Francesca Young and Tracy Lane

The Day the Boys Danced

---

In the golden haze of a small-town spring, two thirteen-year-old boys step into their sisters’ shoes — quite literally — and find themselves at the heart of a sold-out dance show, dressed in feathers, petticoats, and the bright, bewildering light of the stage.

Hi, my name is Amber Ambrose. If you read “Nordic Goddess Frigga” you would know that I was the son of Gene, a white supremacist cult leader. You would also know that at the age of 71, Frigga heard my statement that, if I were young again, I would go through transition to be a woman. She made me a beautiful 21-year-old blonde with blue eyes. But there was a twist. She placed me in the body of a black ops paramilitary assassin. It was everything that I could do to keep from killing people. Frigga was not happy with me when I settled into a comfortable life as a martial arts instructor.

I had strange dreams and kept waking up. I was Francis running away from a beautiful blue dress. I ran away and screamed for help. No one helped. The dress caught up with me and molded itself around my body. I saw my reflection. I was a beautiful woman. Everyone smiled at me and told me that I was wearing a lovely dress. What did that strange dream mean?

Tessa Greenhart had entered the world biologically male, an insignificant Y-chromosome carelessly tacked onto the end of her DNA. But recent events had proven that biology did not equal destiny; at least not for her. Tessa's body had been a template, a blank page on which sex and gender could be written...

Jan was a short, skinny, blond hair blue eye boy that needed a boost. Things were OK, just

boring, so boring. His life with his mother since his father had been deported back to Germany

was much more calm. His Mother Alice Brown worked as a Legal Assistant with a boring group of
five attorneys. With her husband around her last name was Braun but since the forces separation,
she had Americanized it.

HOPELESS HIGH ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE SCHOOL YEAR

Hopeless High did not live up to my expectations. At first sight it was far, far worse. And to make things even worse “Hopeless High School” really was it’s name. The pride of Hopeless, MT. pop. 6,421, including me now. Hopeless had decided to keep the name because it drew tourists. Perhaps as many as 2 000 every year. Doesn’t sound much but it was the difference between life and deaths – for the motel and the one decent restaurant in town, sorry, city.

“My name is Leslie. I’m a geneticist, and a good one. I had secretly worked for years on developing a virus that would swap every y chromosome in a male body with an x chromosome. Everyone in the genetics field had said that it was impossible, but that impossibility was what drove me to try and succeed. I had successfully made the gender swap with male rats. Then with several male chimpanzees, since they share 98.7% of their genetic material with humans. The transformations were complete, in that the males became fully female. The question was of whom to experiment with among humans.

Sometimes, your best friend has to tell you...

Cold as Ice
by Erin Halfelven

Stephanie Part 4 Discoveries

Even though two people had managed to pass through the first filter and listen to the podcast, there were no phone calls, then one evening there was a ring on Stephanie’s phone.

Stephanie pressed to receive the call and put it on speaker phone for Graham to listen.

A broad Scotts accent said. “Am I through to the Help Line?”

“If it is the Help Line you read after the Podcast, then, Yes.”

“I am told my name is Kirsty, although until two days ago it was Hamish. I am sitting with Kirsty’s Mum, Lucy.”

“Where are you?”

I live on the outskirts of the city of Shanghai. My name was Jun, meaning “talented” or “handsome”. I had just turned eighteen and graduated from high school a couple weeks later. I was lying in bed one night, tossing and turning, because I was not at peace inside. Inside I was a girl, but I had been born a male. How was I ever going to be at peace? The Chinese government had banned the online sale of hormone replacement therapy drugs, and there were so many barriers in the healthcare system. I was at a loss as to how I could possibly transition.

Stephanie (Part 2) - The Wedding

Six weeks came and went. With Stephanie’s muscle memory and Graham’s mental memory, the couple learned not just the Waltz and Quickstep, but also a passable Jive during the lessons in the local primary school.

The teacher was amazed that they progressed so quickly.

“You seem to know what each one of you is about to do before you do it. Your mutual empathy is amazing.” she said once.

“Stephanie, it is time to get up. You have 30 minutes to get to the bus!”