophia declared. “And then probably just one, or maybe two.”

“It depends on how soon I find the right guy,” I said, “but I’d consider having my first baby just after college, if everything works out. I’d like to do something for a living you can do from home, like freelance editing or writing, so I can be with the kids all day until they’re in school, at least, and not start putting them in daycare as soon as I finish breast-feeding them.”

Sophia shook her head. “I’m going to be a scientist, and there’s not much science you can do at home. Not cutting-edge science, anyway. And I want to marry a guy who’s open-minded about using the Venn machines, so maybe I can have one baby and he can have the next one, if we want two. And we can both breast-feed them. Do you think the machine can make a guy have nursing breasts without losing his guy-parts or his ability to use them?”

I blushed and giggled. “I don’t know,” I said. “It can do a lot of weird stuff, but those parts might not work together for long. Like maybe the male hormones would make him stop lactating pretty soon after he came out of the machine, or the lactation hormones would make him impotent?”

She shrugged. “We’ll figure that out by then. Plenty of time. How soon do you think I ought to ask potential boyfriends if they’re willing to use the Venn machine and change into different things?”

“Second or third date, at least.”

---

---

Wings, the sequel to Pioneers, is now over 56,000 words -- longer than Pioneers (which is 55,000 words).

My new collection, Unforgotten and Other Stories, is available now from Smashwords in epub format and Amazon in Kindle format. (Smashwords pays its authors better royalties than Amazon.)

You can find my earlier ebook novels and short fiction collection here:

The Bailiff and the Mermaid	Smashwords	Amazon
Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes	Smashwords	Amazon
When Wasps Make Honey	Smashwords	Amazon
A Notional Treason	Smashwords	Amazon
The Weight of Silence and Other Stories	Smashwords	Amazon