BOYS WILL BE BOYS

There are no sadder stereotypes than those of gender variations. While ‘boys will be boys’ persists as the desirable ‘manly’ stereotype, less ‘manly’ boys have degrading gender stereotypes. That said, the effeminate gay boy has long been the stuff of fantasy, myself included. My stories have explored some of these stereotypes, whether the rough-and-tumble Tyler Kincaid falling in love with a NASCAR driver in 69, or gentle Kyle/Kylie in the Australian Outback, where It Just Takes an ‘i’ to change gender (not available in the Nifty Archive).

Transgendered children are a ‘hot’ topic in more ways than the currently fashionable political one. There’s even a ‘hot’ transgender genre emerging on Nifty, although it’s hardly new in literature. In Ovid’s version of Ancient Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite fused with Salmacis (a nymph), becoming both male and female. A creation of the Gods, Hermaphroditus symbolized the sacred union of male and female.

WHY A FLY ON THE WALL?

What follows is the inside story of a young (natal) boy’s desire to transition to the opposite gender. For the sake of fiction, let's call our protagonist Savannah Martin, the mom, Karen Martin, and the adoring grandfather, Frank Martin.

Savannah did not wake up one morning and decide to be a girl. ‘She’ revealed her true ‘self’ before she knew there was a difference between boys and girls. That said, Savannah, the girl emerged over time, nine years, in fact.

Today’s ‘time’ is the indefinite and continuous progress of events in an apparently irreversible order from past, to present, and into the future. Time, prior to the ‘modern era’, is paradox, illusory, an opportune moment. We can measure time in milliseconds, or account for it by mental distention. Simultaneously, we perceive the present as conscious concurrent experience; while we hold the past in memory, drawing from it to explain what we perceive. Memories are personal, enigmatic, and opportune. They make us who we are!

With so much at stake, and besieged by an inhospitable world, the Martins face a very difficult situation. Their memories are crucial to your understanding, as much as their own. Along with the story, interspersed vignettes provide glimpses of their lives intertwining, brief sketches that capture the spirit of true and enduring love. Such intimate insights are often very private; hence, the perspective of the fly on the wall. Then again, the ‘fly on the wall’ could be something quite different.

Be aware that unlike fickle memories, my vignettes occur obviously and regularly (not randomly) so as not to interrupt the story. However, like memories, some vignettes are sequential in meaning; some are arbitrary. Vignettes differ from the main story by font (aka Times New Roman).