Woodworking

by Emily St. James

As soon as Erica had become incredibly, constantly aware of her own gender, she had also become convinced everybody around her had a full CSI team dedicated solely to figuring out what was up with Erica’s gender.

Erica felt a stabbing loneliness. For a little under two hours, she had been a person, without caveats or qualifications, without having to add up all the hashmarks in her brain to find the answers to questions. She hadn’t had to perform. She had just been Erica Skyberg.

“I know baby trans girls, Erica. You’re going to go home and write in your fucking diary about how you made a friend today.

“Abigail, how did you know you were trans?” One day, I just did. Maybe one day, you’ll just know too. Scary.

Yeah, my hands are a little big, but do you go around measuring the hands of every woman you meet? God, I hope not. Pervert.

Back then, in the 1980s or whenever, they called it “woodworking,” because you disappear into the woodwork.

During the four-hour drive back to Corsica (the shit-ass town I grew up in), my dad was so pleased that he let me listen to Mitski’s “Townie” on endless repeat.

Turns out Erica and Caleb are both embarrassed to be seen with me, and they both want to hang out with me all the time, so long as nobody ever finds out we’ve so much as breathed the same oxygen.

“Maybe you should talk to somebody else about this stuff? My number of failed marriages is very small. And I’ve only been a part of one pregnancy, but I had to claw my way out of that one.”

It just goes to show: If you want to make more people like you, call everybody in your class a bunch of fascist cunts.

“Oh my God, Erica, you get to call yourself a lesbian. You’re going to hang out with your ex’s new lover, all while you pretend you’re not still hung up on her. You’re maybe the most lesbian.”

The handful of times I’d talked with Megan Osborne before today had me convinced that she was trying to turn being the student body vice president into a personality, and her bedroom confirms my suspicions. It’s covered in pictures of normie politicians, like Obama and Hillary.

Megan is sort of popularity-adjacent, which is maybe lonelier than nobody liking you at all, because you’re always right next to what you’re missing.

I should have had more faith in ol’ Megan Osborne. She’s the kind of person who probably googled “things you should never ask a trans person” before deciding to invite me over.

(I’m still talking for some reason. Let me know your best theories.)

“Don’t lash out at me because you’re mad at someone else,” she says. Her voice trembles. “Welcome to womanhood, bitch.”

As she raced out of the room, she texted Abigail, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT! Within a few seconds, Abigail replied, Did you mean to send this to your ex?

PS: Your singular pink nail looks cute. She starts to type something, then stops, but after a couple minutes, she gives that last text a little heart.

“I’m not lying to myself. I’m being selective about which parts of myself I acknowledge.”

The important thing was that he had died as Carl. If he had carried another name in his heart, that name died with him.

I could tell it was a rush job because she mentioned birth control, then immediately shut up when I stared at her. Evidently, she forgot I was trans for fifteen minutes, which is nice. “I can try taking birth control,” I said. “Just to see what happens.”

Deep down, everyone wanted to be a beautiful woman. Didn’t they?

She longed to dissolve into a diaspora of herself, her molecules a part of every woman she had seen on the sidewalk or in the store or on a magazine cover, every woman she had longed to understand on some level she felt frustrated in her inability to articulate. She wanted to tell them how lucky they were. She knew they wouldn’t get it.

“Sorry … ” Erica said to break the silence. Constance’s critical gaze broke just long enough for her to snort. “Did you just apologize?” “Yes,” Erica said. “Sorry.” “Again? God, you are a woman.” She stared at Erica, like she was trying to see through her.

“I named her that before I knew how I felt about you,” he says as he puts on some socks. I don’t know what he means.

“She is.” He nods excitedly. “Super badass. Havock has never met anyone like her, and when he starts to fall for her, he thinks she’s enchanted him. He’d never fall for someone like her otherwise.” “Uh-huh.” Yeah, Caleb. This character clearly isn’t based on me.

Isaiah Rose grins like a shithead kid who got all the cereal dirty when he fished the prize out of the box.

The shirt’s tucked into blue jeans, and his shoes have one of the laces undone. I find myself thinking that’s a strategic choice, like he’s wearing a costume that’s supposed to make us like him, which is something I know a lot about.

I haven’t ever really thought about what I want. I wanted to be a girl, and then I did that, and a whole bunch of life met me on the other side.

“I like the way she treats me like a science fair project she’s scared of fucking up.

She gets this little look when she’s going to say something really mean but funny. Her eyes dart around like she’s not sure who’s listening, and she leans forward and says what she has to say, just to you. You feel like the most important person in the world.

Half a city away, the man who asked you to advise on his campaign masturbates to incredibly boring pornography.

Somewhere in Minneapolis, Danielle (who is still alive) stares blankly at a wall in the eldercare facility where she lives. She has forgotten everything about herself but not that her name is Danielle.

You only behaved rationally in the face of everything you had to face. But to disappear into the woodwork in the name of safety is still to disappear.

“I’m very good at pretending things didn’t happen,” she says quietly.

“You know what I learned tonight? I learned the world is made of walls, but all the doors are being held closed. We need some fucking hammers.”

To say “I’m a woman” is simply to lump yourself in with another four billion or so people. It’s another thing altogether to figure out who you are, and that is where Erica keeps getting tripped up.

To be more oneself, she realizes now, can be seen as a great violence by anyone who thinks they understand how the world works. Or how you work.

Gender is a magic trick, and I’m amazing at performing it.

going to vote for me anyway, but I want everybody here to understand one thing: There are so many people in this room for whom the world doesn’t work beautifully. Somebody else here has had an abortion. Somebody here is trying to figure out a way to put food on the table. Somebody here is down to her last three dollars. And, yes, Isaiah, maybe somebody here is trans and terrified at the way you keep turning them into a punching bag.

“You changed my life, too, you stupid bitch,”

But a person’s life is their own. Few sins are greater than trying to squeeze someone else into the shape you require them to be.

Alas, the state of the world is such that my book will be interpreted as a political one whether I like it or not.

At base level, what is so radically threatening about trans identities to those who would oppress just about anyone is that our very existence argues that no one’s body is an obligation they are duty bound to suffer but, instead, a gift they can reinvent and remake as they see fit. Your body is your own. Your life is your life. Doubt anyone who would tell you—or anybody else—otherwise.