The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere, #3)

by Meg Elison

I have faced people who wanted to eat me alive. Surely I can do this.

They got the sweats and the flux and died off where war didn’t do

it. They didn’t learn to be women.”

a horsewoman?”

In this book, a man who has been neutered as a young child for use in sexual slavery.

“Horse medicine?”

Today, this would be called hormone therapy and is used in medical gender reassignment along with counselling. Surgical procedures that follow to alter the body are each individual’s choice. Some choose not to, preferring to just take the hormones. Surgical intervention is a very serious decision and there are safeguards in Australia to ensure that the individual is prepared emotionally, physically and has good mental health strategies beforehand. In my work as a mental health nurse, I nursed a patient who had been diagnosed with severe borderline personality disorder. Although admitted to the hospital as a male, physical health examination revealed a female with severe self harm scars. She had been abused as a very young child, she told us. She had several admissions to our unit over the next few years for severe self harm and depressive symptoms. I nursed her several times, until the entire institution including the acute unit was decommissioned and replaced by community based units and services. I moved interstate and didn’t meet her again for a few years. According to her medical records she continued to require admissions to acute care. This isn’t usual for people with serious mental health disorders and is why there needs to be adequate funding and good community supportive services. I’d returned to my former state and commenced a post with an agency as a team leader and worked in many units around the metropolis. One day, I was working in a forensic psych unit and her name on the patient-list caught my eye! One of my duties involved knowing the status and history of all the patients which required reading all the current case file entries. Unfortunately she had also demonstrated extremely aggressive behaviour in the intervening years and attempted to strangle a social worker. She would have succeeded if a staff member hadn’t found her. She was charged with attempted murder and was sent to a forensic mental health unit. She also attempted to harm other patients and even visitors. She destroyed her property, other patients’ property and vandalised furniture and curtains. She had been diagnosed with severe anti social personality disorder in addition to her other DSM disorder by then. I must admit that I agreed with this. She had successfully had gender reassignment surgery (paid for under our “national health” and then changed her mind and attempted to bring charges against the hospital. She had gone through every stage of the two year programme. Her “decision to sue” came within the week. Although it was unsuccessful and no legal action occurred, she didn’t seem bothered. She told me that had enjoyed making problems for others and laughed when I asked her about her life since we last met. I mention this, not as a criticism of gender reassignment which I believe is a wonderful opportunity for those who truly seek it. I only mention her because she was the only gender reassignment recipient that I ever knew firsthand.

Do we decide what we like? Is it born in us, or is it different if you have seen different things? Do we like what we saw growing up? What our mothers liked? Is there a day that comes and goes when we decide what we like, now and forever?

Gender identity is a very complex issue and must be hard if living in a hostile environment.

I always knew what I wanted. But I taught myself to like things I didn’t want. Am I the only one? Are harems all over full of women who learn to like what they’ve got, because they’ve never had anything else?

1. Gender identity would be confusing in a world where gender reassignment was unknown. Before then, both sexes had to hide their real bodies well if they wanted to crossover into the other gender. This was often a dangerous lifestyle and many were exposed by accident, design or malice. Most of those “unmasked” faced persecution, exile or even death. 2.This analogy could also apply to the illegal sex industries of the world today. Sexual slavery of men, women and children exists and is very lucrative to those people who run the slave trade.

Sheba had never learned to like anything. And the men who had her, what they liked was to take

everything from her and those other girls. Everything. Even their names.

Dehumanising people makes it easier to accept moral dilemmas. The Nazis used propaganda to dehumanise various political and cultural groups. Despite that, most of the soldiers that implemented mass murder and other crimes against humanity needed to drink excessive amounts of alcohol to do their assigned task. Some even deserted their posts risking court martial if caught. Others requested and got transfers. This makes the argument that they’d only followed orders and would have been killed otherwise invalid. The post war Nuremberg Trials make this point although many prison sentences were commuted within a few years. Was that justified? I don’t think it sends much of a message about the consequences of serious war crimes when the consequences are not serious too.

Flora sighed. “It’s complicated. It’s safe to be a woman if you were born to be one. I was safer in Jeff City, where horsewomen were normal.

See my other notes about persecution.

It’s not safe where it’s not understood, or part of everyday life. People sometimes feel tricked . . . or think you’re trying to upset the order of life.”

Some people’s attitude towards trans gender identity.

She thought of Eddy, when he had

See next note

first felt her body in that strange, deep, salty cave. The terrible betrayal in his voice. Tears pricked her eyes as she tried to forget how cruel he had been.

Fear of the unknown is a common thread in history

Still, I think we’ve got it right in Shy. Nobody checks what’s under your skirt unless they’re about to lick it. Nobody thinks of it as her business. We’re all women, and so we’re all free. What’s better than that?”

A colony of trans women and female children plus any boy children who choose to behave like women. All MEN are killed and hung on the gate afterwards to be a object lesson and serve as a warning to any MAN who comes near their compound. “Frags are a rumour” says Can. “They can impregnate (sic) and we could do away with them (i.e. men) altogether”

“A rumor. Women who can impregnate themselves. Who don’t need a man. Can you imagine that? We could do away with them altogether, if that were true. You hear stories that there’s frags up in Niagra, or down in the jungles. It’s just stories for kids.” “Just women?” Flora asked.

“You know any men who get pregnant?”

That can’t be real. I never read it in any book. I never heard of one in Jeff City, or Florda, or Niyok. But I’ve seen so many things I never knew existed. What would it mean if it were real? Would they be as revered as Mothers, or endangered because of the threat they represent? She thought about Alma smugly pregnant forever and ever, needing no man to seed her. All those towns with carefully regimented rules about breeding, done. Slavers out of business. She imagined Kelda, holding a baby that was hers and only hers, gotten on her own terms. She imagined herself, weighted down in the center and impatient for her own child to be born. The feeling that whipped through her body was a mixture of terror and longing and confusion. She had never let herself want that before, because it hadn’t been possible. What is possibility? The world might be new again tomorrow. When they stopped for the night, they were cold and lit a fire. Can asked quietly and gently if she could hold Flora as the slept, just for warmth and togetherness, nothing more. Flora said yes, and that’s all that it was. Can curled behind her and Flora pulled Can’s big, rough hands to her belly and rested them there. And it was good. CHAPTER 17

See previous note about frags as well This ends the chapter about the city of Shay