I gazed into the suspension tube. A familiar young woman floated within. She looked like the sister my sister had never accepted me as.
“We followed your requests for a true clone only altering the hormonal balance after puberty had started. If you don’t mind me asking why not get a full conversion?” the body renewal attendant asked.
“This how I want my body to be,” I told the young woman.
“That’s fully within your rights but most” she paused as she stumbled unto the next word, “women of your type prefer full conversions.”
“Trans women you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a bit older than most women or girls who go through this. I’m getting too old. The cost for my medications and treatments and therapies are going up every year. The insurance company decided it has become cheaper for to pay for a body renewal than to keep maintaining my body. I would never have chosen this for myself.”
“Why not? It’s a second chance at life. With a x-chromosome duplication you could have had children, a family-”
“A normal life?” I interrupted her.
“I didn’t mean … ”
“No, you didn’t but it’s an indication of the society we live in. Even after all these years we are still outsiders. That’s why I gave in and accepted this but on my terms. When I was a teenager this technology was science fiction. Now anyone with enough money or the right insurance coverage can get a new body. Eighty years of scientific advancement and they have never stopped hating us.”
“Surely it’s gotten better?”
“Tiny steps. Society advances and regresses like waves on the beach.” I gazed once more at the young woman floating in the chamber. “Maybe in my next life I’ll see some real change.”