(Indefinite hiatus) Arthur Wright has always liked to think in the box until a 4-dimensional being takes him away from his home into the world of four dimensions where his universe's existence is a matter of animal conservation.
Arthur Wright thought too highly of himself. He just didn't know it yet. He was a three dimensional creature with a height of 1.8 meters, a width of 45 centimeters, a depth of 30 centimeters and age of 17 years from his birth. Names for dimensions were a funny thing. A bipedal creature or a door has height width and depth. A quadrupedal creature and many other objects are said to have height, length and width. A house may be said to have height, length and depth. A swimming pool is said to have length, width and depth. Some math diagrams had the y-axis going up and down with the z-axis going front and back while other diagrams had the y-axis going front and back and the z-axis going up and down. It was arbitrary whether you called one dimension the first, second or third dimension. What mattered is that they added up to three, all perpendicular to each other.
Perpendicular didn't necessarily mean straight lines. We also have curved space coordinates like when it comes to latitude, longitude and altitude. They will be straight lines by their own standard. All was relative.
"It's not relative or subjective." Arthur complained, "You're either born a girl or a boy."
Arthur was talking to a trans-boy named Carlos in his class before the bell was about to ring when all the kids were crowding by the door.
"There's more to gender than chromosomes or what's in your pants." Carlos responded.
"And whenever someone asks what those things are, you respond with a bunch of subjective fluff. Like 'it's not my responsibility to define it.' Or 'it's a social construct' whatever that's supposed to mean. I don't think genitals are a social construct."
"Ugh. You've taken statistics class, right? Gender is a cluster analysis. You have a whole bunch of dimensions: physical characteristics, desires for such characteristics, presentation, etc. Each person is a point and society has clustered the points into groups. These groups are the social construct because there are many different methods of cluster analysis. The dimensions and points can still be objective. Then again, some of those dimensions are probably vaguely defined. Some dimensions are artificially created by some way of reducing our dimensions: a vague simplified principle component. (See Figure I)
"We simplified things the way we did for a reason. Being trans or intersex is just an exception." Arthur said.
"Just because I'm rare doesn't mean I'm not real. You've lived your world of few dimensions for long enough. It's time for an upgrade. Leave your basic biology and enter advanced biology. People around you would appreciate it."
The bell rung and most of the students squeezed out through the door except for a couple slow packers and a student who wanted to ask a couple questions. It was the last class of the day. Carlos realized he left his papers on the table and went back into the classroom. Arthur made an excuse to go back in the room to sanitize a few desks he noticed missed spraying as part of COVID-19 safety responses. Arthur didn't care too much for the COVID safety. He just felt like he needed an excuse to stay longer so he could continue the conversation with Carlos, whom Arthur still thought of as Kiley.
"I'm going to the other room to talk with Miss Randal," said the teacher, Mr. Shepard, "You're welcome to stay if you want to."
Shepard left the room closing the door. Arthur turned back to Carlos.
"Could you just explain what all these dimensions are and what makes you think you can redefine gender to mean what dimensions you take more seriously." Arthur asked, looking for Carlos to say something that would allow him to say that Carlos was only affirming gender stereotypes.
"Look." Carlos said, "I shouldn't have to justify my existence to you. There are trans-people online with better mental health than me. Listen to them."
Carlos went to leave but the classroom door wouldn't open.
"Stay calm." said an omnipresent voice.
"Who's there?" said Arthur.
"I can't say." said the voice, "For my name cannot be entirely heard or pronounced by your ears or vocal cords respectively. But you can call me the ambassador."
The voice felt like it was coming from everywhere even vibrating inside their bodies.
"What do you want?" Carlos said.
"I want to save you." said the ambassador, "I'm here to save you from a threat beyond your comprehension in the world of four dimensions."
"What are you talking about?" said Arthur, "Show yourself."
"I can only show part of me," said the ambassador, "But I can try."
In the middle of the room large limbs appeared out of nowhere and disappeared to be replaced with a body and a head with no mouth and one eye. The creature seemed to bob in a way that made its size change slightly. Arthur and Carlos screamed and the creature seeming surprised, snatched them with fingers from nowhere. Arthur felt his body dragged away from a warm blanket he never noticed he had felt the comfort of until now. The school and town disappeared and he saw rolling green hills around him instead. Then metal walls appeared on all sides which seemed to rush past Arthur's head. Arthur was so dizzy and disoriented until he was finally slipped into a tiny glass cell.
Figure I.
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Disclaimer: I am a cis-person writing this so my explanation of gender and depiction of a trans character should be taken with a grain of salt.
