Artemis Hale's Questionnaire

I live in San Francisco, California. I heard online that it was a safe haven for queer people and so far it's been far better than Florida ever was. Specifically, I live in the University of San Francisco dorms - I don't have enough money to live in an apartment. There was no way I was remaining where I was when I came out - living with my horrible parents and surrounded by people I had loathed since childhood and now loathed me. I looked around for the most trans friendly states with good universities that had live-in dorms. Luckily, I was able to get a single room, despite them being limited. I haven't gotten around to decorating it yet, though...

"Getting" money is a bit of a misnomer for me. I have a lot of savings from when I was a child, thanks to coming from a rich family and my grandmother leaving me with a fairly large sum in her will - but other than that I make a fairly small pittance working at a near by fast food place as a part time worker. It's the only place that would take me. I wish I didn't have to work there. Although most people are accepting of me, I am still afraid of the initial misgendering when someone hears my voice, or sees my face, or perceives me at all.

I want to create a place - or I wish I could create a place - where people like me, afraid to show their true selves, could come to express themselves in the truest way possible. I would be the queen - I would be the founder, of course, but for too long have the oppressed been trodden upon, and I intend to change that. Need to change it. I see my peers being killed on the news, having vitriol thrown at them. As if they're doing something wrong. I want to be their protector. Their shining Aegis. the woman who stands up for them when no one else will. To strike those down that will not accept us. But I also want that not to be needed.

Coming out as transgender... That was a struggle. Realizing I was transgender for the first time - when I put a word to what I felt when I was a young teenager and knowing I couldn't do anything about it - that was hard. But coming out was harder. Is harder. it's an endless struggle of having to come out to new people. Over and over and over. It gets easier with time, but... Coming out as transgender to my parents as I was leaving Florida - that was the moment I stopped lying to myself. sure, I'd done research, but properly coming out to them... It was freeing.

In my dorms, there are a variety of people. One of them I am could easily be called my best friend. Ellie. She's training to be a teacher, but she's so smart. She could be a rocket scientist, or neurosurgeon, or whatever - not that teachers aren't smart, but... Anyway, she's so kind, and caring, and pretty, and she listens to me rant about swords, and my sociology classes, and professors... she's so cool.

The next person to talk about is Cholera. Certainly an alias, though I've never seen an ID card. I don't know whether to call her friend or foe - on one hand I find her excruciatingly irritating, with a horrible taste in fashion, worse than my own, but on the other hand she is unhatable. Wheelchair bound, she's studying business, or something, but in my eyes it does not suit her. Nothing suits suits her. Caustic and sarcastic - I can't decide whether her claims of being a drug dealer, of profiting off of blood diamond mines, of gun running - if any of those are real. The only concrete thing I know about her is her hate of Albania. Has she ever even been there?

Finally, we have Josh. Large. Muscular. Tremendously wide. He's built like a brick shithouse and yet is overwhelmingly shy. He should control the room but is barely even noticeable. What he is, though, is extremely skilled at swords - I've seen the trophies he keeps. multiple world championships won. He trains me with such ferocity, such passion - and he believes in what I fight for. He might be gay, I'm not sure, but if not he'd still be at my side when I eventually create a place for us. More and more I know that I am beginning to be among the best swordfighters in the region - maybe even the country, despite how comparatively little time I have spent with him.