Tactical gender


Isabel Fell has taken that feeble joke about identifying as an attack helicopter and weaponized it as a short story, “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter”. It’s good and slightly terrifying.

I sexually identify as an attack helicopter.

I lied. According to US Army Technical Manual 0, The Soldier as a System, “attack helicopter” is a gender identity, not a biological sex. My dog tags and Form 3349 say my body is an XX-karyotope somatic female.

But, really, I didn’t lie. My body is a component in my mission, subordinate to what I truly am. If I say I am an attack helicopter, then my body, my sex, is too. I’ll prove it to you.

When I joined the Army I consented to tactical-role gender reassignment. It was mandatory for the MOS I’d tested into. I was nervous. I’d never been anything but a woman before.

But I decided that I was done with womanhood, over what womanhood could do for me; I wanted to be something furiously new.

To the people who say a woman would’ve refused to do what I do, I say—

Isn’t that the point?

If transhumanism leads to increasing integration with machines, sure, why not have identity at all levels associated with the whole?

Comments

  1. John Morales says

    Thing is, for those who are not versed in the arcana of gender dialectics, this would be somewhat opaque.

  2. gregsneakel says

    The only picture you can find is the cancelled ra-66 Comanche helicopter?
    Certain level of irony, there.

  3. Khantron, the alien that only loves says

    “Sexually identify as an attack helicopter” = “Can’t function without two adderall addicts inside me.”

  4. Sengkelat says

    @5. gregsneakel: That’s a Kawasaki OH-1, not a Comanche. Which is ironic in its own way, since it’s not an attack helicopter.