Content warningsreferences to self-harm

  [colpse]The Visit, Part 4: Answers2028 April 10MondayStephanie spent the rest of the morning showing us around the modest sites of Almsworth and the Saints campus. They weren’t too exciting, but at least Nora and I had pns to visit London ter in the week.

  While Steph was showing us around, we tried our hardest not to dwell on the conversation we’d had earlier with Rose. It wasn’t easy, though, knowing our friends—could I even call Rose a friend?—were sharing some big secret that seemed to affect multiple people. A secret that suggested Stephanie had been deliberately lying to Nora for years. And we had no idea what the secret could be.

  It also didn’t help that Stephanie thought she was being discrete in reading messages on her phone. It was safe to assume she and Rose were discussing what we’d talked about earlier that morning.

  After lunch at a pce called Café One, Stephanie suggested returning to her dorm for a bit to rest from all our walking around. We followed her in and up a long staircase from the first floor where we entered to a nding on the third floor. Then, we went down a hallway and into a kitchen. Stephanie gestured at a rge table in the center of the kitchen, and Nora and I took a seat.

  “Tea or coffee?” she asked.

  I declined, but Nora asked for coffee, so Stephanie turned away from us to get some. I heard Stephanie giggle and say to herself, “Thanks, Beth,” as she was looking around the drying rack for something to hold the coffee. Odd.

  After giving Nora her coffee in a pin white mug, Stephanie said, “I need to take care of something, so wait here for a moment.”

  She left without waiting for a response, but within a minute, we saw Rose enter in her pce. Rose had changed outfits since we st saw her, but she still looked pretty tired from whatever kept her busy the previous night.

  “Hey, you two,” Rose said. “In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I was messaging Steph earlier, and I asked her to bring you here.”

  “She wasn’t exactly subtle,” Nora said. “But… why didn’t you just ask us to come here more directly?”

  “Because it was too important to risk you not coming… Look, I know you’re still curious about this big secret we’re sharing, and I’m willing to tell you, but you have to understand it affects more than just Steph and Beth. Pretty much everybody you met yesterday, including me, is in on the same big secret, and honestly, I’m not sure you want to be in on it also. It’s pretty bad.”

  “With all that buildup, I’m sure it can’t be any worse than whatever we’re going to end up imagining,” Nora said.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Rose said. “so I’m going to give you a choice. You say the word, and I’ll call Steph back in here to pretend like this conversation never happened. Or, we can keep going and I’ll show you how deep the… I’m paraphrasing from The Matrix, aren’t I?”

  “Is it really that bad, Rose?” Nora asked.

  “Yes.”

  Nora looked over toward me. “Lily?”

  The warnings just made me more concerned and curious. I had to know what was going on here. “Just tell us, Rose.”

  “OK,” Rose said with a tone suggesting she really didn’t want to do so.

  She reached into a drawer under a kettle and pulled out two tablets.

  “Sign these and we’ll begin. Think of them as NDAs.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Think of them as NDAs’?” Nora asked.

  “Right, so this secret we’re sharing is backed by a lot of money and power. And by this point you’re in deep enough that we’d—they’d—be keeping tabs on you regardless. The NDAs are the legal pretense by which you’ll be held accountable after you leave here.”

  “And we have to sign?” Nora asked.

  “No, I suppose you could still walk out the door, but I’m not sure there would be a point anymore. I’m afraid you’re going to be held accountable either way. I’m truly sorry you had no real choice in the matter.”

  I quickly skimmed the document, processing pretty much none of it. Then, I gave Nora a significant look, and we both signed.

  “Alright then,” Rose said. “Fuck, I was hoping we wouldn’t get this far.”

  She looked at Nora and I for a minute like she was thinking of exactly the right way to phrase what she wanted to say. Then, she took a deep breath and began.

  “So, like I said. We all share the same secret, but the details differ from person to person, with Steph’s differing more than most. I’m going to focus on my part in this. Now that you’re in, though, the others are free to share their parts with you but only if and when they want to. Steph will probably be happy to share her part, for what it’s worth.

  “So, Lily, Nora… Beth didn’t actually crack my egg. There was never an egg to crack.”

  “You mean you were closeted when you met her?” Nora asked. “I’m not sure why that’s such a big deal.”

  “No, I mean I was a typical cishet boy. But I was also, as you know, a bigoted self-absorbed piece of shit marred by toxic masculinity. So the women who run Dorley Hall kidnapped me and put me through a reform program. One that prominently featured an involuntary gender transition.”

  Nora and I sat in silence until what we’d just heard finally sank in.

  “Oh my God, that’s horrific!” I yelled. “How are you not a dysphoric mess right now?”

  “I’m just not. Some people, like you, I assume, are very attached to a particur gender, and others, like myself, can adapt. I just don’t get dysphoria in the same way you do.”

  In a concerned tone, Nora said, “I still don’t understand how somebody can handle a whole transition to womanhood without already being a woman, though.”

  “I didn’t either, but then Beth taught me it was possible.”

  “Sorry, how was Beth involved?” Nora asked.

  “She had gone through the program a few years prior, and then she acted as my sponsor, the person who taught me how not to be a shitty boy… and how to be a girl instead.”

  It was enough to just be taught to be a girl?

  Nora continued with her questions. “So what, you got kidnapped, Beth gave you some estrogen, and now you’re a better person?”

  There was a ugh. How?

  “No, there’s more to it than that. Keep in mind the program only takes in toxically masculine boys who are both beyond helping through conventional means and who should be able to handle transition. The first year of the program is spent excising toxic beliefs and building acceptance of impending womanhood. The second is learning all the social and practical skills a college age girl is expected to have. And the third year is spent reacclimating to the outside world… with some light supervision.”

  The second and third years actually sounded kind of nice, but the overall concept still seemed monstrous.

  There was more. “And we try to tailor our approach to what works best for each individual. One boy: we gave him a copy of the Suarez toxic masculinity article, and a week ter he was begging for help to reform. Some others… they unfortunately require a more hands on approach, at least at first.”

  It was chilling how casually my old room-mate was describing everything. Like it was just a normal part of life now.

  “Rose,” Nora asked, “You said ‘we’. Are you involved as more than just a, uh, participant in this?”

  “Yes, Nora. Most of us leave the Hall to live normal lives as women after we finish the program, but I wanted to do more. Beth helped me so much, and now I’m doing the same for Violet.”

  “For or to?” I spit out.

  A sigh. “For, Lily. She had a very rough childhood and was heading down a dark path. So, I became her sponsor, and as I understand it, her enthusiasm for the program is part of why we’re having this conversation.”

  “Oh!” excimed Nora, “So Stephanie really did help Beth. She was her—what was it?—sponsor? Wait. Is it healthy for them to be dating?”

  “That’s your concern?” I asked Nora.

  A giggle. “Ah, no. Steph wasn’t Beth’s sponsor. More like a peer? But not quite? I’m not sure I should say more except that Steph helped Beth in other ways, and again, she’ll probably be happy to tell you about it in more detail now that you’re being read in.”

  I couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

  “I’m sorry,” I said with agitation in my voice, “I just don’t get. We’re really expected to believe that you became a girl just because that’s what your kidnappers decided for you? And you don’t feel any dysphoria over it? I’m not even sure how to think of you right now. What should I be calling you? Should I go back to calling you J—“

  “No! Please don’t use that name for me ever again. Lily, I may not experience dysphoria in the way you expect me to, but you calling me by that name when I look like this, after all I went through to move on from the awful person that he used to be: it would absolutely gut me.”

  The way my former room-mate looked when I almost used that old—dead?—name seemed even more pained than how I’d feel when old friends or extended family slipped up with mine. Was I really speaking to a girl right now? Was she really a Rose now, after all?

  I still felt incredibly uncomfortable about what she had described, but I also needed to offer an apology for nearly deadnaming her. Before I could say anything, though, two other individuals walked into the kitchen. The first was a girl in a very feminine but casual dress. Her face exuded self-confidence. The other person was dressed more androgynously with scks and a simple shirt. They looked more reserved than their friend.

  “You really didn’t need to be here,” my old room-mate—Rose—said.

  “Yes, Rose, but we wanted to be,” the more feminine girl said.

  “And we thought they might benefit from some additional perspectives,” said the other one.

  “Alright, then, and thanks, you two. Nora and Lily, these are my partners, Aoife and Cire.”

  The two of them nodded and curtsied, respectively, as their names were spoken.

  “Nice to finally meet you,” Nora said. “Were you also, um…”

  “Part of the programme?” Cire responded. “Yes. We both started at the same time as Rose.”

  “Then honestly, please, because this all seems like insanity to me. How do you feel about what was done to you?” I asked.

  Aoife went first. “The thing to remember is that thanks to toxic masculinity, nearly everybody that went through the programme was incredibly dangerous before they started, although I was mainly just a danger to myself. I was so burned out by a drive for perfection that I couldn’t see any kind of future on the other side of my own failures. The programme here pulled me out of my spiral. I owe my life to Tabitha and the other sponsors.”

  “And they really had to make you transition to save you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t think so at first, but now I believe that’s true,” Aoife answered. “The thing about toxic masculinity is that society is constantly reinforcing it. Some men manage to avoid the worst of it and live good lives. Others like me and my Sisters start to believe the worst lies about the kind of men we’re supposed to be. And once those lies take hold, it takes drastic measures to escape them. Would I have chosen to do this all on my own? No. But then I doubt I’d be around still to make a choice either way. At the end of the day, I’d rather be an alive enby than a dead boy.”

  Cire gave them a side hug and said, “Nicely put, Aoife.”

  “Thanks… I may have rehearsed this speech in my head a few times before today just in case I ever got to use it. It went quicker than I expected.”

  “And Cire, what is your take?” Nora asked.

  “Have either of you heard of MenRMen04?”

  “Yes!” Nora practically shouted while pointing a finger in emphasis. “He joined a Consensus server Stephanie and I frequent. He said some truly awful things about trans women having mental illnesses before Stephanie saw what was happening and banned him.”

  “Steph was there? Huh,” Cire said to herself. But then to the rest of us, she said, “Anyway, it turns out she was a miserable repressor who was taking out her frustrations and self-loathing on others. But I’m doing much better now.”

  Nora let out a loud snort when she heard Cire’s revetion.

  “The point I wanted to make is that while Dorley was helping me to accept my intrinsic womanhood, I was granted a unique perspective into what Rose and Aoife went through starting as cis boys. Lily, you know better than anyone here just how terrible Rose used to be.”

  Rose interjected, “Hey. That hurts coming from you.”

  “Sorry, Hun. Anyway, the programme was hard on her at first, but once Rose accepted what she needed to improve about herself and exactly what she needed to do to improve, she has been all in on womanhood. And she is thriving. She’s retained all the good parts of who she used to be, and she’s repced the bad parts with a wonderful personality… among other desirable features. I promise she’s just as much a woman as you, Nora, and I am, Lily.”

  “And I may be doing my own thing now,” Aoife said, “but I’m certainly not a boy anymore.”

  Rose turned to face me directly and started speaking in a serious tone.

  “Lily, I understand that you’ve always been a girl. And that’s true whether you knew so your whole life or only figured it out early into our freshman year at Bradford McKinley. Frankly, it’s amazing that you recognized this fundamental aspect of yourself that nobody else could see and then chose to embrace it in spite of what others… others like me had to say about it.

  “I don’t have anything like that; not for gender at least. For better or worse, I was able to change my gender, and based on my past failures and the future possibilities it gave me, I ultimately chose go along with the program and become a girl. Maybe you believe things can’t work that way or that I’m just appropriating the trans experience or something, but I fully believe that I and everyone else are better off for it. I’m happy with this decision. I’m happy like this, even if you don’t think I should be.

  “I’ll be frank… despite all the drama and the NDAs, it’s going to be very difficult to keep tabs on you once you return to the States. So, we’re putting a lot of trust in you not to share what you’ve learned or otherwise cause harm to this organization. Based on what we do here, the people we used to be, even just us having transitioned—most of my Sisters are stealth—you can only imagine the harm that would come from the public finding out about us. And not just to us. Our secrets leaking would cause such a sensation that it would be ruinous to the trans community as a whole.

  “I hope you can accept me as the woman I’ve chosen to be. But even if you can’t, I’m begging you not to do anything that would put my Sisters or other trans people in danger. Please, Lily.”

  The kitchen fell silent as I tried to decide how to respond. It didn’t take long to figure out there was only one way to do so.

  “Rose, do you remember how I got my name?”

  “I’m sorry, Lily, but I don’t even remember you telling me about it.”

  “That’s because I never did tell you about it. Instead, you were there, but you were also really drunk that night. I’m not surprised you don’t remember.

  “It was the same night that started with us compining about self-ID and ended with us losing a bet to Anna and her theyfriend Enor. I had become absolutely convinced that trans women somehow had a better lot in life than cis men and that most self-procimed trans women were actually just pretending to be trans in order to get ahead. So, I decided that somebody needed to prove this was happening.”

  “Hold up,” Rose said. “That story you told me that st evening in our room…”

  “Was completely true,” I said. “Or that’s what I still believed at the time. But before I could put the pn into action, I needed a girl’s name. I didn’t say why, but I asked you to give me some.”

  “Holy shit,” Rose said. “That’s amazing.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile. “You even offered ‘Rose’ as your first usable suggestion. I’m gd I rejected it. It suits you better.”

  Rose held a big goofy grin as I continued my story.

  “It took me months and a discussion with my very patient girlfriend to realize I wasn’t really pretending. But in the meantime, I did it all. Hormones. New clothes. Voice lessons. I even legally changed my name, the whole time believing I was still trying to… I don’t even know what you would call what I was trying to do.

  “I wanted to prove that anybody could just cim to be trans and be accepted as such, sight unseen. And you know what? I was right. Vicky, Nora, Anna, Enor, the whole GSA—with the exception of one TERF—from the moment I told them, they took me at my word that I was a woman and that my name was Lily.

  “Rose, if they hadn’t accepted me, if they had treated me like I was treating myself, I may have never figured myself out. I may have continued growing more and more miserable and more and more distrustful of LGBT people until, I don’t know, maybe I would have done something to end up here as well.

  “If I can’t extend the same grace to you, then I’m no better than I used to be. Rose, you say you’re a woman now, so as far as I’m concerned, you are a woman now.”

  Rose looked like she was about to cry.

  I concluded, “The kidnapping part still makes me uncomfortable, but you all seem happy enough that I’ll try to overlook it. Your secrets are safe with me.”

  “Thank you, Lily,” Rose squeaked out. “Thank you so much. And uh… Nora?”

  “Oh, I’ve been on board since before your partners walked in.”

  “That’s what I figured. Thank you, also.”

  “So, where do we go from here?” I asked.

  “Well,” Rose answered, “Now that you’re read in, I can set you up on our secure Consensus server in case we need to talk about anything confidential and so you can receive notifications. Why don’t I make us all some tea, and we can discuss things further. I can also ask Steph to come back in a bit if you’d like.”

  “That all sounds good,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Rose sent a message through her phone, and then turned around to prepare the tea while Nora and I started a conversation with Aoife and Cire. At some point, I thought I heard a ugh from Rose, but she never said anything about what caused it.

  A few minutes ter, Rose handed me my tea in a white mug with a green handle and interior. I turned it around in my hands until I could clearly see the words RAPID UNPLANNED DEMASCULINIZATION printed on the side.