Betty looks shocked, calms herself. “Your name is Wendy; 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.”

This is where the script says to cry. I put my head in my hands and think of my parents not accepting me. Rejecting me. Wanting to put me in one of these places. And I cry very real tears.

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,” I say, wiping my eyes.

“He does not make mistakes,” she says.

I let the words echo in my head. I look at Betty and pretend she’s my mom. “I’m not a mistake; I don’t need to be fixed.” I stop and let the anger build in my body. “I’m Ajax, and that is my truth.”

Betty shushes me. “You better quiet down, or they’ll take you right back to that shock chair. Is that what you want?”

I stand up as Betty looks on from the bed. “Don’t you see how they are brainwashing you? This isn’t right. They tell us we are wrong, but they are wrong.”

I walk upstage and find my limelight. Ajax’s story isn’t a light and happy one; it’s a sad one. But it’s an important one to tell. A warning. A call to change. A chance to represent the hard parts of being transgender and make things better. It’s hard to use my feelings, but if it helps bring awareness to these awful conversion therapies and changes anything, it’s worth it.

“Does Jesus Christ watch over when they shock us? Gaslight us? Starve us? Slap us? This isn’t religion, it’s torture. This isn’t God, this is the Devil. Why can’t you see that?”

I settle down and let defeat enter every part of my body. “They are breaking me. I can feel it. I wake up in the morning and feel nothing. I want this to end, but I don’t know how to make it stop. I want to feel like my body is mine, and my life is mine. I’m sick of this place telling me I’m wrong.”