Actual genetic testing for intersex, gnc, and trans people is going to be great because everybody in the workplace is going to shuffle into the break room (”beats workin’” one of the old white guys will say) and we’ll sit down at the plastic lunch tables and management will pass out a little baggie with a tube to spit in and painstakingly go over how to seal it and affix the label. It’s just like drug testing, you did that when we hired you, except you can’t fail! And you get twenty minutes off your workday, right? Great.
I could get lucky at this point. It doesn’t always show up on tests. I wouldn’t say that my body is a fifty-fifty split. But.
Days or weeks later a couple people from management will pull me off the lanes and take me into the nurse’s office. They’ll open the door for me and say “Sorry, buddy, I know this is a hassle” and they’ll say I have to do it again because my sample looked contaminated. (I did like a 23andMe thing once and they kept telling me they thought my sample must have gotten mixed with some else’s – it’s probably just the way these labs work, the checking process for your sample is probably automated.) But I’ll grunt and say “it’s fine” and sit in a chair and spit into another tube while they stare at me. I might have to repeat the process until they figure out I used to be twins, a boy twin and a girl twin, and my genetics reflect that. (”Oh wow I didn’t know that about you,” will the manager say, trying really hard to make encouraging small talk.)
Then I’ll find out that there’s some problem with my paycheck or the ID reader thing won’t let me clock in and I’ll go to the HR desk and spend like ten minutes being bored in line while the people in front of me figure out their parking passes or lost passwords and they say there’s some red tape I have to jump through about my gender, it’s not a big deal, you just have to go get a doctor to sign off on – (awkward pause) – on one or another before I go back to work, it’s a federal regulation thing. I’ll irritably play a lot of phone tag trying to make sure I don’t use my UPT (unpaid time off) hours while I can’t work, and then go to the health center the next town over where I used to get my fillings done. The 21-year-old receptionist will give me kind of a pained look when she calls me to the front and I’ll try to act casual for her sake, or maybe I’ll feel defiant and show her I’m uncomfortable and annoyed just to make her feel bad, because she’s the closest approximate thing to a target. (although I won’t, because I’m too old for that and it’s not her fault). The doctor will give me a tight smile and say “Sorry, I know this is invasive.” Then I’ll go home and bitch about it on Tumblr.
I don’t know exactly what happens next, maybe I’ll lose my job and the state will give me a letter saying that owing to United States regulation they can’t offer Medicaid to (they’ll phrase it in the most neutral possible way, like “those with a gender or sex ambiguity“ – you know, they’re trying to make it sound like they’re still progressive and their hands are tied, all saying that gender and sex are different), and then I’ll bitch about that on Tumblr too, but whatever, I managed bipolar for so long when I was undiagnosed, I don’t need to afford my meds.
That’s about as far as my imagination goes, but even if they decided to straight-up euthanize me it’s going to be boring, and there’ll be a lot of papers to sign and a lot of shuffling around near plastic tables under fluorescent lights, and it’s not going to feel dramatic and it’s not going to feel like something with a clear way to fight. Jackbooted thugs who I can heroically punch or physically escape from will probably not show up at my house in the middle of the night (and if they do I’d really be fucked, but at least I’d get an adrenaline rush out of it).
I dunno, it might come from being a Slav and knowing people who lived under Communism, but I see the future and not only are we all going to lose our rights and die, it’s going to be slow, boring, and really fucking annoying, and because of that it’ll creep up on us.
Of course, the upside of this is that the change we want will creep up on them too. You vote, your friends vote, Republicans lose the majority. You vote (vote, goddamn you) in local elections and get better quality candidates if you don’t like the ones we got. Donation posts go around Tumblr and we can gofundme crack teams of immigration lawyers. (Also, check Charity [Navigator] for charities that work with refugees and immigrants.) (While you’re at it, here are [some] LGBT charities too, including one for intersex rights and those supporting LGBT immigrants and asylum seekers.) The ways that you can help are also not dramatic. When they come you have to notice them.
They are also vulnerable to a death by a thousand cuts. Don’t forget that.
Queer Fiction Writer 