Armor

****Trigger warning: conversion therapy, suicidal ideation, transphobia****

“Now, Tanya,” the smiling woman coos. I’m not fooled by the way her lips spread thin to reveal greying teeth. I can feel rather than hear the venom in her voice and the disgust that coats the daggers she glares at me. I repulse her. “We’ve been over this…”

“My name is Thomas,” I mutter, staring directly into those lethal eyes.

She sighs theatrically, closing her notes with a snap. I don’t see why she’s continuing with this doctor/psychiatrist facade. I called her out on not having a PhD nearly a month ago now. She’s just some government puppet with enough hatred for people like me to do this sort of work.

I gulp as she rises and strides across the room to lean over me, a hand on either arm of the chair I’m chained to. “I suppose we will have to go through this yet again,” she hisses, stinking breath washing over my skin, leaving it feeling gritty. “Or can you be a good girl?”

My lip curls without my say so, which is enough of an answer for her. She straightens, smoothing her skirt. Finally pausing in her assault, she turns to pull out the projector. I groan audibly, too angry to care that it might get me in trouble. We both know that even if I “stop trying to be a boy and live as the girl I am,” they’ll still put me through the conversion therapy. This game is to do nothing other than wear me down and try to break me first. 

“Ok, Tanya,” she says with a flair, turning on the projector to reveal a chart of the human brain. “As you should know by now, we have long known the algorithm that the human brain thinks with. That means that all human behavior can be predicted and read with 100% accuracy, thus reducing crime rates and deviations by nearly 100%. 

“There are good and bad thoughts and actions that all humans are capable of,” she continues, switching to a chart of red and blue charts. “Children go to school and take the supplements they do to help eradicate all these bad thoughts early on, but sometimes...” she turns her glare towards me again, “sometimes, Tanya, children aren’t disciplined as harshly as they need to be. Sadly, there are some adults that don’t believe in corporal punishment or forcing young children to take their supplements.”

“You mean suppressants,” I mutter.

Her hand cracks across my face so fast that I’m left wondering how she managed to cross the room in less than a breath. Wrenching my head back by what’s left of my hair, she snarls, “Don’t you dare speak poorly of our government.” 

Her breath pours over me. I want to scream about how all the government does is stop kids' brains from forming correctly in an attempt to keep us all as sheep and doesn’t allow privacy even in bathrooms, but the pressure building in my throat keeps the air from my vocal chords. I have to settle for a glare of my own that wavers despite my rage.

Satisfied with my silence, she continues, “Now, Tanya, as I was saying, when children are not forced to take their supplements from an early age, deviances are allowed to grow within their brains. That is the only reason you feel the way you do.”

“No!” I hate the way my voice cracks and squeaks, but I press on, though I know it’s futile. She’s here to torture me. Nothing can change that. But still I scream, “Transgender people have been a part of life for as long as there have been humans! There are so many records of them in our history books–”

This time her slap leaves stars floating through my vision. “All those people were misguided freaks. If you had actually read your history books, you would know that those cases were all due to those things deviating and not getting the help they needed. The help that we are so kindly giving you!”

Tears begin to well in my eyes. I drop my head back, staring at the ceiling to try and not let them fall. Keeping my eyes open lets the world spin above me, but closing them burns too badly. My breath won’t stay even. Or quiet.

“See?” Her smug voice pierces through the whirlwind of panic. “You are sick. Once we make you well, this won’t happen to you anymore. Don’t you want that?”

Yes. I do. But not like this. Not this way. Why can’t I just be myself? The prickling starts just under my skin, but the chains keep me from tearing into my arms. Guess they’re good for something. But they can’t stop the sounds coming out of my mouth, the ragged cries that I hate, rasping in and out so hard my throat is quickly sore. 

The bitch kneels in front of me. “You’re hurting. Don’t you want me to help you?”

“NOOOO!” I shriek, flying as hard as I can against the chains, finding just enough slack to slam my forehead into hers, the satisfying crack echoing as her head bounces off the floor.

My entire body is still on fire with a manic energy that washes through me, begging for some sort of release that I don’t know of, but I manage a grin as she looks up at me in shock. I lean against the chains, hovering over her. “Thought you would see that coming.”

Her entire face is instantly a deep almost maroon color, all but for the bruise already forming just above the bridge of her nose. With a sniff, she wipes a bit of blood pooling above her lips and growls, “I suppose you’re asking to start the next stage of your treatment?”

I don’t respond. I want to scream at the top of my lungs and laugh as I tell her yes, just get it over with, just kill me already. But the terror of what’s coming next has little sparks of electricity popping all over my skin. They’re not going to kill me. They’re going to break me, like that homeless woman I met at a shelter once, who couldn’t handle being touched and woke screaming throughout the night. They were going to make me the same.

Two large men come into the room to force me onto a stretcher. I don’t bother to fight until they begin to strip off my clothes, and pure panic spreads down to the tips of my fingers and toes. I slap and claw at them, but no use. They laugh at my attempts and wheel me from the room, down to the lowest level where the lights constantly flicker.

No. Nononono! I can’t catch my breath. Please. Please, just let me die and let this be over with. They might as well kill me, why don’t they just kill me?!

Sobs rack their way from the deepest part of my chest as they begin sticking the wires all over my body, despite my attempts to stop them. They wait until I’ve cried myself dry before the same woman steps back out. 

“Now, Tanya,” she says in a maternal voice that brings the taste of bile onto my tongue. “Are you a girl?”

Maybe if I just agree it will be over with sooner. “Yes,” I whisper, resigning myself.

The first shock shoots through me. I can’t even scream from the pain. I flop back onto the table, wide eyed and panting.

“We don’t tolerate lying here, Tanya,” the bitch scolds. “Now, Tanya, can you tell me what you are?”

“I’m a girl.” I try to make my voice as bold and steady as possible. 

She pushes the button for longer this time. It feels as though my muscles are melting, boiling, bubbling up against my skin, trying desperately. Trying as desperately to get out of my body as I wish I could. Just when it feels as though my bones are breaking, sending jagged splinters into my liquid muscles, she lets go.

Air doesn’t want to return to my lungs. I flop my lips like a fish, feeling like I should be too exhausted to do so.

Her voice has a sing-song cast to it this time. “What did I say about lying?”

I can’t. I can’t handle this. It’s just going to get worse. Each time she’s going to hold it for longer, until I’m trapped in an eternity of pain. I can’t. I try to strain against the chains, but the slightest movement has me convinced that I’m dying. I’m still boiling under the skin, just the slightest bit visible. Is that normal?

“Now, Tanya, I’m going to ask you again and remember, no lying. What are you?”

Tears drip to collect on the table as I close my eyes. “I’m a girl,” I say, surprisingly steady.

“Just saying it isn’t enough,” she snarls. “In order for this treatment to work you need to believe.

As if I could convince myself of something that isn’t true. I try to prepare myself for the next hit. Is there any way to really prepare? Would it be better if I stiffened my muscles beforehand, or relaxed? Can I even relax right now?

The other two times she pressed the button almost immediately. I crack an eyelid, wondering what’s taking so long. Is she keeping me in suspense now?

But no, she’s staring at me with her finger pressing so hard that the knuckles are white. What?

One of the men comes back into the room. “It’s reading that the pulses are being sent out. They just seem to be… flowing around her and into the table.”

“How is that possible?” she hisses, her glare taking on a tinge of fear. Ha. Bet she really didn’t see that coming. Even I didn’t, but my brain feels too much like mush to try and figure out what’s going on.

When the man shrugs, she throws the remote into his chest. “We are a government facility and we don’t know what’s going on? Check the algorithm!”

“Ma’am, none of the possibilities of what could happen included this.”

“Fine!” she yells, cracking voice bouncing off my pounding head like a baseball. “Do it the old fashioned way then.” The malicious delight in her voice sends shivers down my spine.

“The… what?”

She whips around to turn her glare on him, and he takes a few steps back. “Sit her up and hit her.”

“Oh… OK.” To his credit, he doesn’t look thrilled to do it. But looking at the thick rings on his thick fingers makes even his uncertain scowl look absolutely terrifying.

I flop like a ragdoll as he loosens the chains. The other guy comes in to hold me upright. He has to hold my hair to keep my chin from hitting my chest. I look into his eyes as he draws his fists back. I hope he can feel my hatred.

The guy behind me lets go of my head as the other’s fist connects with my cheekbone. Surprisingly, it hardly hurts. Maybe I have nerve damage?

But no, he’s now hopping around holding his hand and yelling. What the fuck?

“What is it?” the bitch booms, trying to pull him back up. “What happened?”

It brings me so much pleasure that she’s so out of her element right now.

He holds out his knuckles, showing that they're bruised and bloody, as though he punched a brick wall. Startled, she looks up to me.

“What in the world…” she whispers, taking cautious steps forward. She taps my cheek with one finger, the sound much more solid than it should have been. The tip comes back bloody. “Is that… stone?”

What?

“Oh my… how did you… what… how could you…” She can’t seem to figure out the question she wants to ask. After another minute of bumbling over words, she drops to the ground in a faint.

Another man in a lab coat comes into the room. He steps over her, as though she was nothing more than a piece of gum on the sidewalk to peer at my face. “Remarkable,” he murmurs. “It seems that the specimen was under so much continuous stress that it simply… evolved on the spot.”

There’s nothing in his eyes. My breath won’t come back to my lungs again. This guy radiates horror.

His smile makes my skin crawl. “The first being in nearly one hundred years to break the algorithm. You are going to be very interesting to study.”