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The Language of Flowers

Summary:

Michael was raised in a government facility, supported by government officials, and got a government job. He has never been given particular cause for worry that his identity would affect his prospects or his place in the world. The New Society decriminalised homosexuality, made it easy for trans kids to transition, and two of the female members of the World Council are literally married to one another. It has never occurred to him that a group like the Queer Liberation Collective should exist, let alone that he should be part of it.

Notes:

Disclaimer that I like Michael and this is not a dig at him. Well it is, but only affectionately. Also, disclaimer that I am trans writing about trans experiences, and a CW for reclaimed slurs.

Work Text:

When Michael was eighteen, there had been a blast of “work experience opportunities” across the country (not country. Former-country now). It was part of a government programme, he thought, although he couldn’t remember especially well. It had been so chaotic back then. As well as achingly dull. Not thrilled by his work at the textile distribution centre, he had taken a few of the opportunities. The newspaper job had been decidedly not for him; there were far too many phone interviews and far too many people calling him “miss.” But one of the more interesting things he’d got to do was sit in on the week’s public court proceedings.

It was a lot of speeding tickets, and it was a few years before the Family Court, that settled matters of improper family contact, was established, so there was nothing quite as exciting as over-protective parents and hidden children, which Michael would read about in the newspapers later. One case did stick in his memory, though, and it was a dispute between the city and a transgender woman named Petra. She was charged with “breaching the peace” - a vague and versatile term which would be overhauled less than a decade later.

The session Michael heard was one hearing of many, a case which eventually became a re-examination of the laws which had so recently come into effect in the New Society. Petra had assaulted a man who had been delivering a speech to a hate group. There were certain people who did not take kindly to the kind of equity that was becoming policy, that argued the prevalence of “perversion” and “sodomy” was proof that the new world was run by depraved lunatics. The group was protected, by law, by their right to protest. Petra’s lawyer argued that so was she. If Petra had “breached the peace” then this group had done it first.

It was the first time Michael had ever witnessed his rights being debated. Everyone at school had the opportunity to change their name once they graduated, and he had legally changed his gender too - all of his friends had known he was a boy for a while, but he’d gone through numerous names before arriving at Michael. His surname, though assigned by the Centre and no clue as to his biological heritage, he’d discovered had a loosely German (former-German) origin, so that was where he began his search for a new one. He had been Leo, Hugo, Theo, Joseph, and even Wolfgang before it came to the moment of writing his new name down on a piece of paper, at which point he became stuck between Michael and Engel. In the end, he had chosen Michael because it sounded more professional. He had met no resistance to his transition, and although he had been vaguely aware of the hate that people like him got in the past, he hadn’t been prepared to hear about it in the modern day.

Michael sat on the edge of his seat as the lawyers made their cases - the prosecutor representing the city was arguing that individual violence was an unacceptable answer to the threat of institutional violence, and Michael was pulled taut between the two arguments. Obviously he did not want his or Petra’s right to protect themselves stripped away. But perhaps there had been another way to defuse the rally? Wasn’t that what the police were for? Violence was wrong. Violence was always wrong, that was what he had been taught at school.

The judge ruled that clocking the hate group’s leader over the head was self-defence. Self-defence was not violence. It was the prevention of violence. Michael watched Petra hold her head high as court was dismissed, donning her hat. There were two vibrant violets pinned into the band.

He left the courthouse with a conviction that he did not want to be a journalist and he did not want to be a lawyer. But the case kept eating at him, and he took himself to the library to read more about policy-making and structures of power, and without quite meaning to, he planted the seed that would grant him a path out of the textile distribution industry. It took him first into banking, and then into government, and along the way he met a florist with a radiant smile and a busted bike. On his first date with Vivienne, as a sort of abstract thank-you to Petra, he stuck a violet in the buttonhole of his suit - it was much too formal an outfit for a first date, and Vivi would tease him about it for years afterwards.

Half a decade later, Michael was Head of the Midwest Region in the North American government, and he was running late. Kevin had failed to pick up the flowers he’d ordered for Vivi at lunch time, so he was having to do it himself, rushing to get to the flower shop before it closed. Vivi didn’t work as a florist anymore, not since South Sioux City, and that had been two moves ago. She was getting started on a flower garden in the new house, but it was going to take a while to start blooming. He’d found a nice vase in an antique shop on the high street. He wanted to keep it full of fresh flowers as often as he could.

But he was waylaid even further by some kind of gathering happening in the square. It was crammed with people, mostly commuters like himself trying to get home as far as he could tell, but there was some sort of ruckus happening further in. Trying to peer between peoples’ heads, he caught a glimpse of a cardboard sign. He couldn’t see enough of it for long enough to read the words that had been painted on.

A chant rose from the protesters, and it took a couple of passes for Michael to parse the words.

“ABOLISH NATIONALISM, NOT COMMUNITY!”

They were protesting the Removal of Borders Act. There were a series of Acts within the movement planned, chipping away at what remained of “nations” after the Reckoning - first borders, then flags, anthems. The Mutual Compromise had effectively brought the New Society into existence over a decade ago, but the Removal of Borders Act was shaping the law to fit their reality. It was a long time coming, if not an easy time coming. Partly because of groups like this.

“ABOLISH NATIONALISM, NOT COMMUNITY!”

It was a nonsensical chant. The Society wasn’t abolishing community, it was saving it - restructuring neighbourhoods to focus on people’s needs, instead of a capitalistic suburban nightmare; funding the arts, restoring historic monuments. Michael got more irritated with every iteration of the chant, and began more forcefully to shove his way through the crowd to try and get to the flower shop.

“Here,” said someone who was in his way, and pressed a pamphlet into his hand. He pushed past them and kept pushing until he was no longer being crushed by the crowd - although he was practically backed up against a wall at the edge of the square. He continued to edge along, but since the progress was slow, he glanced at the pamphlet. He scanned it irritably, and was about to crumple it in his pocket until he passed a bin, when a graphic in the lower corner caught his eye. It was green carnation and a small bunch of violets, and over the top of the flowers was the gender inclusion symbol in white - its top two prongs lined up with the flowers’ heads, and the lower prong lined up with the stalks. He read the name at the top of the pamphlet again: Queer Liberation Collective.

“The government wants to take away our right to organise,” shouted one of the protesters, standing on the lip of the square’s fountain with a megaphone in their hand. “They say it’s dangerous. They say assimilation is the only path to inclusion!” A chorus of shouts went up. Michael noticed that most of the vocal people were wearing flowers. He could see some of the signage better now:

MY QUEER FAMILY SAVED MY LIFE

FAGGOTS UNITED

FLOWER POWER

STATE VIOLENCE IS NOT PEACE

“We deserve to feel safe under a flag that belongs to us!”

Two protesters raised a flag attached to two poles, and raised a cheer. It was hand-stitched, made of two horizontal stripes - green and lavender, with the white gender inclusion symbol in the middle.

Michael did not know what happened next. There was some kind of shout, but whether that was what turned the protest into a riot, he had no idea. He flattened himself against the wall as the entire crowd was jostled. People were fleeing, but it didn’t seem like it was thinning the crush out at all, and before long he heard the whistles of Peacekeepers approaching. Some of the protesters dispersed, some of them stood their ground to get arrested while continuing their mantra (“Abolish nationalism, not community!”), and Michael darted from the square at the first chance he got. He wasn’t exactly dressed the part, but he wasn’t an idiot - he knew he would be suspected of involvement if the police realised he was trans.

On the bus ride home, he found the pamphlet in his pocket. He dropped it under the seat when he got off at his stop. Over dinner, he complained to Vivienne that Kevin hadn’t picked up her flowers before the end of the day, and the vase, which he had removed and composted the wilting flowers from that morning, sat empty on the kitchen table.

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