"That's a fair question, Pax. But I'll put it this way-- we may not personally care about gender, but we still have to interact with a society that cares about it. We're going to be frustrated and confused at times and that's legitimate. But we can help each other through it. And we can learn empathy for those who are different from us. Without that empathy, without that tolerance for difference... we're nothing."

Ray raises their hand.

"Ray?"

"Yeah, I guess I just... feel weird about what you said. Sorry. It's just like... I don't think people in my home town should just be left alone because of tolerance or empathy or whatever. I grew up forced to believe some crazy things and you know what's the worst, I thought I was the crazy one. Sometimes I still feel ashamed because I'll never have a husband."

"Right, we have to draw the line in the sand somewhere with what we tolerate! There are some people whose lifestyles are demonstrably harmful to themselves and others. And of course we can't stand by and let future Rays be taught there's anything wrong with them. What do you think should be done about these regressive ways of seeing gender?"

"Uh... I don't know... I don't think anything bad should happen to them, I just don't want them to hurt anybody anymore."

"There a lot of opportunities to learn alternatives to these harmful old ways. Full disclosure: I actually was part of a program that went to a rural area and was helping people examine their beliefs around gender and it was amazing how many of them hadn't even thought about it before. I'm ashamed to say that before, I believed that these people were just making a choice to be hateful and honestly oppressive, and I had some pretty harsh views about them. Now I'm passionate that education can play a difference."

"I don't know, I think a lot of them heard and they're just... stubborn. They haven't learned anything from the war. Even though it's their fault."

"I see your point, but let's keep in mind that this would be the grandchildren of the people who fought in the war. They're not directly responsible for what happened then."

"A lot of them think it was good though. They think they can get away with anything out there. I guess I keep hearing like... you need to forgive and move on, we're one big society now, but why should I forgive and move on when those people are so stuck in the past?"

Pax is not even fully sure how they got from gender to the war. Maybe this means shrimp is in bounds as a conversational topic? Oh, who are they kidding. 

"Well, Pax, I guess that's a good illustration of how issues around gender are relevant to everyone, even the apathetic among us," says River. 

"I was recently reassigned to Agender so I'm still kind of lost. Like, what to do about it. I guess medical stuff is out since I'm not... the other one, but I'm not sure what that leaves. It feels kind of semantic."

"Well, you've likely been Agender all your life, so I doubt you have a point of comparison. Fish don't know about water, after all. Maybe you should worry less about labels and more about living your life?"

"Uh, yeah. That would be nice."

Pax is quiet the rest of the meeting, but takes an occasional note in case they're asked later. By the time the meeting ends, it's very dark. 

As the week passes, messages trickle in from Pax's extended social circle, mostly people they haven't spoken to in a while. Everyone wishes them a happy reassignment. It turns out they make a lot of emoji themed around agender-2. Pax tends to ignore the little menu where you can gender emoji, so they wouldn't know. 

Pax's mother cold calls them.

"I'm sorry," she says. "When you got the test I had my doubts. But you already had a lot on your plate. I didn't want to push for you to be retested." Her voice is breaking. "What I don't understand how this happened. The tests are so accurate. This has to be one in ten thousand."

"Have you talked to your therapist about this?" asks Pax.

"That's a great idea," she says. 

Pax keeps Avalon in the loop about everything, of course. 

On Thursday Pax makes the trek to the Gender Diversity Center again. 

There are colored pencils and magazines to make into collages and glitter. 

"We're going to represent what being agender-2 means to us," says River. "No wrong answers. Feel free to get creative with it."

Leslie is wearing a pale purple hoodie today. They're drawing a bird covered in flames the colors of the agender-2 flag. They are a better artist than Pax.

There's a person with their light brown hair in a braid who Pax saw last time but who doesn't really talk, who is hunched over a sketchbook.

Pax takes a couple magazines and scissors to their spot.

Ten minutes later, Ray comes in and sits down by themself, silently. 

"Hi, Ray!" says River. "We're doing something a bit different today. Feel free to take some art supplies."

Ray nods but doesn't get up.

"You don't have to be a quote unquote good artist to do this project," adds River. "It's more about self-expression."

Ray says something like "Mhmm".

"Would you like an alternate activity, Ray?" asks River. 

"It's not that," says Ray. "It's just.... I don't even know. I'm sorry."

"You can share as much as you want."

"I should be doing the art thing."

"It's okay if you're not in the right headspace for it."

"I'm not in the right headspace for anything. Sorry. I know that sounds disturbing, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm just really mad about everything that happened, but I am coping well with it. I told you about my family, right?"

"Yes, you've shared a little about them."

"Yeah, uh, I'm just pissed because I'm going to be in therapy until I'm like forty-five because of them. And I look around at everybody here and it's like they speak... an alternate language, and I need years to catch up. I'm never going to get to just be normal."

"That sounds like a lot to deal with. But I would keep in mind there's nothing wrong with needing that extra support and time to process what you went through. I'm of the opinion that everyone needs therapy, some of us are just more aware of that need. But I know it wasn't normalized in... in your culture growing up."

"Um, no. I'd say it was the opposite."

"So maybe this is coming from that internalized stigma?"

"I guess. See, just this time last year I wouldn't have known that term. I acknowledge I have a lot to learn. But my therapist says I'm actually like going to need this indefinitely. And if I don't get it I don't know that I can really fit in here. But like, I'll take it, I looked at my scores and I know I need help."

"It sounds like you're getting the support you need to adjust to the culture shock of moving here."

"But it just bothers me because I feel like I'm the one being punished."

"In what way are you being punished?"

"Like, I don't know, going to therapy two times a week and the meditation class and having to have my case reviewed. And meanwhile for the people who did this to me, zero. I'm suffering for their poor choices."

"I don't think anyone here wants to punish you, Ray. And we don't want to punish your family, either. Retributive justice isn't something that our society condones." 

"I know, but like... I hate my family. Every time I go out I just remember, hey, your family stole all these happy years from you. You could have been doing all these cool things the whole time. And I don't get how I'm supposed to just move on from that suddenly."

"That wouldn't be fair to expect of you. But there are healthy ways to process these feelings, right? Ultimately, we can't control what happened, but we can control what we do now. We can't go around consumed with our trauma. There's the risk of spreading secondary trauma to others and the risk of acting in ways that don't align with our values."

"I'm not trying to do that? I haven't said anything wrong, right?" 

"No, no, your feelings are legitimate. But as difficult as this learning process can be, there are reasons that it should happen in specific containers like this meeting. Otherwise, feelings can spill out with unintended consequences. And I'm sure you saw a lot of examples growing up."

"Yeah, I did. But I don't know, it feels different. Maybe I'm just blaming others because I'm not used to taking responsibility. Or like, the high standards we have here."

"We do have high standards but we also have a lot of support so everyone gets a chance to grow."

Ray seems convinced that if they just have feelings and problems loud enough they can get out of therapy. Not how that works. But maybe nobody has told Ray that explicitly? River was going really hard on how therapy is normal instead of actually being helpful. 

At the end of the meeting, Pax hands in their collage and mumbles something about being distracted and feeling "creative block". River just nods and says that we can't always be on. 

Pax is usually better at minding their own business, but they find Ray after the meeting. "Apply for college," Pax says.

"What?" says Ray. 

"If you go to college they get less intense about therapy. Once every month instead of two times a week."

"Oh," says Ray. "Is that really a thing? That's cool. I mean, I probably do need therapy though with my scores."

"Okay," says Pax. Hopefully the interaction is over and they can go to the bus now? They wait like 5 seconds to confirm this, say goodbye, and vamoose before Ray has time to respond. 

Generally Avalon wants to hear about unstructured interactions so they can discuss how Pax is doing with those. Usually they can find at least one story about the person who swiped their card at the cafeteria or a recommendation a bookstore employee gave them. And there's a lot here that could be dissected. But they're not going to tell Avalon.

 Ray just seems... pretty angry and who knows what a person like that is going to do. There was this kid Pax knew in high school who was always saying strange stuff in history class. He would wear red white and blue, just skirting the line of what people would notice.

 But one day he stood up in the cafeteria at lunch one day and started spouting off about how we should get rid of this nonsense and go back to just men and women like in the good old days. Within earshot of the table where the queer and agender kids sat, of course. A teacher told him to knock it off and the kid just said that General Armstrong wouldn't bend the knee to the woke menace. The next history class the kid wasn't there and the teacher taught them about the war again, with an emphasis on war crimes committed under Armstrong's supervision. They showed footage. The teacher apologized because she said she knew it was upsetting and said support was available if they needed to process it. It was necessary that the students understood what really happened.

 River isn't wrong that angry people like that are likely to cause big problems for people around them. Maybe it's actually irresponsible to tell Ray how to get out of therapy. But in college people do still check in on you and stuff so it's not like Pax is just letting Ray run amuck. And Ray doesn't seem like the same genre of person as that guy. 

Ray just wants to be left alone.

No schools have gotten back to Pax. Pax meets with the counselor who tells them their application looks strong and they should sit tight for a minute. 

At the bookclub, they're reading a book from the twentieth century critiquing the system that existed back then for dealing with people who caused each other harm. The system was bad for multiple reasons. One, there was a focus on punishing people over rehabilitation. Two, they had high recidivism rates. Three, minorities were overrepresented in the system. The root causes of hurting other people and disrespecting their property are poverty and discrimination, so this can be true even if there is no bias in deciding who should be punished and how much. Four, conditions in so-called prisons were poor; people received bad medical care and there was a lot of violence. 

The book club leader launches a discussion of how society deals with these problems today. Does anyone have an example?

"We try to meet people's material needs," someone says. The book club leader writes MEET MATERIAL NEEDS on the board.

"We don't make places people go to get help pointlessly horrible," says someone else. The book club leader asks them why that may be. "Well, people get better in a nice place like a retreat, not a scary prison," they say. The book club leader writes FOCUS ON COMFORT/IMPROVED CONDITIONS on the board. 

It's been a few months since the club selected a book Pax voted for. Generally, Pax is not very interested in talking about the past unless it's a really different and distant society. It's hard to explain, but people tend to get kind of intense when they talk about the way things were before the war, which has never really made sense to Pax. It's not happening anymore. So there's no need to feel bad. But they wouldn't say that out loud for all the book club to hear. They've tried both expressing their opinions and doodling, and doodling turns out to be the lesser evil sometimes. At least, they've never been talked to about doodling.

They doodle a design for a dream tank. Recently they've become very intrigued by the idea of having a semi-terrarium with frogs on a higher level. They write notes like MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS TAKEN SERIOUSLY and REHABILITATION FOCUS and CRIME IS A MISNOMER? among sketches of river plants. 

After Pax gets home from the bookclub they check their messages. No school has responded, but there isn't anything else grabbing their attention so they go look at other people's tank designs.

On Thursday, River announces they're watching a documentary about the Agender experience.

"This should be required viewing at every high school," says Leslie. "Seriously."

Ray comes in late again, while someone on screen is talking about the moment they got their test results and everything suddenly made sense. River doesn't comment on Ray's tardiness. 

After the film River tells everyone to partner up for a discussion!

Ray moves and sits next to Pax.

The clock informs Pax there are fifteen minutes left in group, and Ray missed part of the movie so who knows how much Ray has to say about it.

Maybe Ray will want to Pax to just recap the part they missed? 

"So what did you think of the movie?"

"I don't know. I don't know that much about cinematography." 

"No I mean like, the stories in it. Did you relate to anyone?"

"Um, not really."

"They did focus more on other Agender subtypes I guess. I mean, for me, I don't really relate but that's because I had a different experience growing up and stuff."

"They were in the city. And one of them was a ballerina."

"Yep. I'm basically an alien out here with like, four arms. Out here people just can't get being told you have to be someone you're not."

Pax was hoping to unlock something more to say in case River asks what their group talked about. So, they probably should keep engaging with Ray and Ray's opinions. Just give them like fifteen seconds.

"By the way, you were nice last week."

"I was nice?"