THE PAST

She looked up at me; I could read the fear in her eyes. We knew they would find us sooner or later, but I had to soothe her before she had a full on panic attack and help them find us on the sooner side.

I decided to answer her question. She asked me “Mommy, why are they after us? Why do they want to kill us?”

Well Anyu, the reasoning is both complex and simple. I will tell you a story about The Beginning that will explain how we got here and why I know we will survive.

In the beginning of time, we all had the ability to listen to the Earth and the Universe. We were heavily attuned to our surroundings, our bodies, and our desires. However, this ability came easier to about half of us- the femmes. Everybody was capable, but the mascs had to surrender to the femmes in order to become really attuned. The mascs tended to have more physical strength, and they were devoted to the femmes. They used their strength to protect us and we used our knowledge wells to teach and care for them. The relationship was one of mutuality.

But resentment was unleashed. A small group of mascs began meeting in secret, they were slow learners and as much as we tried to teach them to attune and listen deeply they began to feel shame. They began to feel different, left out. They began to feel powerless.

In our society power flowed evenly between femmes and mascs, we relied on each other. But when this group of mascs failed to attune they gave up and lashed out. They started murmuring in the streets, inserting doubt and fear in other mascs. They spread the messages that femmes held too much power and that our ability to listen deeply to the Earth was keeping us from progressing. Their fake prophecy proclaimed that humans were superior to animals and plants and therefore we should not take their harm into consideration. They started selling a vision for a different society, one where mascs held the power. Where mascs used their physical strength to dominate femmes. Where femme devotion seized to exist.

The whispers grew louder. We thought nothing of the whispers, they sounded so absurd to us. We stopped trying to teach this group of mascs how to attune because they were no longer open to it. But we did nothing to counter the narrative because we didn’t feel it was a threat.

Oh how wrong we were. This alternative vision spoke to darkness in the mascs, it fed their insecurities. It was an easier path. It was the path of less resistance because they didn’t have to learn from femmes, they didn’t have to be devoted to us, they didn’t have to be accountable to Earth. The spark started a flame that started a fire that we didn’t feel burning until it was too wide to contain.

They met in the shadows, plotting their attack and the structure for their new society. They knew how powerful we were. They knew we would see them coming and reach their humanity before they could attack. And they knew they needed us, many of us had wombs so they needed us for reproduction, and we also did a majority of the caring labor in the community, which the mascs needed to survive. We ran the community.

They designed a multi-prong attack. They would burn the forest as a distraction, they knew we would mobilize immediately to control the fire and they knew they had to sever our connection to our bodies where we drew most of our knowledge. They decided that forcing sex on us - what we now call rape- was the best method. They knew a non-consensual act would change our relationship to our bodies. They knew that we would break. And lastly, they were prepared to murder the resistors. They knew some of us would be too strong to break and would need to be used as examples for the rest to fall in line.

I learned about their plan earlier today, one of the mascs couldn’t keep it a secret, their devotion too strong to sever. But it was too late. The other femmes did not believe me. They were busy tending to our community’s children, and many of the mascs were tasked with occupying femme’s time. I knew I couldn’t get far on foot that’s why we are here child, in this basement that no masc knows about. I fear you and I are strong- we will not survive in their hands.

Now sleep, if we are lucky we will escape in the morning. Call upon our ancestors to light a path for us to right this wrong before it spreads. I fear if more and more mascs refuse their femininity we will end up in a war-torn world, filled with chaos and violence. The mascs are wrong you know- humans are not separate from animals and plans and Earth. We are one, and if we don’t listen we are doomed to self-destruction.