Babygirl
a short story
Babygirl
By Ophelia Everfall
Jenna had a daughter. They were living full-time with their birth mother because she’d a mental breakdown and not been able to cope with the fact her transness saw her navigating life all alone, especially beneath the darkened threat of a looming civilizational targeting onto her most specific identifier of personhood.
People would message. Men and women often cared deeply and would express the notion. It helped to know that people were of heartful concern. Words were helpful from people you don’t necessarily expect them from. Those few she’d want from—shared-wound holders—were forever-specters in her life.
She had been broken when first transitioning by what equated mentally to years’ worth of statutory rape. This would be enhanced with some flavor of trauma from the way nobody understood it as what it was. Literally the entirety of society was blind to the notion. Discovery of her asexuality had been the key to decode it. She’d always been destined to own sexuality as a non-qualifier for relationship of any kind in womanhood. To not know that and betray herself so much while being seen sometimes the creep herself was too much to take for her gentle spirit on reconciliation of these discoveries. The ways every person who’d played part refused to speak like a human being was troublesome to her psyche.
Psychology was misunderstood by most. People within the knowledge base would be the first to admit the fluidness of it all. How it was all theory. Yet your average person moved as if diagnoses within the realm of psychology were proof of some hardened fact.
Respecting adult trans women who are also mentally pubescent is not something which could be grasped by civilization. Jenna paid for that dearly. She paid from everyone.
Nobody knew she was stunted inside emotionally. Not until seeing raw consequences come forth at them and being most scared, confused, and sad because of her transness making it so. It was the sadness more than anything. To see her the child she’d become was pitying. She’d try to have fun with it—make people laugh—she was chronically depressed to feel a girl inside with nobody to sit beside on the couch, ever.
Jenna just needed friends and the way she sought plainly and wore authentically her mental struggles—she’d falsely believed passed stigmatization—would have her tarnished for lack of coolness and perceived by people she’d deem near universally pretentious as lame.
Especially because she was in the body of a large male—as so many would still see despite everyone’s best efforts. For them to witness and categorize Jenna superficially in a way that might result in treatment in line with cisgendered women was what she’d longed for. Every once in a while, there’d be a taste of something sweet in that regard, but the return would be a deluge of horrific burdens placed upon the trans woman by others.
Even then, they’d just think her needing help. Jenna did need help. She’d sought it from professionals over and over. She got that help. She’d been helped. Jenna—knew help. There was a pile of snack bags atop her fridge from visitors who she’d talk to gladly most often—when she wasn’t mid panic attack.
Her panic attacks and anxiety were the things which got so bad she chose to relinquish custody of her daughter for their safety. It took a glance of a moment unsafe, left unwitnessed for too long beneath her nose, her mind flitting around in worry and conversation with itself, and she was done. Thinking back to those times leading up to the decision where she had to breathe through panic attacks on the floor and cry it out before her daughter while making sure to speak from a disembodied place to normalize it for their young mind were also present in the choice.
“I’m just going to need to take a few minutes here. I just need to breathe, honey. Momma’s just crying, it’s okay. This is a normal thing that happens.”
“Thank you for sitting here next to me, honey.”
“Can you try not to do that please honey, I cannot fucking handle that.”
Jenna would be the one to call it because those moments were growing too often and the thought of overseeing some injury to another out of pride for self was seen as shameless and horrific to the woman—to a friend unforgivable—to her daughter not an option.
For so long she’d suffered to find a friend. To dig up some way to communicate with any of those from the past. Trying her darndest with the one who’d started it all because there was some stubborn belief they’d just been confused and not the monster everyone else had.
Eventually, that had proven a false hope. She’d just given up. She had lost her daughter and couldn't function as an adult or make friends. Especially with the uphill climb of seeking for frienship as a person who would be some kind of social burden-to-bear for all by her appearance.
Even when she had friends they’d avoid public. It made little sense to Jenna because she was pretty in her way. She was a beautiful woman that nobody could handle because it was unique and left out the make-up. Trans women dressed up a certain way and got facial procedures. To just wear her face and then let her body get twisted-hot, her hair grown beautifully, her outfits being fit, had everyone treat her like an alien all the time.
Nobody wanted to walk with that. Nobody wanted to call them her girl.
People saw her a big boy. There was a notion called ‘femboy’ that people would often categorize her into because she’d not put a fake voice on. She spoke like a woman who’d had her throat get testosterone-puberty-ridden.
Jenna wouldn’t give a single half a damn about placating others for them to perceive her in some way. She’d have full conversations with people misgendering her and just shake it off and be an awesome healer who got a little extra girly in response to intentionally trigger the fool. Yet she was disrespected always, everywhere, unseen herself, with those disrespecting her unable to witness their own latent bigotry against her.
To be alone. To have been raped how she had. To have lost herself to childishness of emotion beyond control. To be in panic and debt and unable to do anything other than go to therapy and scream for help—to not get any was insane. It was the thing which would drive Jenna to her grave.
People didn’t deserve her. She couldn’t go on that way. She’d not the ability to care. All she wanted was friends. Jenna hadn’t been able to find anyone to play a game with her she’d bought six months previous. She couldn’t get anyone to join her book club.
She just wanted to rest. She wanted to be hugged and held and cared for. She wanted it to be someone who treated her as a woman without a second thought. She’d needed to be helped to help herself and nobody would.
Jenna wanted to survive but wouldn’t know how.
