Another Overheard Barroom Argument without a Resolution by jim bourey

Gender change is a fad, and it can’t really happen, we are what we are at birth.

That was Jake, already three beers and two shots into the evening.

It’s an accident of genetics. Sometimes a kid is mentally different from his or her physical make up. So later in life the kid decides to change to match her or his mind.

Louise, chardonnay – very chilled, sounding reasonable. She’s a social worker. Kind, lonely, smart, and able to live her alcoholic life in a reasonably okay way.

Nope. It’s completely psychological. For a long, long time it was considered a mental illness. Now they call it gender dysphoria. But most psych folks don’t consider it an illness anymore. Hell, they even identify something like fifteen gender forms within the two sexes.

Art. The most knowledgeable drunk in the Palms tonight. Also, the one who will be rebuffed by Louise when he inevitably hits on her.

I refill all the glasses that are empty, or nearly so.

The argument heats up. Louise cites cases she knows personally.

Jake brings up the Bible, though he can’t remember the chapter and verse.

Art spouts statistics. Offers quick quotes from his iPhone. Gets louder.

A couple of new arrivals join in. Everyone drinks more as the talk escalates.

It’s good for business, I guess.

But I’m just standing there, thinking about my brand new twenty-year-old granddaughter, her mixed up life, her anxiety, her sadness, her thoughts and threats about ending it all. 

jim bourey is an old poet from the northern edge of the Adirondack Mountains in New York. His latest book "The Distance Between Us" was published in 202 by Cold River Press. And he also had an award winning chapbook called "Silence, Interrupted" back in 2015 from The Broadkill Press. His work has appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, Gargoyle, Mojave River Review, and many other journals and anthologies in print and online. He can usually be found reading poetry aloud in dimly lit rooms.