The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3410 by Angharad Copyright© 2023 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 spoke to Esmond at Sussex; remember this old letch was my professor when I was doing my bachelor's (should that be spinster's) degree, and I must have been the only woman he made no pass at. He's pretended since but he knows how big Simon is and I think he has a respect for me, plus he prefers them younger and prettier than me.

He confirmed what Tom had told me last night, that Sussex, Portsmouth, and Southampton had formed an alliance of TERFs, which they considered were just a group of radical feminists. They may have been at surface level, and if that had been the case they'd have had my unconditional support, but the fact that nearly all were lesbians of the man-hating variety, plus of course that included m-f transwomen, who they considered were just dickless men. They believed in the superiority of women, which I part support, but I see it as flawed because in a balanced society everyone is valued, including the sick, disabled, and the criminals, the latter often were just those who had never developed integration with society, so had no stake in protecting or developing it. This is usually the parents, who may be on the periphery themselves and were thus unable to pass on the required skills to their offspring. I suspect many of the problems we have in society are caused by the problems of the parents being passed on to the children. Perhaps the bible had it right about things being visited on the third and fourth generations, although the context was wrong as we are talking social or psychological problems being passed down the generations, perhaps even some genetic forms as well. It's known we develop our core values from significant persons during our early life, so parents, teachers, and some older relatives together with peer groups can all play a part in the development of the individual, right up to puberty or adolescence, and we all know how difficult that can be for them in so many ways. I had an awful time, developing a set of values which included knowing what was right and wrong and respect for others unless they caused me to rethink that negatively. I was usually prepared to give a second chance until they betrayed me - then unless they did something remarkable or I was proved wrong, I would never trust them again.

My birth father, always expected me to be attracted to girls and eventually settle down with one and between us produce 1.5 or is it 2.5 grandchildren for them to dote over. Okay, that's the theory. Now being a typical girl, I was quite compliant and tried to date several girls in school. It never worked because I always felt I was doing it just for appearances, when I had no desire for them, just to be them. Usually, I was turned down flat, with the response, Yuck, I don't want to date another girl,' being typical. When one agreed to come to the cinema with me, I duly cadged some extra money from my dad, and treated her to a meal beforehand, okay we went to a certain burger franchise, and then popcorn and drinks in the cinema. I was so pleased that someone had said yes, although the fumble in the dark in the stalls was disastrous and it was like kissing a catfish I had survived the ordeal. My pater was duly proud of his son so I got extra pocket money in case I wanted to take Natalie out again, so things were as far as I knew okay, at least at a superficial level until the next day in school I overheard Natalie talking to her friends and mocking our date, 'Ugh', she said, 'It was like kissing another girl and he had no idea about what to do with his hands, I reckon he's gay or something, probably a bottom.'

I ran off in tears, yeah, real tough guy fashion, and cried myself to sleep in a dark corner by the caretaker's cupboard. I never tried dating again except with Siân, and we were just girlfriends and some twenty years later still are. She tolerated and encouraged my girliness and her parents seemed to see me as one too, we were allowed up to her room and other privileges because they considered me another girl. How come they could see it and my own parents couldn't?

One of Siân's enemies was a girl called Josephine Hunter. I think the animosity arose because of me. I didn't appreciate that Siân was trying to deal with her sexuality, especially coming to terms with being gay. She really didn't deal with it until she went off to university but then I was trying to deal with this voice inside me that was trying to tell me I was really a girl, it had done ever since nursery when I used to squabble with other girls over who got to wear the princess outfit, so I had no real thoughts about Siân except how accepting she was of my girliness and I knew also that I was safe with her and her family. Her mum was always so nice to me, but then, she was nice to everyone, she was just a lovely person.

I got into work and did everything Diane required of me in return for keeping my tea levels up to the high mark. I had spoken to Esmond and had gone to the lab and found Laura flirting with two male technicians in the prep room. My look evidently was enough to stop the shenanigans and she showed me the work she had done on slide preparation. It was adequate but no comparison to the stuff I used to do at Sussex and Laura must have heard of it because she mentioned it to everybody in the prep room. "They still talk about the slides you made at Sussex and they still have quite a few in their collection. You can tell a Watts' slide by how good it is and the tiny writing on the label, which is really girly and neat."

Of course, the techies now had something to tease me about, even if they could be pulling the tail of a tiger, and they produced some I made during my master's when I found a couple of dead dormice and did sections of various organs including the brain and muscle tissue. Most of the slides I did were in my personal collection at home but I did some for the university as well as they had none of dormice.

Laura and Brian the techie who got the slides from the slide cabinet, were in awe of these slides.

Laura said, "How come yours are so good and mine are barely useable?" Brian was also interested in my answer.

We ran through the method, checked the microtome and the wax kit and they were doing the right things I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "I just have a knack for it I suppose, Debbie is pretty good as well, get her to show you." With that, she popped into the prep room.

"Is this a private party, or can anyone join?" she said smiling, "Diane said you were probably skiving off down here."

"Huh, talk about staff loyalty, remind me to sack her later."

"Oh come on, Cathy, she'd take a bullet for you, we all would."

I blushed, "In which case, I'll leave it till Friday." They all laughed.

Laura looked at Debbie and said, "Professor Watts was saying you were good at making slides."

"Not compared to her, but she taught me to make better slides than I did and I teach it to first years. Why? I thought you were a post-grad student? Haven't you done slide prep before?"

"Yeah, I did it at Sussex, but she's still a legend there and I was just telling everyone here," then in a stage whisper she said, "I'm trying to get her to show me how she does it."

"Um, Prof, uh could you run a session for us, as part of professional training?" Debbie threw at me.

"It's ages since I did one." I tried to give a non-committed answer, "You'd probably do a better job than me, as you're more up-to-date on everything.

"Prof, you are the maestro or whatever the female equivalent is, so would you please run a session for us to show us or remind us how to do this properly? You might not have made one since you showed me last time but you hadn't forgotten anything then and you make it look so easy. It could be done under staff training and it would look good on everyone's CV."

"I'd have to do some revision of staining and so on as some are now banned because they are so poisonous."

"Does that mean you'll do it?" she asked fluttering her eyelashes at me in a way she knew I would ignore but it made her like a parody of a young girl entreating her parent. The rest of them laughed at her.

"Have a word with Diane, see when I have a few hours free."

"I already did she says you're free on Thursday morning for the whole morning."

"Did she now...?" I said with a pronounced threat in the tone, although it was all nonsense.

"Yes, yes she did, so can we book the prep room for it or one of the labs?"

"Better make it one of the labs, these good people," I meant the technicians. "may have experiments or equipment to set up."

"No prof, if you can run a session, we'd love to be included in it, I've seen some of your slides too and if you can teach me to do it like you do, that would be great."

"Okay, Thursday morning, wear lab coats or old clothes, some of the stains are difficult to wash out. I'd like to speak to these two young ladies alone, if I may?"

The two boys disappeared and I drew Debbie and Laura toward me, "It seems the TERF problem is more of a problem than I first understood. It appears that they have formed a group between this uni and Sussex and Southampton. They have regular meetings and it appears coordinate their actions, so instead of just a few from one of the universities we have to cope with perhaps twenty or thirty, the numbers swollen by the other two uni's. It gets them more publicity and attracts more members. It smacks of external support but we don't know from where but if we can hit their funding, we can stop a lot of the nonsense and hate they promulgate."

"What have we done to them, I never understood that?" asked Laura.

"It's more of a perceived threat than an actual one and it has little basis in reality but then isn't this how Trump has grown his support with people sold fear and hate and him as the one person who can prevent the chaos, he is actually causing? I believe that if people are told the unvarnished truth, they can decide for themselves."

"No prof, they won't listen, nor will Republicans or Tories over here, they don't want the truth as it's inconvenient or doesn't match their bubble, so they are prepared to support a campaign based on lies."

"Surely not at a university? I mean we may not be Oxbridge but we have some pretty bright people here."

"Prof, it's based on fear, usually nonsensical variety, we are portrayed as monsters, which is doubly untrue in your case, but they sell a demonised idea, and people who don't really think about it support it and then we have to deal with an entrenched attitude. It's like religion, all nonsense but people will kill to preserve it."

"Oh dear, looks like we may be in for some interesting times. Try not to become isolated or you become an easy target."

"I don't think I'm too worried by a few lesbians," said Laura with a swagger.

"It may not be ones and twos but twenties or thirties and people, viz us, could get hurt. Keep your eyes peeled and at the first sign of trouble, run for it to a safe place or a very public place. This is now an amber warning. Take care, I have to go."