TESTOSTERONE & ITS DISCONTENTS
BY
NEW HAMPSHIRE PHANTOM
DATE APRIL 21, 2025
COLD OPENING
FADE IN:
INT. EARLY MORNING
Sounds of vigorous sex, a woman,
ABIGAIL CHANDLER, coming to climax in a dark room. She rises from the bed,
naked but only dimly seen, walks to the window and pulls her hair up to a bun,
and draws a curtain, admitting more light, but still she is only dimly seen as
she looks out at the falling snow. There is someone in the bed moving, but not
identifiable.
ABIGAIL:
It’s never going to stop snowing.
CUT TO:
Another room on campus, a naked coed,
KAYLEIGH WENTWORTH, arising from bed, in the dark, goes to window and pulls
aside the curtain, so you can see she is naked, but her partner in the bed is
unidentifiable except for under the pillow, a glimpse of red hair. KAYLEIGH looks out at the snow.
KAYLEIGH:
It’s never going to ever stop snowing.
EXT, DAY: CAMPUS, NEW HAMPSHIRE,
February, and it is snowing, and the
sky is darkening, students hurrying to get to class, glimpses of banners
hanging from lamp light poles flit past: Diversity, Equity, but these are not
prominent, just in the background. You might not even notice
them. Camera follows an erect old man, OBADIAH YOUNGBLOOD, hatless,
wearing just a wool scarf and a tweed jacket, as he strides along. A
graduate student, a staffer, JARED, in a puffy Patagonia jacket, wool watch
hat, trying to keep up with him. Jared is tall, very good looking. But of the
coeds who pass them, one or two look at OBADIAH, not
Jared, and it’s not clear why. None of the passing boys seem to notice either
one of them.
OBADIAH takes the stairs to
a classroom building two steps at time, JARED scrambling after, and
they enter the building.
CUT TO:
INT, DAY: CORRIDOR, CLASSROOM BUILDING
OBADIAH YOUNGBLOOD, 73 (rake thin,
doesn’t look a day over 65, the kind of man who skis all winter and hikes the
White Mountains all summer, incongruously formal in his tweed jacket, vest,
striped rep tie, wool slacks) unwrapping his scarf, heading purposefully down a
corridor, JARED struggling to keep up, passing students,
dressed as students do now, as if they had just rolled out of bed from a
slumber party, occasional faculty on his way toward his classroom.
OBADIAH
You
didn’t have to do this, you know, walk me to the classroom. I know how to
get to the classroom. I can find the classroom. I checked that
out last Fall.
JARED
Well,
the president thought it might be nice. The campus looks different in the
winter.
OBADIAH
That’s
what they say about old people, when they get lost driving home at night.
Everything looks different at night.
JARED
Well,
it does. In the dark.
OBADIAH
But
it’s day and we got actual lights here.
CREDITS/MONTAGE
OF COLLEGE SCENES COMING BACK ULTIMATELY TO THE CORRIDOR
CUT
TO:
INT DAY
As
they approach the classroom, a crowd of sixty students is standing in front of
the door to the classroom. They are not exactly milling; some of them are
standing more actively, looking around, talking intently, nobody laughing.
OBADIAH stops to see why this group is there, and works his way past them, as
they now all gaze after him with interest, and he shoulders his way into the
classroom, followed closely by JARED, and they stop at the rear of the
classroom and gaze around. The snow outside is getting intense now, and wind
shakes the windows as storm develops. There is even thunder (with apologies to
Aaron Sorkin). Just a single deep throb now, but toward the end, during the
flashback, the thunder will increase.
CUT
TO:
Inside
the classroom.
The
room is packed, every seat taken, students standing along the walls, some
seated on the floor in front of the room under the blackboard/ projection
screen. The contrast between their sweatpants, Ugg boots and OBADIAH'S
prim tweediness of which they visibly disapprove is apparent.
OBADIAH
(to JARED)
How
many did you sign up for this class?
JARED
Twenty-five.
OBADIAH:
Exactly.
I interviewed seventy and I approved twenty-five. Now we got, what?
JARED
(Looking
around) Hundred and fifty, and if those in the hallway come in, maybe two
hundred.
OBADIAH
Yeah.
JARED
So either there's a mix
up, or you are about to get a very warm welcome.
OBADIAH
This is New England. Warm
welcomes consist of tar and feathers. That smell of tar does not smell like
victory.
Obadiah
walks down to the front of the classroom, noting a few signs held by students
"TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS," and "HATE HAS NO PLACE
HERE" and "LGBTQ +: LOVE IS LOVE," reaching the front of
the room, he looks around. The faces in the crowd range from hostile to curious
to apprehensive. Nobody looks particularly happy, except perhaps a pair of very
athletic coeds wearing gray T shirts and leggings.
OBADIAH
My
name is Obadiah Youngblood. I think there may be some mistake here. I was
supposed to have a class here at nine. What class did you people think
was going to meet here today?
STUDENT
1 (A co-ed)
The
transgender bashing thing.
OBADIAH:
Excuse
me?
STUDENT
2 (Another co-ed)
Where
you try to say there’s only two sexes and no such thing as gender fluidity and
transgenders are freaks and don’t belong here.
OBADIAH
No,
that class is down the hall at the Young Republicans Club. Professor Ann
Coulter. This is a course in the department of Biology, division of Anatomy and
Physiology, for which I interviewed seventy students last fall, and selected
twenty-five-- as the prerequisite for this course is ‘approval by instructor.’
[As he
speaks, ABIGAIL CHANDLER, president of the university, slips in at the back of
the room]
STUDENT
3 (male)
And that is
part of the problem.
OBADIAH
And
what is the rest of the problem?
STUDENT
3 LUCAS PHILBRICK
[LUCAS
is a good looking boy with long red hair.]
You
screened your class for sycophants who would agree with you about gender
fluidity, or, in your case, the lack of it. You don’t get to come to this
campus and preach to the choir and just spew out hate from the pulpit.
OBADIAH
Well,
you seem to know all about me and we’ve only just met. Well, actually
we haven't, exactly, met. I told you my name. But I didn't hear
yours.
LUCAS (a bit uncomfortably)
Lucas.
OBADIAH
Lucas? Is that like
Madonna or Sting? Just one name? No, wait, I get it. I'm so out of it. Nobody
has two names any more. I'm a dinosaur, I admit it. I come from that Jurassic
era when we had two names: Tyrannosaurs Rex, that sort of thing. We should all
feel safe, especially if we are taking a side in an argument. I get it. So, Mr.
Lucas...Have you ever heard me say anything specifically about
gender fluidity?
LUCAS
Actually, professor,
Tryrannosaurs Rex did not live in the Jurassic period. He lived in the
Cretaceous period.
OBADIAH (smiling, joining
the general eruption of laughter around the room. His shoulders relax as he
enjoys the joke on himself.)
Well, that's what I get
for getting my information on dinosaurs from Stephen Spielberg. [Switching
tone, now gravely] We have to be careful about where we get our
information. I, for example do have thoughts about gender, but they are not
drawn, whole cloth from Judith Butler and "Gender Trouble."
LUCAS [betraying a faint
smile, liking OBADIAH a little, despite himself]
You told my girlfriend you
were screening people for this class because you didn’t want it to become a
venue for speeches about gender fluidity and transgender rights.
OBADIAH
I
don’t recall saying anything of the kind. Is your girlfriend here now?
LUCAS
No,
you rejected her.
OBADIAH
I
don’t recall that conversation. I may not have selected her.
But I’m not sure that’s the same as rejecting her. I
interviewed about seventy students, and the faces blur, especially at my age.
You know how it is: young people all look alike. [Nobody laughs. OBADIAH is a
little crestfallen, his joke unappreciated.] I accepted, or more accurately, designated,
students who struck me as being curious, open to new ideas and intellectually
flexible.
STUDENT
2
Didn't you write a paper
which said testosterone is what makes men dominant?
OBADIAH
No, actually, that is not
what that paper said. It said testosterone therapy tends to make men feel more
focused, and aggressive, and energized.
STUDENT 2
So, women, who have less
testosterone, are less focused and aggressive, and will be dominated by men?
That's a scary thought.
OBADIAH
Well, if that thought
scares you, then this morning is not entirely wasted.
STUDENT 2
You want to scare me? Oh,
you are going to be very popular.
OBADIAH
One thing I can assure
you is whether or not I am popular, whether anyone likes me or agrees
with me, does not even make my list of top one hundred concerns.
STUDENT 2
So, with you it's all
about intimidation.
OBADIAH
Safe spaces are
antithetical to open minds and open inquiry. If the earth is not the
center of the universe, then maybe Man is not the center of God's creation.
Think where that thought might lead! We should all drink hemlock!
LUCAS
That's just buttoned down,
tweed jacket and vest elitism.
OBADIAH
So I've violated the
dress code? Oh, well, then surely there's no point in your engaging in
discussion with me.
Reactions among the crowd
are disparate: some clearly do not like OBADIAH, prima facie, but
others are disturbed by the attack on how he looks and dresses. Others,
particularly among the boys, visibly admire how he does not back down. Individual
faces reveal a range of opinions, some hostile, some responsive. Two coeds,
very athletic women's varsity softball players, are grinning, enjoying the back
and forth. One, KAYLEIGH WENTWORTH, wears a gray T shirt with the words,
"My Soft Balls Are Bigger than Your Hard Balls" with two crossed
bats, and the other, SOPHIE DEARBORN, red hair, wears a T shirt which says,
"Soft Balls for Hard Women." They wear black leggings over strong
legs. It's not exactly apparent where
they align in the fray, at this point, but they are grinning broadly.
LUCAS
You
want to say there are only two sexes and transgender athletes should not be
allowed on college teams because then you’d have fake women who are really men
trampling over real women athletes. And transgenders are psychopaths and
transgender clinics ought to be shut down and should not be allowed to use the
bathrooms on campus.
OBADIAH
So,
that is what you are expecting me to say? That may even be
what you are afraid of hearing me say. But you haven’t heard
me say that, have you?
LUCAS
I
know where this all leads.
OBADIAH
And
where does all this lead?
LUCAS
To
the testosterone myth.
OBADIAH
I’m
sorry. I’m not familiar with that.
LUCAS
Well,
that doesn't surprise me. But, as Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford have
shown, testosterone giving an advantage is a myth. It’s a book called, “Open
Play.”
There
is a smattering of applause around the room, some giggles. A few girls look up
at LUCAS admiringly. Some scattered “right on” and “true that” comments from
among the hostile faces.
OBADIAH
(smiling, calmly, friendly)
The
women's world record for the 800 meters run is one minute fifty-three seconds,
last I checked. To make a men’s college track team
anywhere in this country you’d have to run better than that, by a full second.
As a matter of fact, you have three male athletes on campus, currently, who
beat that time. Probably a thousand high school boys run faster than that in
the US alone, and twice that number across Europe and Africa, across borders,
across cultures, run faster than the fastest woman ever recorded. Males
simply run faster. So, if superior male performance really is just a matter
of nurture, not nature, as Bekker and Mumford say, you’d have to explain that.
[In
the audience, around the room, there is clear hostility to this, among the
females especially. A few scattered, "Oh, there it is" comments]
STUDENT
2
But
Katrina Karzis and Jordan-Young have shown that testosterone does not correlate
with athletic performance.
Through
these exchanges, reactions of some of the students, who are impressed at
OBADIAH's command of the literature. You can see some using their elbows to sit
up in their chairs, smiling, intrigued.
OBADIAH
I
guess you're referring to "Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography."
Those authors, I believe, were talking about the track star Caster
Semenya. I happen to have a slide about her, if you'll indulge me.
[OBADIAH
FLICKS ON A SLIDE OF SEMENYA]
It's
hard to draw any conclusions about Semenya from what little you can get from
the popular press, or even on the internet. She is entitled, after all, to some
level of privacy regarding her medical condition. Until, of course, she decides
to compete as a female. Right now, Professor GoogIe says she has 5 alpha
reductase deficiency. I happen to have a slide about five alpha reductase
deficiency.
[OBADIAH
clicks up a slide].
So
these gentlemen have 5 alpha reductase deficiency. When they were born and as babies, they looked to be
girls. No scrotums.
LUCAS
You
still haven't answered why you wanted to exclude students from your
class. We don’t do that here. We allow students to select their classes.
But this looks like you were excluding people who might show you up.
OBADIAH
[a trace of a smile]
Well,
that’s a fair point. I can see how it might look that way–that
I was culling out everyone but the members of the choir I wanted to preach
to. I don’t object to protests, understand. But I do think you ought
to hear the thing you disagree with first.
STUDENT
2
We’re
not going to allow you to select your own audience to present your own gospel
against gays and transgenders. Not here on this campus.
STUDENT
1
No
gender shaming! You transphobic twit!
KAYLEIGH
(turning in her seat to address STUDENT 1)
Let
him at least answer, Dweeb!
SOPHIE
Chrissake.
OBADIAH
Okay,
then.
OBADIAH
wraps his scarf around his neck and starts up the aisle toward the door at the
back of the room. There are startled looks all around the room.
STUDENT
2
Where
are you going?
OBADIAH
Home.
LUCAS
So
that’s it? You just chicken out?
OBADIAH
Have
it your way. I’m out of here.
STUDENT
4
You
must not really believe in what you are saying, if you would just walk out, not
even stay to defend it.
OBADIAH
[Pausing
in his ascent of the stairs toward the exit, turning to face the student.]
And
what, exactly do you think I believe? What do you think I’m abandoning?
STUDENT
4
Well,
about transgenders and God given sex and gender.
OBADIAH
[Looking
around the room, which has swollen with even more students as those in the
hallway have moved inside.]
God
given gender? No, God has nothing to do with it. [Pausing, looking around
to see if that has sunk in anywhere in this crowd.]
You
know, actually. I’m retired. Unlike most of your faculty here, I do not need a
job. So, yes, I can just walk out and leave you to pontificate
on these issues, which so inflame you, on your own. You don’t need me for
that.
[The
audience seems a bit stunned. He turns to go, takes another couple of steps
toward the door, but then stops, turns
around as if he has not really explained himself and needs to]
I
thought it might be nice to try to create a course about sexual
differentiation, gender identity and its social implications, for whatever good
that might do. You notice I didn’t say “teach a course.” That’s because I
don’t think it’s possible for me to teach you anything.
You already know it all, or at least you think you do.
OBADIAH looks around the
room at all the young faces, and remembers what it was like to be that young.
He starts walking back down to the front of the classroom as he tells his
story, and he will reach the front before the flashback begins.
But,
when I was not much older than you–actually just a few years older, I was part
of a group of medical students doing an elective in Santo Domingo. We got wind
of a curious thing up in the mountain villages. In some of these villages--all
the kids were given names which were gender neutral, the Spanish equivalent of
"Pat" or "Chris." And we went up there, and the villagers
explained that was because a lot of the kids had something they called
"Guevedoces," which meant "penis at twelve." In these
villages they did not assign gender until puberty, because until then, they
just could not be sure. So we got on the phone to our medical school, and
this endocrine fellow named Juliane Imperato told us to collect bloods on the
villagers, and on these Guevedoces kids, and thus was five alpha reductase
deficiency was discovered. Later the disorder got a little press when the novel
"Middlesex" was published.
So, when I got back to the
medical school, Julianne is waiting for me and she tells me to go evaluate a
patient on the Metabolic Research CUT TO:
FLASHBACK. INT DAY
OBADIAH as a 24 year old
medical student at the Metabolic Research Ward at The New York Hospital. He is
standing in front of JULIANNE IMPERATO, a whippet of a woman in a white lab
coat. Through the windows, rain is not exactly pounding, but it's coming down
in sheets. As we get toward the end of the scene with Ariadne, thunder will
sound, and a flash of lightning, appropriate pathetic fallacy.
JULIANNE
There's a patient I want
you to see. Ariadne Lanzo.
OBADIAH
What's the story?
JULIANNE
She's seventeen. Never had
period. She's 46 XY. She needs an exam, but you know what she's got.
OBADIAH
T-fem?
JULIANNE
Looks like it. But she
needs an exam.
CUT TO:
OBADIAH in an exam room
with ARIADNE, and a NURSE. They have just finished a pelvic exam, and the
stirrups are still up but ADRIANE, in her exam gown, has sat up, swung around
and is facing OBADIAH. The NURSE is collecting the speculum and light
attachment and remains for the discussion. As ARIADNE gets the news, the NURSE
will touch her shoulder, consolingly. Through a window it can be seen to be
raining in sheets, soft, distant rumble of thunder.
ARIADNE
What I really want to know
is: Can I have a baby?
OBADIAH
You want to have a baby?
ARIADNE
With all my heart. But my
boyfriend and me, we've been trying for a year.
OBADIAH
Well, the thing is, I
can't feel a uterus.
ARIADNE (panicking)
You mean, there is
no womb?
OBADIAH
Well, we might want a
gynecologist to confirm this. But I cannot feel one. And I don't see a cervix.
ARIADNE (bursts into
tears)
Then I am not a
woman! And Victor thought all along the problem was him. He thought he
was not a man, because we could not get pregnant. And it was me, all
along. I am not a woman.
OBADIAH
You are very much a
woman.
ARIADNE (sobbing)
No womb. No woman.
OBADIAH
In a way, you are the most
female of anyone on the planet.
ARIADNE (still weeping)
But you say I can never
have a baby!
CUT TO:
Back to the classroom.
OBADIAH looks out over the students, who have been listening in more or less
rapt attention. One may even be tearing up. The thunder from the flashback at
New York Hospital is now felt, heard in the New Hampshire classroom, tying the
two places together. But it is snow seen through the window, not rain.
OBADIAH
So,
this lovely, 17 year old woman who was desperate to have kids some day, but
never would be able to have kids. Here, this is her.
OBADIAH
clicks his final slide
This
is that woman. Her chromosomes are male--46 XY--so she's chromosomally male,
but she cannot respond to male hormones--her receptors just don't work. Is she
not a woman? If you prick her does she not bleed? But she'll never bleed a
menstrual period. We all
think of things in life which are fixed and immutable. Things which are
either/or. And from the time you are a child, nothing is quite so black
and white as male/ female. Except, that really isn't true. I mean the
Kudbadi fish, and clownfish, for Chrissake. They switch sexes all the time.
Talk about gender fluidity! Nobody's got a thing on these
creatures. And, so now, all these years later, I thought,
well, I don’t know this current generation very well, but maybe some of them
might be as fascinated by this as I was then, and still am.
[Reaction
of some students is visibly more sympathetic now]
But,
no. Now, it’s all about causes and banners--and that girl on the ward, whose
life plans just exploded, is just not important any more. Heaven forbid we
think about the human beings involved.
[OBADIAH
sprints up the stairs and exits the room, leaving the audience in stunned
silence, looking at each other trying to make sense of what they've just heard.
The varsity softball girls look at each other and then after him mouthing,
"Wow."]
CUT
TO:
INT.
DAY. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY, THE NEXT DAY
ABIGAIL
CHANDLER, 50 something, athletic, with a face which looks chronically amused, a
woman in her prime and she knows it, sits on a love seat in her office in a Fair
Aisle cardigan, wool skirt, boiled wool clogs and crosses her legs like she
means it, in the direction of OBADIAH, who sits across from her in a wooden
university chair with the seal of the university burned into the back. Light is
the bright winter light of a cloudless New Hampshire winter's day, reflecting
off the snow into the office, giving it a glow.
OBADIAH
You
set me up.
ABIGAIL
Well,
maybe a little.
OBADIAH
We
agreed on twenty five.
ABIGAIL
We agreed.
Apparently, they did not agree.
OBADIAH
You
set me up.
ABIGAIL
You’ve
really got to stop saying that.
OBADIAH
Well,
it was a stupid idea to begin with.
ABIGAIL
No,
it was a splendid idea.
OBADIAH
Okay,
it was a stupid splendid idea which did not work out.
ABIGAIL
I’m
not ready to apply the past tense. In fact, I just this morning had two
students in my office saying they hoped you'd teach this class.
OBADIAH
The
softball players?
ABIGAIL
How
did you know?
OBADIAH
I
noticed their T shirts.
ABIGAIL
They're
a little young for you. And you never were much into jocks.
OBADIAH
They
did fill those shirts out nicely. But no, it was what was printed on them. Have
you ever seen women's varsity softball? Wonderful athletes.
ABIGAIL
Coming
from you, high praise, considering.
OBADIAH
I
could never have hit their pitching.
ABIGAIL
Now
we are getting to false modesty, considering your record. Or I should say
records.
OBADIAH
No,
really. But this thing, this course: That death wish
reasserting itself.
ABIGAIL
Oh,
back to the death wish thing again.
OBADIAH
Madam
President, of all the things a university president can do in this time and
place, stirring the pot of gender identity has got to be the closest thing to
brewing up nitroglycerin in the garage.
ABIGAIL
Oh,
we've reached the "Madam President" stage? Jared told me he thought
you could fill a lecture hall of a hundred and fifty, no problem.
OBADIAH
Jared?
ABIGAIL
Your
native guide yesterday morning.
OBADIAH
Yeah,
nice kid. What’s this? His first job after graduation?
ABIGAIL
Something
like that. [Drops her voice an octave, smiles] I like having him around.
OBADIAH
Now
you really are playing with fire.
ABIGAIL
Being
president of a university is possibly the worst job in America right now. It
ought to come with some perks.
OBADIAH
And you are the best perk
any red blooded male can imagine.
ABIGAIL
Well,
thank you, politically incorrect as that may be. I might be a perk for a heterosexual man.
Here at the university, we do not presume sexual preference.
OBADIAH
Evidently.
ABIGAIL
So,
how’d you like to entertain a hundred and fifty eager young minds twice a week?
OBADIAH
Seriously?
No.
DIANA
But
you were pretty excited about the thought of twenty five young minds.
OBADIAH
That
was before I met the actual young minds.
ABIGAIL
Oh,
come now. Was it really all that traumatic?
OBADIAH
You
know what was really traumatic? Walking past those “Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion” banners.
ABIGAIL
What?
Do we still have those up?
OBADIAH
Sure
do. All over the campus.
ABIGAIL
I
hardly see them anymore. Just background noise. So, you’re not a fan of
diversity?
OBADIAH
I’m
happy to look out at a classroom which looks like a Colors of Benetton ad, but
I don’t think of diversity as a merit in an individual.
ABIGAIL
Well,
we select individuals to be part of our group.
OBADIAH
Thus
spake meritocracy.
ABIGAIL
Or, possibly, thus spake
mediocrity. We are the fourth whitest state in the union.
Ninety percent white. Diversity doesn’t come easy here.
And what do our kids do when they go out into the rest of the country if their
whole education has never included a single Black voice?
OBADIAH
You
know, I talk to a New Hampshire Black on the phone, I can never tell he’s
Black, unless it’s FACETIME. Do you know what that guy who interviewed me for
this gig asked me?
ABIGAIL
I
told you that was just a formality.
OBADIAH
And
I believe you, now that I talked to him. He certainly
would never hire me. He's on what? The university DEI committee or task force
or star chamber?
He
asked me what I was going to do to support Diversity, Equity and
Inconclusiveness in the classroom and I said I was teaching biology and that
had nothing to do with any of that. So I told him I did not intend to try to do
anything to support or undermine such irrelevancy.
ABIGAIL
And
yet, somehow, you got the job.
OBADIAH
Somehow,
I think you may have had something to do with that.
ABIGAIL
I
think you may just be right about that. I might like having you around.
OBADIAH (laughing)
Oh,
you have always been insatiable.
ABIGAIL
I am old enough, finally,
to not take things too seriously.
OBADIAH
Exactly. And especially at
university.
ABIGAIL
Why especially here?
OBADIAH
Oh, you know the old line:
academic politics are so vicious precisely because there's so little at stake.
ABIGAIL
Oh, that one has become so
very worn. And it might have amused, when an impotent man from the Harvard
faculty could crow that now he was Secretary of State, he could look back down
on his cloistered colleagues, and laugh at their insignificance, compared with
his own. I mean, what is Cambridge compared to Washington, and the world? But
what we've got here and now is no longer so
small and self contained.
OBADIAH
Come now, Abigail. This is
hardly Kent State.
ABIGAIL
True that. And that is hardly
my ambition.
OBADIAH
And to what do you aspire?
For yourself? For this college?
ABIGAIL
I'm in the process of
figuring that out.
OBADIAH
But whatever it turns out
to be, it goes beyond this campus, this monastery?
ABIGAIL
(For the first time, she
is not smiling, at least not the way she was before)
There are some ideas, some
truths, which have pandemic potential. Jefferson, Franklin, Madison did not
arise from sterile soil. They were reading Thomas Paine, Locke,
Montesquieu.
OBADIAH
And you really think those
kids I saw yesterday, who would build barricades so they can fight for the use
of the correct pronouns, whose battlelines form outside gendered
bathrooms, who would expel from their dorms anyone who thinks there are just two
sexes and two genders, are broaching world changing ideas?
ABIGAIL
Universities are a
witches' brew. Sure, there are kids who fasten on trivial things. But when you
have the powers that be trying to suspend Habeas to deal with a fantasy
invasion, when perception becomes reality and perception is MAGA weird, anyone
lighting a candle in that darkness may become pivotal.
OBADIAH (Seeing her now
for the first time)
My God, Abigail.
ABIGAIL
What?
OBADIAH
Do you really think
closing down campuses, street riots, marches on Washington stopped the war in
Vietnam?
ABIGAIL
They all coalesced. They
hastened it.
OBADIAH
The Tet offensive hastened
it. Body bags coming home draped in flags hastened it. TV cameras showing
we had lost the war in the field made the difference. Walter Cronkite hastened.
A million women in pink knit hats with ears did nothing. Group hugs do nothing.
Power is defeated by power.
ABIGAIL
So what were you doing in
that classroom, yesterday?
OBADIAH
I was trying to explain
myself.
ABIGAIL
To whom?
OBADIAH stares at her,
flummoxed.
Still trying to figure
that out.
