The Lighter Side

A SCENE AT ST. NONE’S HOSPITAL NEO-NATAL WARD

“God Kiki, that is the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen.”

Kiki: “Roscoe, have you ever seen another baby who has just been born?”

“No, but anything you create is always awesome.”

Kiki beams, thinking of her favorite song: My baby loves me just the way that I am.

“But,” Roscoe interrupts her pleasantry, “the hospital says that we have to assign a sex, or rather a gender, to it.”

“You don’t mean sex, Roscoe, you mean a name like those we talked about — Esmeralda or Romeo.”

“No, Kiki, not a name, a gender or sex.”

Kiki replied: “Roscoe don’t be dumb. If the baby has a penis it is a boy. You cannot simply assign it a female status.”

“Kiki, it may have a penis but what about if it has an internal sense of gender that is female?”

“Well Just ask it.”

“Kiki you know it can’t talk. Here is the form; it has three boxes: M, F, and O.”

“I suppose the O is for other?” Kiki began raising her voice. “Nobody is calling my baby an Other. Make a new box Roscoe. Put UATPT.”

“What does that stand for Kiki?”

“Just leave it. The Millenials will figure it out. They can’t read sentences so they are intuitive about acronyms.”

“Kiki, listen to me. Obama has decreed we must assign a gender within seven days of birth. Well, not Obama himself, he is busy humiliating Iran. I mean his agents.”

Kiki looked at Roscoe with the look that makes the wind stand still. “I don’t give a damn what they say. You remember when I was at Smith that I protested the speaking appearance of that capitalistic finance woman from France. She was scheduled to speak and they sent her away.” Frowning now at Roscoe: “Nobody did anything to me then. And nobody is going to tell me what to do now”

“Kiki, the reason they did not do anything to you is because your father made two trillion dollars insider trading on Wall Street that year and he gave the school $500 million. This is more serious. The United States Attorney General at the direction of the President of the United States demands that we identify a gender.”

“What if I refuse?” She paused. “How much is that going to cost?”

“Kiki, it isn’t a matter of money. Ex-presidents make speeches to foreign governments and businesses at a couple million bucks a crack. Ex-AGs go to Wall Street and bill $1000.00 per hour and take home million dollar salaries. You can’t buy them. They are too expensive even for your dad.”

Kiki, getting angrier. “Look Roscoe, I will determine its sex when I am ready. Remember I am the one who took all of the calls from the Planned Neighborhood . . . .” Roscoe interrupted. “You mean Planned Parenthood, dear.”

“Whatever. They called again and again with that sweet cooing voice telling me that if I killed my baby how much happier I would be. And how it would help solve the climate change thing.”

Roscoe looked perplexed. “How in the hell did the climate thing get in here?”

“Less babies, less carbon dioxide . . . or something. They even told me they would name a wind generator after me. I told them to take a walk. And that is what I will tell the Obama people.”

Roscoe was getting scared. “Kiki, this isn’t just some private group financed by the Federal government but the government itself. The Department of Justice has so many attorneys they cannot count them all. Like that woman who lived in a shoe. And they are mean according to one judge. Unethical liars. They’ll take it away and put it in a gender re-education camp. You don’t know who you are fooling around with.

Kiki gave the wind-stand-still-look again. “Roscoe, I am telling you that I will identify the gender of that baby when I am damn good and ready. Just what in the hell is an internal sense of gender anyway? That is a stupid saying. Remember last year when you said that you had an internal sense of being black and we sent you to see the family psychiatrist, Dr. Kookeburro, who said that you didn’t qualify as being black because your motive — to be admitted into the NBA — was not pure.?”

“Kiki, it wasn’t my motive. Motives don’t matter in your internal sense of identity decision.”

“Well you may be right. He told me in an aside that because you are only 4 foot nine he was afraid that LeBron James may accidentally step on you.”

Roscoe changed the subject. “Well let’s call in a medical expert to help us determine what gender we should assign.

“You mean one of those loopy psychologists like Uncle Kookeburro who will say anything you want him to say?”

“Well then how about a pediatrician, they used to make that assignment as they now call it in microseconds without a second thought. Or maybe one of those new gender-identifiers I read about who peer into the pre-frontal cortex and tell what is the internal sense of the baby through a brightly colored MRI?”

Kiki responded sullenly: “I heard they charge $10,000 per assignment.”

“Kiki, the Federal government is committed to create more jobs to get the economy humming and they selected gender identity as a new high tech field. Of course, it is going to be expensive.”

Kiki placed a pillow over head.

“Kiki, you know we checked before your delivery and every psychologist, gender-identifier, and most pediatricians are members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. They say it is discriminatory to assign a gender to someone else without guidance of a professional. Its unethical to assign a gender to a person before it can decide its own identity.”

“Roscoe, you are naive. The World Professional whatever is a marketing organization for transgender psychologists and transformative surgeons. They are not telling me what I can and cannot do,” she huffed. “So we are to call it It until they are a teenager with angst? No way. Teenagers are enough of a problem without putting another whinery in their hands. Roscoe. Get this. I am not,” she raised her voice again, “going to call it It. Period. End of discussion.”

Roscoe recalled his mom’s advice about women: Hell has no fury like a woman scorned . . . or argued with. “Kiki, Attorney General Lynch has said that identification by genital sex is a bigoted, male concept used by men to subjugate women. She says the only classification that counts is internal sense of gender.

“Roscoe she may be a bigot herself. She says she is a female but that may be an internal sense of gender determination. She may even be hiding an internal sense of being white.”

“Don’t be funny Kiki. She is black and there is no reason to suspect that she has an internal sense of being white.”

“But no one can ever know the internal identity unless the person in question expresses it. And they can choose freely. After Obergefell, it probably is a Constitutional right. It is like that lady senator from Harvard. She has an internal sense of being a Native American — likely one of the few Native Americans worth 8 million bucks.”

“Kiki, we are not getting anywhere.”

Just then It started crying. Well, actually screaming. Roscoe looked scared. “What’s going on?”

Kiki responded calmly. “It did that earlier when the hospital psychologist stopped by. He said that that level of severe emotional distress likely means that it’s going through a gender change. Such changes are extremely traumatic and society needs to recognize that, he said.”

Then Kiki turned cross. “To hell with the experts and the government. Look, if it has a vagina we’ll call it Sue and if its a boy we will still say its a boy named Sue.”

Kiki went on. “I read that the Federal government HHS or NIH or whoever plans to hire 10,000 psychologists who will prepare identity tests and then hire 100,000 social workers who will interview every child every year month until they are 18 years old and report whether the child has been correctly gender identified. Moreover, I heard every child will have to answer a self-identification survey of 318 questions as to their internal sense of gender every year until they are 18.”

“Roscoe, the nation realizes that just because we are parents gives us no right to assign gender identity.”

Roscoe shook his head in agreement. “America needs to get babies’ identities right. It is one of society’s most pressing problems. That is why our President and Attorney General are involved. All I can say is thank Heavens that Washington is here to help.”