Wedding in Paradise
by Lindale

Because of a long lost family relationship, Tom is offered the chance of an expenses paid trip to the West Indies, commemorating the role of a man who not only released slaves, but gave them a proper life as well. Except that he also has to commemorate the role of the man’s bride.

Resolution Revolution

On November 20th at the End of Each Year

More of our Siblings Join Our Honored Dead

By Jo Dora Webster

Will a New Years Resolution Bring the Fulfillment of Transgender Death No More?

When I’d taken a shower on Friday morning, I found out the hard way that moss is even harder to dry than fur. It took me a long time to blow-dry the moss enough that I could put on my work clothes without getting them damp, and I was nearly late to work.

Dad and I went for a short walk around the halls near his room with the nurse’s aide. He was tired out after going one lap around the nurses’ station. After we got back to the room and the nurse hooked his heart monitor leads back up to the larger machine, he told me, “I’d like to talk more about the transgender thing, if you don’t mind.”

“So Joe was upset, and wanted my advice about what to do. I didn’t know any more about LGBT people than he did, at the time, and I didn’t give him the same advice I would now, but I hope I did sort of okay given what I knew then.

“Oh, good. This feels weird. Not as bad as I feared, though. I know you said I wouldn’t feel paralyzed or claustrophobic, but hearing it is one thing and experiencing it is another. It just feels... sort of normal to not have any arms or legs?”

One day in mid-December, a few days after Meredith came home from UNC Chapel Hill for Christmas, I was taking a break at work and hanging out with Genevieve and Terri for a few minutes. Genevieve was a kind of beetle-bee hybrid, with a bee’s striped fuzzy underbelly and a beetle’s elytra over her wings, and a slightly human-ish face. Terri was a big mushroom with a face and arms and four small feet, apparently based on a fantasy creature from a story she liked, “though the ones in the book are a lot smaller,” she said. I was in one of my more outre dragon-like bodies, slender with silver scales and four smaller wings more like a butterfly or moth than a bat.

“Have fun at college.”

 

“Wooo! Girls and partying!” I exclaimed as I waved back. Jada and my big self both giggled.

“So... Lauren, would you mind venning me into a plushie? And then you could change me back before you go home?”

 

“Sure,” I said, a little surprised but not entirely. “What kind of plushie? I’m not as good at venning people into living dolls as my friend Sophia, but I’ve gotten some practice at it lately.”

Jada was a little demon, only about eighteen inches tall, with short horns, bat-like wings similar to mine, short reddish-brown fur, and cute little hooves. I picked her up and gave her a piggyback ride with her legs around my left neck.

 

Britt was an angel of the same height, with feathery wings and mostly-human legs with bird-like feet, wearing a white robe. I picked her up, too, and she straddled my right neck.

“There are days I feel more robotic and days I feel more human. People tip more when my body is shaped like a female human, but they also expect me to act in a feminine way. Some days I can do that and some days I cannot.”