(aka Bike) Part 1991 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
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As we strolled back to the house I was concerned that Peter’s view of gender was entirely founded on what dangled or didn’t between ones legs–a simplistic, and to my mind an erroneous view. Gender, is a multifaceted and complex item relating to the self image of the individual, the view as accepted by others the relationship with biological factors, psychological ones and probably another million I’ve missed out.
Seeing it simply as I’ve got a willie so I’m a boy is plain wrong–I had one but never saw myself as such–neither did most other people who saw me as a girl, long before I indulged in growing my hair long or wearing girl’s clothes. They saw something in the way I acted or the way I looked perhaps both. I couldn’t wait to get rid of my male genitals but not at any price–I wanted to recycle them into female ones–or as female as they could be made, not the hack ’em off mob, of which Peter is the most recent subscriber.
His act of unmanning himself makes me think of some of the religious devotees of Cybele and especially the myth of Attis who got himself castrated but died. If I remember correctly, the reference to the priests of Cybele was as Gallia, the feminine form of the noun. I’d read Frazer’s, The Golden Bough as a school kid and was much taken by the description of the way in which some of the crowd watching the procession of the Gallia, who dressed as women, joined the procession and cut off their genitals as they went along. Surely they’d have bled to death? However, it still fascinated me as did loads of the stories he collected and commented upon, including a middle eastern fairy tale of a man called, Jesus, which caused him loads of grief.
“I can’t get over the size of this place,” said Moira as we walked back to the house.
“Sorry, I was miles away.”
“I said the size of this house, it’s huge.”
“We had some building done a couple of years ago which enlarged it by half a dozen rooms, including my study and the library.”
“You’ve got a library?”
“Yes, it’s a largish room with loads of shelves off my study, and we shove most of the non-fiction books, journals and so on, in there. The idea was to keep the rest of the house tidier, except my study is always a mess. It was also hoped it would encourage the children as they got older to study in there, but they just take the books and work in their bedrooms or elsewhere, but there is a desk in there and a computer.”
“I’d have loved to have had access to facilities like that when I was in school,” sighed Moira. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have the money to support me going to university, and I still couldn’t afford it even if I had the time.”
“You could always do something at the Open University, it needn’t be a degree, but some shorter courses, which might count towards either the degree or access to doing one at a later stage when you have money or time.”
“You’ve obviously got a degree?”
“Um–yeah, the most recent one being a doctorate.”
“You have more than one?”
“I did my bachelor’s at Sussex, my master’s here and my doctorate here as well. I teach at the university.”
“Teach what?”
“Ecology, field biology and plain biology.”
“I’d have loved to do that,” she looked at me with a faraway glint in her eye, “but it’s too late now.”
“It’s never too late to do education.”
“I’m nearly forty now, Cathy, who’s going to want me as a student?”
“Loads of places, remember, universities are businesses these days and they need money. They market education for money–if you have the dosh to spend they’ll sell you some sort of package.”
“I told you, Mum, Dr Watts is the dormouse lady off the telly.”
“Of course you did, darling, I’d forgotten. I seem to forget lots of things since your accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident, Mum.” I looked at both of them and it was hard to see who was blushing the most. I wondered if he was using his emasculation as a weapon to beat her and possibly his father, or if she was still in some degree of denial that her son could do such a thing. I hadn’t heard what his father thought about it all, but I doubted he’d be very supportive of anything much beyond the conventional. I might be wrong but I doubted it.
I wasn’t impressed by Moira Grimshaw’s desire to dump her son should he decide to become her daughter, until he was presumably the finished product–I’m not sure he could–there’d be too little tissue in the area to construct labia and vagina unless some skin were taken from elsewhere and the vagina a graft from the colon–which is pretty major stuff.
I still felt he had more in common with a being gay than being transgender, but what did I know? In which case he might be better speaking with David about reconstruction or construction of a phallus than to me about becoming a woman. I’d have to ask David carefully because he hasn’t volunteered to disclose anything to Peter, although I’m pretty sure he knows about the boy.
I was showing Moira and Peter the library and discovered that Danny and Carly were in there having a discussion about the practical elements of kissing techniques. They were highly embarrassed and Moira gave her daughter a withering glance. The two teens went off to explore the garden–I hoped they took their coats with them or their amorous activities were likely to be frozen out.
“You’ve got so many books, Cathy?” Moira was impressed–I suppose there were a few there–but it didn’t mean I’d read any or that anyone else had, a point I didn’t make to Moira.
“Yeah, some are mine, some are Daddy’s, some are Simon’s and some are Stella’s. The journals and magazines are over here, and we’ve just started a computer section for Sammi’s stuff, which Trish likes as well, she’s got some physics text books here as well.”
“How old is she?”
“Trish? Um–eight.”
“And she’s reading physics text books?”
“Yeah, she’s a bit precocious,” like twenty years.
“Does she understand it?”
“Better than I do. She’s into particle and quantum physics, which is very mathematical.”
“And she’s eight?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“She’s obviously very bright.”
“Yeah, like a supernova.”
“What’s that?”
“An explosion of a star, which creates huge amounts of light and energy.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Moira, her intelligence goes off the scale.”
“She’s fortunate to have someone as clever as you then as her mum.”
“If I’m like an ordinary star, she’s like a supernova, which would light up the heavens for months.”
“Oh, I see. If she’s cleverer than you, she must be very clever.”
“Thank you for your high opinion of me, but she is far cleverer than I am, verging on what would once have been considered genius levels.”
“Goodness.”
“All that brain trapped in an eight year old’s body–my job is to try and stop her going off the rails–she doesn’t always consider other people’s feelings when she has an idea, which she expects her siblings to understand like she does. That they don’t frustrates her, and she can get a bit elitist as well. I tend to stamp on that when it shows up.”
I put up with Moira’s questions for another hour when David served tea and biscuits–yeah, homemade ones–show off. Our visitors went off a bit later, Tim having been entertained swapping silly walks and stories with Simon, Carly and Danny tongue wrestling, and me being stuck with Moira and her castrato son. Yeah, that’ll teach me to keep my gob shut next time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough
Comments
Lots of reasons to become a Castrato or Castrata?
Have to dig about in that loony book, the DSM. It fascinates me that the authors of such tripe are at times completely starkers bonkers! I'm sure that in the Regan years, I'd have been locked up and heavily medicated.
I don't view the child's self surgery as being so very pathological at all. His parents really don't seem to be up to the task of raising children. Perhaps it was their own attitudes passed down to their child made whacking himself seem like a sane idea?
If a child always hears that his Mum wanted a daughter, and is given a girl's name, and then beaten half do death by an angry loony male, the child is never going to understand what a real male is like. Perhaps when Mr. Oedipus comes calling, he'll decide that being a male is decidedly undesirable. Then when the Testosterone tsunami sweeps over the poor bloke and much of his activity after that is one handed, perhaps he is overcome by guilt so much that he wants to be rid of those feelings forever. Perhaps he reasons that no real man would ever allow himself to be beaten half to death, by other males. Perhaps every time he encounters a female alone at night her look of fear stabs him in the heart and he comes to the point that he never wants to be seen as one of the enemy again. Perhaps in the intervening years he had married and his wife, having been greatly abused, was actually a thinly concealed man hater, and over the years that grinds him down until he can not stand it a single second longer.
He's not actually transexual at all but he soon realizes the only way to avoid the loony bin when he whacks himself is to pretend to be one and maybe is act is so good that he even convinces himself. After the Doctors have done their best, he becomes so adept at pretending to be a woman that he convinces everyone around him and for a time, even himself.
Perhaps he chooses strange religous philosophies in hopes of finding one that will continue to punish him until he feels adequately punished for being weak, ineffectual, namby pamby, ineffective and ...
Whoa guu-uurl
You're right Gwen.
There are a lot more reasons for becoming castrato than medicos can even dream of my darling. I don't even have to read between the lines here Gwen. My reasons for going castrato are nothing remotely like yours. Basically for me it's simply to stop the poisonous testosterone sloshing around, wreaking destruction. I see castration as no part of any remedy vis-Ã -vis my self-perceptions of my gender just a step towards metabolic peace and avoiding organ damage through long term anti-androgen self medication.
I agree with you Gwen each to their own dear Girl, I don't see my castration as something addressing my inter-gendered circumstances. Strange or what ... no it's not.
XX
Bevs.
An individual's reasons for self-mutilation./castration could have any one of a thousand different origins. Angharad has eloquently described some very legitimate reasons but I think there are as many reasons for somebody wanting castration as there are those that complete the act, whichever way the achieve it.
Good chapters Ang, much food for thought here.
Bevs.
Can't help but wonder
how Strphanie will help Peter and his family deal with what he did to himself. Peter needs to talk to David.
May Your Light Forever Shine
All I can say...
Okay, I'll admit I could probably say a whole lot more but I'll stop at this...
Cathy really needs to come to expect that kind of reaction to the "bungalow"... And, she did, in many ways, ask for that conversation.
Our family library (not a room of it's own, but a few thousand volumes) contains only a few books that one of us haven't read - and usually because we've not gotten there yet. Not so many hard back/paper backs purchased in the last year, though... Far more in Kindle form... (They don't take up as much space! (she nods knowingly).
Thanks,
Annette
It does seem Cathy
is already getting a little bored with Peters parents or should we say his Mum, Reading between the lines you would have to ask will they stand by their son over the next few months? Well that remains to be seen, But you would have to say the portents do not look good , Taking things a step further and trying to peek into the future makes you wonder what will happen if Moira does find things to difficult to cope with ... Would Cathy take Peter into her home? Will Cathy be able to help in any sort of healing? What would happen to the budding relationship of Danny with Carly?... All questions that might need an answer very soon...
Kirri