Post by Cho Chang on Apr 28, 2017 13:30:58 GMT -5
[Weekend wreckers take the streets/with abandon in their eyes/But in our bedroom we're bloodshot and beat/And never so alive.]
They had been young and alive-- their first date had been shortly after Cho had survived the annual broom race again, her eyes and heart alive and pumping with adrenaline, the rush of living pounding in her veins. She’d been dizzy from her flight, from the high of dodging dragon tooth and claw and flame. Jae-gyu had been writing papers during the race, six inches from what they felt was a breakthrough in something Cho could never understand. They’d been young and excited, wrapped up in their minds, and alive in their souls, desperate for some form of release.
They’d hooked up on the first date, a tangle of sweaty limbs, wind-burnt skin, undereye shadows, and dark hair, driven by some need, some urge to share the ecstatic vitality pounding through them. It was extremely atypical for the both of them, and never how they’d acted before. Survivor’s Lust, she’d called it, adrenaline turning to hormones, and Jae-gyu had called it Discover’s Joy, the thrill of academic learning turning to a different type of learning.
[And I know what's on your mind/God knows I put it there.]
And the joke had left her lips as she’d learned more about Jae-gyu’s gender on their tenth “date” after a question she’d asked so she could understand more. The joke, though she’d meant it to be funny, was insulting, cissexist, rude. The joke showed that Cho didn’t understand, how ignorant she was, how even in the lazy haze of aftersex, she couldn’t realize how her words would hurt her partner.
[But if I took it back/We'd be nowhere.]
She’d regretted it as soon as she’d seen Jae-gyu’s face, enough to wish that she’d never met them, having rarely felt so small.
But if she took back the whole relationship, then she’d never have met Jae-gyu. She’d stuttered apologies, but the damage had already been done-- Jae-gyu had been disrespected, and Cho had made a mistake she couldn’t forgive herself for.
So they’d stopped seeing each other.
[You'd be nowhere again.]
“So, Kiueh--” The reporter had started out almost strong, having clearly made an effort to learn her given name. But they’d done an awful job butchering it.
“It’s pronounced Qiū, actually.” She’d drawn out her name, careful to make sure that the tone was distinct. “But I go by Cho here in Britain, unless I’m talking to my family or their friends.”
“Cho, then! I’ve heard you had a boyfriend, and you’ve been seen with him around, but what happened? You still with him?”
The Quick-Quotes-Quill had been positioned, and Cho had felt sick, and then brave. Anger rose up in her, burning in her belly and rising to her tongue.
“The person I’ve been seeing is agender, actually-- that means their gender’s non-binary. They’re not a woman or a man, and they go by the pronouns they, them, and theirs. You know what pronouns are, don’t you? Need to make sure when the Prophet’s out that you don’t call a woman he by mistake, leaving out a ‘S’, and by your mistake when my datemate had gone by no name that my datemate was a man-- I’d assume you’re heterosexual and cisgender as well. So, I’ll tell you this: My datemate was explaining more about themself to me-- which they didn’t need to do at all, really-- and I made a rather cissexist excuse for a sentence that ended up being very transphobic. You know what transphobia means, don’t you? So I’d like to publicly acknowledge that what I said was wrong, and I sincerely regret it. If my former datemate’s reading this, I’m extremely sorry for what I said.”
She caught her breath. “And if you use the word ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ to describe them, if you use pronouns that aren’t the pronouns that I told you, I'll hex you. I’d like what I said to be in full there. If this is published in an article, and I see that my datemate was referred to without their actual pronouns, I’ll shrivel up your fingers, ears, and tongue, for the lack of respect that all showed to my datemate.”
So perhaps she’d been a bit rude, but what of it? It had been rude to assume the gender of Jae-gyu.
“Oh,” she added with a sudden flash of inspiration. “I’m pansexual, which for me means that I don’t acknowledge gender, nor have a gender preference in those I date. So never assume the gender of people I’m dating, no matter how they present.”
The interview was printed, with exactly what was said, and Cho sent flowers wrapped with an apology to Jae-gyu.
They had been young and alive-- their first date had been shortly after Cho had survived the annual broom race again, her eyes and heart alive and pumping with adrenaline, the rush of living pounding in her veins. She’d been dizzy from her flight, from the high of dodging dragon tooth and claw and flame. Jae-gyu had been writing papers during the race, six inches from what they felt was a breakthrough in something Cho could never understand. They’d been young and excited, wrapped up in their minds, and alive in their souls, desperate for some form of release.
They’d hooked up on the first date, a tangle of sweaty limbs, wind-burnt skin, undereye shadows, and dark hair, driven by some need, some urge to share the ecstatic vitality pounding through them. It was extremely atypical for the both of them, and never how they’d acted before. Survivor’s Lust, she’d called it, adrenaline turning to hormones, and Jae-gyu had called it Discover’s Joy, the thrill of academic learning turning to a different type of learning.
[And I know what's on your mind/God knows I put it there.]
And the joke had left her lips as she’d learned more about Jae-gyu’s gender on their tenth “date” after a question she’d asked so she could understand more. The joke, though she’d meant it to be funny, was insulting, cissexist, rude. The joke showed that Cho didn’t understand, how ignorant she was, how even in the lazy haze of aftersex, she couldn’t realize how her words would hurt her partner.
[But if I took it back/We'd be nowhere.]
She’d regretted it as soon as she’d seen Jae-gyu’s face, enough to wish that she’d never met them, having rarely felt so small.
But if she took back the whole relationship, then she’d never have met Jae-gyu. She’d stuttered apologies, but the damage had already been done-- Jae-gyu had been disrespected, and Cho had made a mistake she couldn’t forgive herself for.
So they’d stopped seeing each other.
[You'd be nowhere again.]
“So, Kiueh--” The reporter had started out almost strong, having clearly made an effort to learn her given name. But they’d done an awful job butchering it.
“It’s pronounced Qiū, actually.” She’d drawn out her name, careful to make sure that the tone was distinct. “But I go by Cho here in Britain, unless I’m talking to my family or their friends.”
“Cho, then! I’ve heard you had a boyfriend, and you’ve been seen with him around, but what happened? You still with him?”
The Quick-Quotes-Quill had been positioned, and Cho had felt sick, and then brave. Anger rose up in her, burning in her belly and rising to her tongue.
“The person I’ve been seeing is agender, actually-- that means their gender’s non-binary. They’re not a woman or a man, and they go by the pronouns they, them, and theirs. You know what pronouns are, don’t you? Need to make sure when the Prophet’s out that you don’t call a woman he by mistake, leaving out a ‘S’, and by your mistake when my datemate had gone by no name that my datemate was a man-- I’d assume you’re heterosexual and cisgender as well. So, I’ll tell you this: My datemate was explaining more about themself to me-- which they didn’t need to do at all, really-- and I made a rather cissexist excuse for a sentence that ended up being very transphobic. You know what transphobia means, don’t you? So I’d like to publicly acknowledge that what I said was wrong, and I sincerely regret it. If my former datemate’s reading this, I’m extremely sorry for what I said.”
She caught her breath. “And if you use the word ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ to describe them, if you use pronouns that aren’t the pronouns that I told you, I'll hex you. I’d like what I said to be in full there. If this is published in an article, and I see that my datemate was referred to without their actual pronouns, I’ll shrivel up your fingers, ears, and tongue, for the lack of respect that all showed to my datemate.”
So perhaps she’d been a bit rude, but what of it? It had been rude to assume the gender of Jae-gyu.
“Oh,” she added with a sudden flash of inspiration. “I’m pansexual, which for me means that I don’t acknowledge gender, nor have a gender preference in those I date. So never assume the gender of people I’m dating, no matter how they present.”
The interview was printed, with exactly what was said, and Cho sent flowers wrapped with an apology to Jae-gyu.
