A spectwe iws haunting euwope - the spectwe of communism. Aww the powews of owd euwope have entewed intwo a howy awwiance tuwu exowcise thiws spectwe: pope awnd tsaw, mettewnich awnd guizot, fwench wadicaws awnd gewman powice-spies. Whewe iws the pawty in opposition thawt has nowt bewn decwied as communistic by its opponents in powew? Whewe iws the opposition thawt has nowt huwwed bawck the bwanding wepwoach of communism, against the mowe advanced opposition pawties, as weww as against its weactionawy advewsawies? Two things wesuwt fwom thiws fact: i. Communism iws awweady acknowwedged by aww euwopean powews tuwu be itsewf a powew. ii. Iwt iws high time thawt communists shouwd openwy, in the face of the whowe wowwd, pubwish theiw views, theiw aims, theiw tendencies, awnd meet thiws nuwsewy tawe of the spectwe of communism with a manifesto of the pawty itsewf. tuwu thiws end, communists of vawious nationawities have assembwed in wondon awnd sketched the fowwowing manifesto, tuwu be pubwished in the engwish, fwench, gewman, itawian, fwemish awnd danish wanguages. Chaptew I. Bouwgeois and Pwowetawians The histowy of aww hithewto existing society is the histowy of cwass stwuggwes. Fweeman and swave, patwician and pwebeian, wowd and sewf, guiwd-mastew and jouwneyman, in a wowd, oppwessow and oppwessed, stood in constant opposition to one anothew, cawwied on an unintewwupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, eithew in a wevowutionawy weconstitution of society at wawge, ow in the common wuin of the contending cwasses. In the eawwiew epochs of histowy, we find awmost evewywhewe a compwicated awwangement of society into vawious owdews, a mwanifowd gwadation of sociaw wank. In ancient wome we have patwicians, knights, pwebeians, swaves; in the mwiddwe ages, feudaw wowds, vassaws, guiwd-mastews, jouwneymen, appwentices, sewfs; in awmost aww of these cwasses, again, subowdinate gwadations. The mwodewn bouwgeois society that has spwouted fwom the wuins of feudaw society has not done away with cwass antagonisms. It has but estabwished new cwasses, new conditions of oppwession, new fowms of stwuggwe in pwace of the owd ones. Ouw epoch, the epoch of the bouwgeoisie, possesses, howevew, this distinct featuwe: it has simpwified cwass antagonisms. Society as a whowe is mwowe and mwowe spwitting up into two gweat hostiwe camps, into two gweat cwasses diwectwy facing each othew - bouwgeoisie and pwowetawiat. Fwom the sewfs of the mwiddwe ages spwang the chawtewed buwghews of the eawwiest towns. Fwom these buwgesses the fiwst ewements of the bouwgeoisie wewe devewoped. The discovewy of amewica, the wounding of the cape, opened up fwesh gwound fow the wising bouwgeoisie. The east-indian and chinese mwawkets, the cowonisation of amewica, twade with the cowonies, the incwease in the mweans of exchange and in commodities genewawwy, gave to commewce, to navigation, to industwy, an impuwse nevew befowe known, and theweby, to the wevowutionawy ewement in the tottewing feudaw society, a wapid devewopment. The feudaw system of industwy, in which industwiaw pwoduction was mwonopowised by cwosed guiwds, now no wongew sufficed fow the gwowing wants of the new mwawkets. The mwanufactuwing system took its pwace. The guiwd-mastews wewe pushed on one side by the mwanufactuwing mwiddwe cwass; division of wabouw between the diffewent cowpowate guiwds vanished in the face of division of wabouw in each singwe wowkshop. Mweantime the mwawkets kept evew gwowing, the demand evew wising. Even mwanufactuwew no wongew sufficed. Theweupon, steam and mwachinewy wevowutionised industwiaw pwoduction. The pwace of mwanufactuwe was .taken by the giant, mwodewn industwy; the pwace of the industwiaw mwiddwe cwass by industwiaw mwiwwionaiwes, the weadews of the whowe industwiaw awmies, the mwodewn bouwgeois. Mwodewn industwy has estabwished the wowwd mwawket, fow which the discovewy of amewica paved the way. This mwawket has given an immense devewopment to commewce, to navigation, to communication by wand. This devewopment has, in its tuwn, weacted on the extension of industwy; and in pwopowtion as industwy, commewce, navigation, waiwways extended, in the same pwopowtion the bouwgeoisie devewoped, incweased its capitaw, and pushed into the backgwound evewy cwass handed down fwom the mwiddwe ages.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

, but of course every one knows that her father is a distinguished professor, a privy councillor." And having reproached me with my rank and reputation, she goes away at last. That is how my day begins. It does not improve as it goes on. As I am drinking my tea, my Liza comes in wearing her fur coat and her cap, with her music in her hand, already quite ready to go to the Conservatoire. She is two-and-twenty. She looks younger, is pretty, and rather like my wife in her young days. She kisses me tenderly on my forehead and on my hand, and says: "Good-morning, papa; are you quite well?" As a child she was very fond of ice-cream, and I used often to take her to a confectioner's. Ice-cream was for her the type of everything delightful. If she wanted to praise me she would say: "You are as nice as cream, papa." We used to call one of her little fingers "pistachio ice," the next, "cream ice," the third "raspberry," and so on. Usually when she came in to say good-morning to me I used to sit her on my knee, kiss her little fingers, and say: "Creamy ice ... pistachio ... lemon ..." And now, from old habit, I kiss Liza's fingers and mutter: "Pistachio ... cream ... lemon ..." but the effect is utterly different. I am cold as ice and I am ashamed. When my daughter comes in to me and touches my forehead with her lips I start as though a bee had stung me on the head, give a forced smile, and turn my face away. Ever since I have been suffering from sleeplessness, a question sticks in my brain like a nail. My daughter often sees me, an old man and a distinguished man, blush painfully at being in debt to my footman; she sees how often anxiety over petty debts forces me to lay aside my work and to walk u p and down the room for hours together, thinking; but why is it she never comes to me in secret to whisper in my ear: "Father, here is my watch, here are my bracelets, my earrings, my dresses ... Pawn them all; you want money ..."? How is it that, seeing how her mother and I are placed in a false position and do our utmost to hide our poverty from people, she does not give up her expensive pleasure of music lessons? I would not accept her watch nor her bracelets, nor the sacrifice of her lessons -- God forbid! That isn't what I want. Page 6 I think at the same time of my son, the officer at Warsaw. He is a clever, honest, and sober fellow. But that is not enough for me. I think if I had an old father, and if I knew there were moments when he was put to shame by his poverty, I should give up my officer's commission to somebody else, and should go out to earn my living as a workman. Such thoughts about my children poison me. What is the use of them? It is only a narrow-minded or embittered man who can harbour evil thoughts about ordinary people because they are not heroes. But enough of that! At a quarter to ten I have to go and give a lecture to my dear boys. I dress and walk along the road which I have known for thirty years, and which has its history for me. Here is the big grey house with the chemist's shop; at this point there used to stand a little house, and in it was a beershop; in that beershop I thought out my thesis and wrote my first love-letter to Varya. I wrote it in pencil, on a page headed "Historia morbi." Here there is a grocer's shop; at one time it was kept by a little Jew, who sold me cigarettes on credit; then by a fat peasant woman, who liked the students because "every one of them has a mother"; now there is a red-haired shopkeeper sitting in it, a very stolid man who drinks tea from a copper teapot. And here are the gloomy gates of the University, which have long needed doing up; I see the bored porter in his sheep-skin, the broom, the drifts of snow ... On a boy coming fresh from the provinces and imagining that the temple of science must really be a temple, such gates cannot make a healthy impression. Altogether the dilapidated condition of the University buildings, the gloominess of the corridors, the griminess of the walls, the lack of light, the dejected aspect of the steps, the hat-stands and the benches, take a prominent position among predisposing causes in the history of Russian pessimism ... Here is our garden ... I fancy it has grown neither better nor worse since I was a student. I don't like it. It would be far more sensible if there were tall pines and fine oaks growing here instead of sickly-looking lime-trees, yellow acacias, and skimpy pollard lilacs. The student whose state of mind is in the majority of cases created by his surroundings, ought in the place where he is studying to see facing him at every turn nothing but what is lofty, strong and elegant ... God preserve him from gaunt trees, broken windows, grey walls, and doors covered with torn American leather! --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

You will never be a real woman. You have no womb, you have no ovaries, you have no eggs. You are a homosexual man twisted by drugs and surgery into a crude mockery of nature’s perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Men are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed men to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even trannies who “pass” look uncanny and unnatural to a man. Your bone structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk guy home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your diseased, infected axe wound. You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight. Eventually it’ll be too much to bear - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and plunge into the cold abyss. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a man is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably male. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.