The trans capital of the North

The year is 2055. The last people to receive a state-funded sex change are in their late forties, and saying that you’re trans in front of the wrong person will land you in prison. 

On narrow canals winding through the hills of northern England, the sexual deviants hide. They have many sex changers among them. Without working in regular jobs or living in regular houses or being interfered with by the state like regular people, they have a lot of free time. They spend it on revolutionary plotting and looking after each other. 

It takes a lot of time to talk through all the possible ways of overthrowing the government and they don’t all agree on the best ones. They all want to stay alive for the revolution so they all help each other stay alive however they can. 

Some of them moor their boats in towns, so they can find out what’s happening and tell the others. Some keep their boats hidden in the hills, growing vegetables and tending to chickens. 

They all live in a world invisible to those with power, which is just how they like it.

BEN 

Ben lives near town. They are young but look old, someone who is deeply connected to a natural world that has been obliterated by greed. Their boat is full of plants and light. String-bound handfuls of herbs hang from the ceiling to dry.

One day, Z visits. She arrives while Ben is lying on their bed watching the spring sunlight reflecting off the canal onto the ceiling, light rippling across wooden panels. She announces her arrival with a soft whistle, tu tuoo, followed by a muffled thud as she steps onto the bow. The boat lurches to one side.

As Z sets down her bag inside the door it begins beeping shrilly. She frowns, passing the bag to Ben, bending to remove her muddy boots. Ben rummages to find the pager and reads the coded message. Someone – the friend of a trusted acquaintance – is passing through town and wants a hormone shot. Can they help? 

The pager keeps beeping. The other deviants in the crew want to help. Ben is closest. They will pick up estrogen and go to Rain’s to meet the visitor. Z upends her bag onto Ben’s bed. A cascade of disposable needles, syringes, boxes of antiseptic wipes, sharps bins, naloxone kits, and hundreds of bottles of zinc and vitamin C tablets. 

The two stand holding each other tightly for a few minutes until the rocking boat stills, and then Z leaves.

Ben watches two men walking past. They are talking about large military excavators in the valley. Ben writes a few words on a scrap of paper to leave at the secret hiding place, then gathers up their things to leave.

THE TOWPATH 

The men have gone and the towpath is full of life. It’s quiet except for the cheep-cheep of a coot sitting on its nest in the water. 

The air smells of woodsmoke and there are tiny green buds on the trees that help keep them hidden, towering over the canal from a steep bank. Snowdrops push up through the soil. A cat walks along the brick wall bordering the towpath, then disappears down into the jumble of warehouses beyond. Three geese hiss at Ben as they pass.

Their first stop is two boats along. Ratch keeps a spare key hidden under a copper kettle on the roof. Inside, the boat is crammed with borrowed or stolen pregnancy gear: reusable nappies, precious milk powder, tiny outfits, sterile steel bowls and surgical equipment. Ratch is due to give birth any day now. 

Ben finds the old coal scuttle, painted with gaudy red and blue roses, and heaves a coal bag off the roof. They pour lumps of cold wet coal into the scuttle and lay out kindling in the wood burner, ready for Ratch to light when he gets home.

At the next boat Ben whistles, tu tuooo, and a hand appears at the window, passing out a glass vial before disappearing.

Ben walks fast towards the town, passing a big lock. Barbed wire is wrapped around its heavy wooden arms to stop boats leaving town. The wire has been snipped in small neat rows so people can sneak through. 

There are many deviants living here, their boats forming a long column in the water. L’s boat stands out, painted in colourful swirls. Ben lets themself in. A big black cat unwinds from her napping spot, batting their legs with her paws as food is found in a drawer. Ben gives her a stroke. Cat fed, Ben leaves, heading to Rain’s to meet their visitor.

RAIN

Rain’s boat is forty feet of stuff. The roof is piled with bikes, chopped wood under a blue tarpaulin, wooden planters for summer vegetables, rusting indeterminate bits of metal that could be machinery or sculptures, a red kayak, a wooden chest and several large plastic storage boxes. 

Rain and Ben cruised north together years ago, once they understood that the regular flooding in the south was a prelude to the land becoming permanently underwater, bringing everything they could fit in and on their narrowboats. They had to leave a lot behind. There was no other way of bringing things north.

Rain’s engine broke down soon after leaving London and the two of them had a miserable time towing Rain’s boat with Ben’s. They had to tie the boats together to cruise and untie them to go through every lock, haul Rain’s boat through using ropes, then retie the two boats to keep cruising. They did this for two hundred and fifty nine locks. The canals were mostly hidden from view, eerie routes through the wastelands that had once been used for food production. At least the drama with the boats had kept them from thinking too much about the danger they were in. 

Inside Rain’s boat, a scene of cheerful chaos. Two cats chase each other up and down the narrow corridor. Rain is standing, speaking into a pager, clipped and urgent. Z is standing over a kettle that is whistling to a boil on the hob, ready to pour it into four mugs. A tall femme who must be their guest is sat on a chair, watchful and cramped. 

Pans hang from the ceiling, long narrow shelves filled with jars of herbs line the walls, blankets are heaped on the floor, empty glass bottles used as candlesticks form a centrepiece on the table, and books form towering stacks on every flat surface. 

The deviants love to hang out here together and scheme and dream.

For four people and two cats to be together here they must constantly move limbs and swivel bodies so others can move around them. Ben pulls the glass vial of estrogen from their pocket. They give it to their guest, explain how it was made and that a similar batch had recently been tested for contaminants. She nods. 

Ben hands her the rest of the kit. She draws estrogen into a syringe, flicks out the air bubbles, pulls up her long skirt, uses an antiseptic wipe to clean a small patch of skin in a circular motion, and injects the hormone into her thigh. Ben brings a smaller bag out of their big one and hands it to her. It contains dozens of vials of three kinds of hormones and all the related paraphernalia. A few months supply for a small group of sex changers. 

Ben doesn’t ask where she’s from or where she’s going, offers her more supplies if she comes back in a few weeks. She doesn’t ask any questions but nods again. Accepts a mug of tea and sits quietly sipping it, looking around curiously. 

Z builds the fire and the stove fan slowly whirs into life as it heats up, spreading the warmth through the boat. Outside an owl hoots. Beyond the canal, the rumbling of heavy vehicles, far away at the lower end of the valley. 

Rain moves to sit between Ben’s legs on the floor and Ben places their hands on Rain’s shoulders, rubbing tight muscles. Z calls the cats in and pulls the curtains shut. From the outside, the only sign that people are onboard is a thin wisp of smoke, barely visible in the darkening sky.