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it’s the kid from their lecture last year, what’s her name?

Morgan recognizes her from their first ever talk on being trans delivered at an International Women’s Day event at a university in Norfolk last year

she’d been unmissable sitting in the front row of the lecture theatre with a crazy-ass afro and stunning face, clad in a tee-shirt with a blonde Barbie image on it, the words IRONY scrawled in black underneath

very witty, kid, Morgan thought, you’re my kinda person

Morgan only agreed to do that first university talk because it supplemented their paltry salary serving in Drunken Nostalgia down the road from the cottage, the hangout for the local drop-outs who don’t mind their glasses stained with lipstick, crockery chipped, tables left unwiped and toilets turning into rivers of urine through which they not so much walk as wade

Aaron, the owner, likes Morgan because they’re a mardy cow and as a non-binary bald person with tattoos is cooler and edgier than most

all meant as a compliment, and taken as such

Aaron says he’ll says lose his core clientele if his staff look normal and are nice to people, or if he smartens the place up, his happiest times were in the Student Union bar in Manchester just before closing time on a Saturday night

been trying to re-create the same vibe ever since

being trans is personal, Morgan began, trying to sound confident in the windowless lecture theatre, their first time actually inside a university let alone delivering a talk, and I interpret trans to include non-binaries like me, trans men, trans women and cross-dressers, others might interpret it differently

talk about scary, standing rooted in the spotlight, confronted by rows of unsmiling students, all of them more educated than the person they’ve come to hear

Yazz, that’s her name, was different, grinning with pre-approval

it felt like the rest were staring down at a circus freak

as if they weren’t alien youngsters from the world of normal by the look of what was obviously the fashion there for girlie dresses

although Morgan suspected a few might progress to khakis, combat boots and tattoos to rival theirs by the time they graduated

I can only represent myself, Morgan said, warming up by forewarning the audience against their doubtless assumptions that all trans people are the same, I’m not a spokesperson for everyone or the leader of a transgender movement, merely an explainer of my own unique journey into being non-binary, more specifically, I consider myself to be in the gender-free category

Morgan made eye contact with the fresh-faced youngsters who made them feel, at twenty-seven, incredibly worldly-wise

gender-free means I identify as neither male nor female, I also identify as pansexual, which means I’m attracted to individuals on the male-female-trans spectrum, although my long-term partner is a trans-female and I’m not trading her in any time soon, not that it’s any of your business who I sleep with, if you really must know, I’m spoilt for choice, all bases are covered, yeh, I’ve got it made, peeps!

laughter erupted around the room, whew, ice broken, Morgan had managed to entertain a room full of people – a first

Sandy the lecturer, sitting in the front row, long hair dyed blue, wearing a medieval-style dress, who’d come across Morgan on Twitter, beamed appreciatively that her untested guest speaker was delivering on the goods to her charges

Morgan talked for nearly an hour about their experiences of growing up

their rejection of feminine ideals (while simultaneously being ignorant about feminism), their nervous breakdown (the lost months at the Quayside), leaving home (for a hostel), finding a partner who was right for them, not mentioning Bibi by name (keep me out of it, love, I’m old-fashioned, I only want a private relationship with you, I don’t want to be part of your public brand)

Morgan discovered it was actually enjoyable talking to the students, who were quickly and obviously rapt, especially when it came to their decision to get a pair of unwanted breasts surgically removed

Morgan hadn’t planned this, it just seemed fair and honest to do so, knowing they’d be curious

they told them it was a relief to have their breasts departed forever, and as they’d been bound with a compression shirt for so long, nobody much noticed, their lover was fine with it, said they’d fallen in love with Morgan, not their body parts

Morgan said their body felt lighter after the soreness had subsided, the pleasure they get from being able to sleep comfortably face down

to never again see them bobbing up in the bath like two unsinkable buoys

they were going to get tropical bird tattoos inscribed on that part of their body in time, turn their chest into a spectacular work of art

when they’d finished, hands shot up for questions, Morgan was praised for being so brave, fascinating, educational, entertaining

Morgan felt that all the years of exploring gender in books and in discussion with Bibi had paid off, and has done a few more gigs since

so this Yazz came rushing up at the end of the class to exclaim that the lecture (lecture?) was mind-blowing, and she was thinking of becoming non-binary as well, how woke was that? she said excitedly, like she was going to embark on a trendy new haircut

Morgan let the kid down gently

she needed to know that being trans wasn’t about playacting an identity on a whim, it’s about becoming your true self in spite of society’s pressures to be otherwise, most people on the trans spectrum felt different from childhood, they said, trying not to sound too harsh as the audience filed slowly out of the room, a few students hovered around to listen in, all friends of this Yazz it transpired, including a Somali-looking girl wearing a blinged-up hijab, a rosy-cheeked milkmaid who looked about twelve, and a Kardashian-Arab type with a designer handbag, cleavage, heels, and black hair so straight and glossy it looked like a wig made of plastic (weren’t students supposed to be scruffy and smelly?)

it’s something inside you, Morgan said to her, not a trend, although others might adopt a trans position as a political statement, which is okay when it comes from a place of integrity, of solidarity, when it’s a genuine rejection of society’s gender impositions

not because it’s hip or woke

it’s why women became political lesbians years ago, choosing to have sexual relationships with women because they’d had enough of sexist men

not because they no longer desired them

Morgan had come across this in the online archive of a long defunct, second-wave feminist magazine called Spare Rib

if they’d been too harsh on Yazz, it didn’t show, she was nonplussed, insisted on dragging Morgan off to a campus café with her entourage

where they unashamedly pumped their visitor full of questions and cappuccinos and were so irreverent about transgender issues, Morgan loosened up

which didn’t happen very often (according to Bibi)

Waris, who was Somali, joked it was easy in some Muslim societies for a man to pass as female because you just went out in purdah and nobody was any the wiser

Courtney, the milkmaid, said she’d like to transition to male because her father would have to leave the farm, if the bank didn’t claim it, to her instead of her younger brother, it was the only reason she knew what the word primogeniture meant

Nenet, the Kardashian, said she couldn’t become a man because she liked wearing high heels too much, barely finishing her sentence before the others pounced on her for getting it all wrong

as if they were suddenly the experts

and here was Yazz popping up again, at the National, rescuing Morgan from feeling isolated