The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3315 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I let Sarah go off with Danielle while Si and I sat with Peter and drank his Beaujolais, I only had the one glass as did Peter, he would be driving later. "So what d'you think?" he asked.

"I always enjoy new season Beaujolais," I replied smiling. Well, it was true, I do.

He shook his head smiling, "About my niece," he said.

"She's a nice niece." I replied switching on the kettle to make teas or coffee, "I've made her a tentative job offer, how that suits her course, is up to her to decide."

"Yes, I heard that, but you'd never know, would you?" he asked.

"I might, but then I have experience of spotting trans people, we all do it, some are probably better at it than others."

"I thought she was pretty natural."

"She's fine, really, Peter, but she needs to stop telling everyone except on a need to know basis."

"I've told her that but she's worried because she's working with children, she feels she has to tell them."

"So will she still tell them after she's had the op?"

He shrugged, "She likes to tell the truth, she's incredibly honest."

"I could see that, but she has to learn that telling people more than they need to know can make you very vulnerable and let's face it, virtually all adults have secrets they'd prefer to keep hidden. She also has to learn that being transgender is not something we choose, it's simply a fact of life and never to be ashamed of it."

He nodded, "Absolutely, but there are plenty of people who seem to treat trans people as if they chose to be that way, just out of perversity. I mean plenty seem to think that being gay is a life choice."

"In parts of the Middle East they still punish anyone having gay sex with execution." I'd read something recently about what they do, they stone them to death or collapse a wall on them.

"That is disgusting, bloody barbarians." He said this angrily and I was waiting for some criticism of Islam, if so I would have challenged it. As with any religion, it's the people who practise it that are the problem, especially those who adapt it to indulge their own fantasies or power trips. We all know what I think about religion, lack of critical thinking, but that's up to the individual and I'd fight for their right to be so, even if half of them would like to take me out for a stake. I know, I could give an archangel an inferiority complex.

"It's peculiar to transgender people that they get asked all sorts of personal questions by people who don't feel at all embarrassed to ask them, they seem sometimes, to act as if they have a right to know, 'have you had the op? Which do you prefer boys or girls? I was once asked one of those by someone who discovered I was transsexual and they got really pissed when I asked them the same question back adding, I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Peter looked at me for a moment, then burst out laughing, "That's brilliant, Cathy. I'll show you mine..." he muttered and laughed loudly again. Tom came in from the garden and I offered him some tea as I was pouring it for the others. He asked what Peter was laughing at and snorted when I told him. At this point he hadn't started drinking his tea, so I decided I'd keep the jokes to a minimum or have to wash the table cloth again.

"Lady Cameron, could I speak with you?" Sarah returned just after we finished drinking our teas. Danni trailed along behind.

"Of course, Sarah, let's pop into my study, shall we? Danni, be a sweetie and do us some teas," with that, I escorted Sarah to my lair.

"What a lovely room," she said looking at my books and the antique desk, plus my various knick-knacks and photos. I was pleased with it, my room that is.

"The library is through there," I pointed to the door and she asked if she could see it.

"Wow, you've got a lot of books," she gasped.

"Well, we have two professors living here plus a nurse specialist and banker and several children who are still in school and like to check facts other than by computer, though we have one of those as well and of course, access to the university system."

"Would I be allowed to use it if I came to work for you?"

"The books or the computer?"

"Both, I hope."

"I should think so once we agreed what was what."

"Gosh, I wish I lived here instead of up in Bristol, you're all so laid back about my being trans, my family except Peter seem to have such qualms about everything, especially my dad, you'd think it was his balls I wanted to cut off."

That line made me smile, she was so right in some ways.

"So what about doing your placement with me?" Just then Danielle appeared with two mugs of tea on a small tray and before I could move, Sarah jumped up and took the tray.

"Give her the job, Mummy," she said before I waved her away.

"Until I started trying to find a placement, all I ever wanted to do was work as nursery nurse and look after little ones, especially as I know I'll never be able to have my own but since I've had so many rejections for something I can't help and didn't choose, I'm half tempted to chuck it all in and do something else."

"Do think very carefully before you do that," I cautioned.

"I'm sick of being trans, Lady Cameron," she said and tears began to run down her face. "I really hate it."

"Hey, don't let them get to you because if you quit, the bigots win, you have to stand up for your rights, you're still a human being and a very lovely one," I said wrapping her up in a hug.

She sobbed in my arms for a few minutes. "No one knows what it's like," she said sniffing. "It's just not fair."

"Some of us do know or have a good idea what it's like," I said quietly still holding her. "I had a daughter who was transgender, she died, nothing to do with her gender discomfort, she had a brain aneurysm and died while we were out cycling."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, and there's me being selfish again," she said.

"You're not being selfish, Sarah," I hugged her again getting a distinct feeling that Billie approved of me using her to try and comfort the girl while being a total hypocrite and keeping my own past hidden.

"To lose a child must be the worst feeling in the world," she said sniffing.

"If not it must be close to it," I agreed, "but let's deal with your needs today, Billie is at peace so I know hers have been met."

"I don't know what I want except to be a normal girl and I know I can never be that, so what's the point of anything?"

"How will anyone know you're not a normal girl, unless you tell them?" I asked, "You're as pretty as any I've seen and I see quite a few in a university."

"You're so kind, Lady Cameron, but I look at Danni and she is beautiful as are you, I'll never be able to feel as female as you do because I don't have all the correct bits, so who am I trying to fool?"

"Now hang on a moment, when you came the other day you were full of finishing your course and doing the job you told us you loved, what's changed?"

She burst into tears again, "I'm just a fake compared to you all," she sobbed.

I decided some tough love was needed. "Sarah, please stand up and stop snivelling." I pointed to the mirror and made her stand in front of it. "Tell me what you see."

"Me dressed as girl," she sniffed.

"I thought you were a girl."

"How can I be, without ovaries and all the other bits."

"Being a woman is something that happens between the ears not the legs and there are loads of biological females who can't breed for umpteen reasons or have had to have ovaries or uterus removed, they're still female aren't they?"

"Yeah, but they were female beforehand, weren't they?"

"But not anymore according to your criteria or does that only apply to you because you don't really want to be a woman."

"Yes, I do, more than anything."

"Okay, so you look and act like a woman, so let's call you a woman, okay?"

"But I can't," she sniffed.

"Sarah, if you can't accept yourself, how can you expect others to accept you as you wish to be accepted."

"But I'm incomplete."

"Arguably, we all are, we are always working to become who we want to be or seen to be, it's a lifelong thing. If you appear and act like a female, only those who need to know you're not quite complete, will know - how many times do you wander about naked in the average week?"

She turned to face me, "Only when I'm in the shower," she said blushing.

"So when you're working you wear clothes?"

"Yes, of course."

"Glad to hear it, so can anyone see your unmodified bits?"

"No, course not."

"So they wouldn't know you had any unless you told them?"

"No."

"So they'd accept you as a woman?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You think so or know so?"

"Okay, I know so."

"I'm telling you, if they thought you were a boy in a dress, they'd soon tell you and they don't do they?"

"Not any more, at first I wasn't quite so convincing but usually I don't have any problems, except boys with seemingly lots more hands than humans usually have."

We both smiled at her description of wandering hands syndrome which afflicts many females. "That tends to indicate you make the grade, so why can't you accept yourself?"

"Okay, I surrender, I'm a girl and I accept myself, is that okay?"

"It's not me you need to tell, I can see you're a lovely young woman."

"Okay, point taken."

"I deal with adolescents for a living and have done so for some time, plus it's not that long ago that I was one myself and I haven't forgotten the ordeal it can be at times. Many young women have problems accepting themselves or seeing themselves as loveable or beautiful because they don't meet the criteria that applies to super models, who are as far from real women as polar bears are from teddy bears. Just be yourself and the best you, you can be, that's all any of us can do. You are a lovely young woman just give yourself some love and less of the hard criticism, we're none of us perfect just rejoice in who you are and enjoy your life, it's too short to find fault."

She sat on the sofa opposite me and sipped her tea and her eye movements tended to show she was reviewing what I had just said, processing it, her expression going from neutral to almost a smile and then to a grimace, finally she looked up at me and smiled, her red eyes sparkled. "I wish you were my mum, Lady Cameron, no one has ever spoken to me like that before."

"I have houseful of daughters, they all go through this ordeal of being good enough, or pretty enough, so I have a bit of experience of helping them through it. I have got it wrong once, not with my daughters, thank goodness, but with a young woman up in Scotland who was the daughter of one of the estate workers. She was transgendered and had had parents who caused her to suppress who she was. She got friendly with some of my girls and they told me about her unhappiness and being someone who doesn't like to see children unhappy, I interfered and gave her the chance to live as she wanted, I even arranged for her to see an appropriate doctor who confirmed that she was transgender."

"Wow, you did all that for her?"

"Yes, and the day after she hanged herself."

"What? Why if you'd given her the chance to be herself?"

"It overwhelmed her and she couldn't cope, after that I promised not to do so again unless it was to prevent child abuse or some other danger. Do-gooders can sometimes get it wrong."

"I'm sorry that happened and I think you did the right thing or had the best of intentions."

"Sarah, everyone must make their own lives and their own decisions, all we can do is try to help when we see them struggling or heading for trouble, but unless they ask for help, we sometimes make things worse because we take away their authority. Ali, the girl up in Scotland didn't ask for my help, my daughters did it for her and I should have asked her what she wanted me to do to help not take over and push her along at the rate with which I was happy. So after all the advice I've given you, I exhort you to do what makes you happy, you're the only one who knows for certain and you're the one who has to bear the consequences."

"If I was to drop my course, would you help me do something different?" she asked blushing.

"Shouldn't you be talking to your mum about this not me?" I felt awful now, this wasn't what I intended.

"Nah, Uncle Pete is better than her and I think being a woman, you understand better than he does, bless him."

"What do you want to do?"

"I'd like to work for you and do some access course to study something at university, do a proper academic qualification, perhaps become a nurse or a teacher."

"Or a midwife or doctor, or anything you want to be, provided you put in the hours and are of reasonable intelligence you can be who you want to be."

"Yeah, doctor, that would make some of them take notice of me wouldn't it? I'd show them I wasn't just some fairy, but someone of value."

"If I may offer a modicum of advice, Sarah, do something that you want to do, not to prove something to others, if they've been that unhelpful in the past, proving them wrong won't actually achieve anything because they'll be too stupid to understand. Does that make sense?"

"Yes, are you sure you can't adopt me?" she asked grinning.