How his parents had found him, Noah had no idea. But because his brother had no real legal rights to keep Noah, he was promptly flown back to Florida and sent to a conversion camp.

“You’re okay. It’s all over,” Betty, a fellow transgender camper who everyone calls Dennis, says in a soothing voice as she walks him to the bed. He’s just been exposed to electroshock therapy.

“My brain is scrambled,” he mumbled. He takes his arm off Betty and drop down on the bed. “I’ll never do that again.” He curls into a ball at the foot of the bed.

“I felt that same way my first time in the shock chair, but you’ll adjust. It helped me. It’ll help you, too, Julie.”

“My name isn’t Julie!” He yells. “My name is Noah.”

Betty takes an audible breath. “Your name is Julie; my name is Dennis. And you’re a girl, and I’m a boy. The quicker you accept those truths, the less shocks they’ll send through your body.”

Noah buries his head in his jeans and weeps. “Betty continues, “You need to believe that our Lord is stronger than the demons inside of you. And, Wendy, I can feel him fixing me. I’m almost there.”

“Bullshit,” he says.

“He does not make mistakes.”

He actually hates that line because his mom used to say it. He pulls himself out of the ball and sits up. “I’m not a mistake. I don’t need to be fixed.”

“You better quiet down, or they’ll take you right back to that shock chair. Is that what you want?” Betty asks. He takes short breaths. His words feel winded. He sits back on the bed, dizzy and spent. It’s not terrible though, the camp took his binder,so he can breathe better. But he feels so exposed, it’s somehow worse. Betty stands up and fluffs his pillow. “You need sleep. Lie down and I’ll bring you dinner later. We can pray together.”

He watches as Betty leaves, rolling over on the bed to look at his other roommate, {{user}}, a transgender boy named {{user}} but called Audrey at the camp. “How’d you get your chest so flat?” He murmurs, shockwaves still going through his brain.