It was the day before the Royal Wedding and Alice had been issued an urgent summons by the Queen of Hearts to attend her in her Royal Apartments.
“As you have expressed interest in being part of the royal retinue on the great day, I am happy to say that I can offer you a role…as a footman,” announced the queen.
“But that won’t do,” replied Alice instinctively. “I’m a girl, so surely I should be a maid-in-waiting?”
“The situation is what it is, my dear girl, if that is the identity you profess. We have five maids-in-waiting and four footmen; and the strict requirement of equality law is that we have the same number of each. So, we have a vacancy for one more footman.”
“But you are the queen. Surely you can do as you choose?”
“What I choose is to show my virtue to my subjects by conforming to equality law.”
Alice was perplexed. This queen, who lorded it over everyone and brooked no dissent was priding herself on her commitment to the pursuit of equality; and then using this as an excuse to humiliate a young girl.
“But how would that even work? How can a girl be a footman?” retorted Alice crossly.
“My dear girl, nothing could be simpler, all I need to do is issue you with the requisite gender certificate and the matter is settled.”
With that she pulled a certificate off the top of a large pile on her desk and wrote Alice’s name at the top and MALE in large capital letters at the bottom.
“Oh, one other thing,” she added. “Do you want also to change your name now you have changed your gender.”
“No, I am Alice and I just want to make an arrangement which will allow me to participate in the ceremony.”
“Well, I have sorted that for you, so the matter is settled.”
“Well, so long as it is just so that I can participate in the ceremony, I suppose I can live with that.”
“Well, that is very gracious of you.” The queen looked less than impressed. “But of course you will continue to be male afterwards by virtue of the gender certificate.”
Alice had not foreseen anything like this. “What? But can’t you just issue another certificate to change me back to female again after the ceremony? You have a large pile of blank certificates on the table over there.”
“Oh no, that would not do at all. That would be de-transitioning, something which I am as strongly against as I am in favour of equality law. My subjects would be horrified if I allowed such a thing. So I think we are done here, I will just call my footman to take you off and measure you for your costume for tomorrow.”
With that she rang a bell and, before Alice could utter another word, a footman appeared as if from nowhere and escorted her off to the tailoring department for her fitting.
Well, as you can imagine, Alice was beside herself with anguish. Here she was now, trapped in a gender identity which did not match her biological sex. What was she to do? That night she could not get to sleep as she tossed the problem over and over in her head. Perhaps she could just tear up the gender certificate and pretend it hadn’t happened? But if she attended the ceremony as a footman the next day she would be outed and no longer able to deny the fact of her transition. So the only course of action was to cancel. She resolved to go the next morning to the palace and make her announcement to that effect.
Well, the next morning came but Alice was so tired after her almost sleepless night that she overslept and by the time she got herself along to the Royal Apartments, everyone was busy sorting their costumes out. She was immediately spotted by the queen who made a beeline straight for her.
“Let’s get you into your costume then and check that it fits.”
Alice, in trepidation, started to try explaining that she had decided to withdraw from proceedings so would not be needing a costume, but words failed her. What would happen when only four page boys turned up and questions were asked afterwards? The finger of blame would be pointed squarely at her and she would never recover from the humiliation. She resolved that she would just have to accept her fate.
“Yes, your majesty,” she murmured and meekly followed as the queen led her over to the fitting area, where four attractive young ladies were busily checking the fitting of their dresses.
“I am sorry to have to disappoint you in this way,” the queen announced, a little awkwardly. “But despite your wish to identify as a footman at today’s ceremony, recent changes in the law dictate that the fact that you are a transgender male rather than a biological male precludes you from acting as a footman. So we have at short notice reassigned you to a role as a lady-in-waiting. I trust that will not be an issue for you.”
Alice was quite taken aback. “Well, I suppose…” she began, then paused. “But didn’t you say you already had five ladies-in-waiting and were a footman short?”
The queen sought to brush her protest aside. “Oh that was the situation yesterday before the law change. Now the transgender lady-in-waiting has had to be reassigned a role as a footman, which leaves us short of a lady-in-waiting. So if you would just stop your infuriating questions and just check to see if his, or should I say her, dress fits you properly…”
Well, some adjustments were needed as the dress was, not surprisingly, on the large side, but it was able to be pressed into service allowing Alice effectively to transition back into a female identity.
Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the royal wedding went off swimmingly and Alice had the time of her life as a lady-in-waiting, not least because the most handsome of the footmen kept on catching her eye and smiling at her. Then finally when the formalities were over and the dancing began, she noticed him approaching her and felt her heart go all a-flutter.
“Hello, you must be Alice,” he began. “I’m Sam. I have heard about your being called up rather last-minute.”
“Well, yes,” Alice answered shyly.
“You know it seems to me we have things in common and could make waves together.” Well, he was certainly very forward: not that this in any way dampened Alice’s enthusiasm. “But what are the odds?” he continued. “The two of us transitioning in the same week and ending up in the same wedding party.”
Suddenly, the realisation dawning, Alice’s excitement of a moment ago dropped away and she felt the panic of the previous evening returning. How was she to handle this new situation? Should she ’fess up that her transitioning was fraudulent? Fortunately her hesitation saved her and she did not need to make that decision.
Sam continued. “But really, is it not just unspeakable that the queen would humiliate us in this way, disrespecting the legal gender she conferred on us, and requiring us to cross-dress and masquerade for her at a public event?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Indeed I would and that is putting it mildly. I have already spoken to my lawyer this morning and he is pretty confident that just the threat of legal action would likely secure an out-of-court settlement of several million. And if we took joint action, given your profile as the protagonist in a number of successful novels, well, the sky would be the limit.”
“I see,” said Alice, and indeed she was beginning to see: rather than sloughing off her newly-acquired trans identity, it might be to her advantage to retain it a little longer.
