A fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose, in which they describe navigating life and romance in a non-conjoined world.
Mature themes in Part 5 include mention of genitals and reproductive organs, including those of an intersex (sexually ambiguous) person.
Part 5 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 11: Legal strategies
Chapter 11: Legal strategies
About six months had passed after our visit to Ashley and her family, and we’d now been in a relationship with Nick for about a year, including about seven months of living together. Everything was going well and we were quite content. However, it was beginning to dawn on us, Rose more than Lily of course, that we might want a more permanent arrangement with Nick. We weren’t there yet, but we could see a day when we were.
Out of the blue, we got a text from our former roommate Gabi, who wanted to meet up with us sometime to talk. She and her father, the state senator and civil rights attorney, had been tossing around some ideas about our legal predicaments as two people inhabiting one body, and she wanted to share them with us. We agreed to meet on Saturday morning at the same coffee shop we used to go to with Nick.
We hadn’t seen Gabi in quite a while, so it was good to hug her neck and see her smile again. We spent a few minutes catching up on each other’s’ lives, and then we got to the reason for meeting. “My dad and I discuss and debate various legal and political issues when we get together, and recently we were talking about your problems with laws that don’t work for conjoined people. You already know how difficult it’ll be to get these laws changed. But we kind of developed this idea for a more general law that would provide the means for you to obtain exemptions or modifications to the specific laws or regulations that are inherently unfair to you or even impossible for you to comply with.
“It would be a lot easier to get support for a generic bill that just provides a way to make things fair for conjoined people on a case-by-case basis than it would be to change specific laws and regulations to accommodate them, such as the marriage law that’s going to affect you someday. My dad’s starting to float the idea around among his fellow legislators to get their reactions. Probably the law wouldn’t be specifically for conjoined people, though, since there are so few of you, but for anyone with a highly unusual condition that laws and regulations fail to take into account.
“At the moment, he’s thinking along the lines of empowering the Human Rights Commission to hear cases and make rulings, so that it’s out of the hands of elected politicians and elected judges. As you well know, the commissioners are appointed, not elected. That way, there’s hopefully no conflict of interest – no concern about them ruling in ways that benefit them politically but are detrimental to the people the bill intends to help.
“If he proceeds with introducing such a bill, I’m sure he’ll want to use you as specific examples of people who are currently adversely affected by laws who would benefit from such legislation. He would want you to speak before the legislative committee to which the bill is assigned. By letting his peers see and hear from real-life examples, they’ll be far more likely to support the bill. We’d probably have to also identify and enlist a few other people who are in similar situations, so it doesn’t look like the bill was tailored specifically for you. We’re trying to figure out what other categories of people would benefit from this, but we’re coming up empty.”
I, Rose, replied, “About the only category I can think of are people whose sex was uncertain at birth. Their genitals were ambiguous or contradictory, and their parents and doctors arbitrarily assigned a sex to go on their birth certificate, and they named and raised them according to that gender, but they either got it wrong, or the person really is gender ambiguous and they’re both male and female, or they aren’t really either.
“I suspect such a person wouldn’t have as many issues with laws not designed for them as we do, but they certainly must have some. I’d bet they’d have trouble getting their birth certificate corrected. Not just changed like a transgender person might have done, but corrected, since it was wrong all along. They’d especially have trouble getting it changed to ‘none of the above’, and even if they were able to, would they also be able to get their sex changed to ‘neither’ on their driver’s license and passport and other legal documents?”
Gabi thought about that for a second. “I think you might be onto something, Rose,” she said. “There’s not much we can do about passports, since they’re issued by the federal government, but the rest of it falls under the state government. And yes, I could see where people like that would get tripped up by laws and regulations that don’t take them into account. Thanks for suggesting that! Now, do you know anyone like that, or how to find them? That’ll be the next challenge.”
I, Lily, replied. “There’s a person at work who identifies as gender neutral. I don’t know if they were born biologically ambiguous or not, but even if they weren’t, they might know someone who was. We could certainly ask.” “If you could do that, it might be a big help,” Gabi said in response.
“Now, what about testifying before the senate? Are you both up for doing that?” asked Gabi. I, Lily, said, “I don’t see how we could say no if we ever want to be treated fairly by the law. We’ll be way out of our comfort zones, at least I will be, but I think it’s something that we must do regardless.” I, Rose, nodded my head in agreement as Lily said that. Gabi said, “Great! I appreciate you both.” I, Rose, then replied, “It’s we who appreciate you and your father, Gabi. Be sure to tell him that for us. We wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
On Monday, we asked Riley, our gender-neutral co-worker, if we could speak privately. We found an unused conference room and closed the door. “Riley, we’re working with a state senator who’s drafting a bill that might help us with some of the legal complications of being conjoined. But he’s writing the bill so that it’s more generic and could benefit a wider group of people. Specifically, he’s trying to find someone who was born sexually ambiguous who might be willing to testify about their struggles to not be classified as either male or female. We don’t know if you’re such a person, but if you’re not, perhaps you know of someone who is.”
Riley replied, “Unfortunately, I’m not. I don’t usually share this, but I was born biologically male. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread that around, because it’s not anyone’s business. But why does it have to be someone born ambiguous? People like me also struggle with being non-binary in a binary world.”
We said, “No doubt that you do, and hopefully the bill, if it’s passed, would benefit you as well. But we, and the people we’re working with on this, think it would make for a more compelling testimony if the person were born ambiguous. That would avoid all of the politics and prejudices surrounding transgenderism. People could debate whether you’re entitled to be legally non-binary when you were born binary, but they couldn’t really argue as much with someone who was born non-binary from wanting to be legally classified that way. If they could blaze that trail, it might be a trail you could someday go down as well.”
“I see your point,” said Riley. “Let me ask around some. Even among non-binary people, we usually don’t talk about what genitals we were born with or the reasons why we were assigned a specific gender at birth. So, I don’t know for certain whether anyone I know was born non-binary, but I can probably find out if I explain the reason why I’m asking.”
A week later, Riley got back to us. “I may have found someone for you,” they said. “A friend of a friend, so I don’t actually know them.” “Good job, Riley!” we replied. “Do you have their contact info?” “No,” Riley said, “but they’re willing to contact you if you’ll give out yours.” “Whatever it takes,” we said, and gave Riley our phone number and e-mail to pass on. “We’ll just have to wait and see if they’ll actually reach out.”
A few days later, we received an e-mail from Riley’s person. It was evident to us that they weren’t going to give us their phone number until they had a more clear idea of what we wanted them for and why. Apparently, some of what we told Riley didn’t get passed on or got lost in translation. But enough of it had that they at least wanted to know more, which we could work with. We wrote a lengthy reply explaining who we were, what we were trying to accomplish and why, how it could also benefit them, and how we needed their help. We also asked questions about their condition, and where they lived, since it would make for a more compelling testimony if they were state residents impacted by our state’s laws. Again, we had to just wait and see whether we would hear back.
A few days after that, we received back an equally lengthy reply e-mail. The person gave their name as Jordan, and explained that they had ambiguous genitalia, partial male/partial female reproductive organs, and both male and female chromosomes. They had been assigned female at birth, but that appeared to have been arbitrary. Further, they said they did not feel either male or female, but somewhere in between, and bristled at having to identify as either one or the other. Jordan informed us that the accepted term for such a physical condition was ‘intersex’; ‘non-binary’ referred more to the mental/psychological condition. Jordan was both. Further, Jordan was a state resident, and was potentially willing to testify to encourage passing the potential bill. They sounded exactly like who we were hoping to find. We replied to Jordan, thanked them for their helpful information, and told them they would likely be hearing from Mr. Vernon or Gabi regarding the next steps. We forwarded Jordan’s e-mail on to both of the Vernons for their consideration, indicating our opinion about Jordan seeming to be ideal for the cause.
Maybe two months later, we received a phone call from Mr. Vernon. He gave us a heads up that the legislative committee his bill had been assigned to would soon be holding a hearing to discuss the merits of the bill, and he would want us there to speak on the need for the bill. We would be given time to say what we wanted to say, and then would be asked questions afterwards. He encouraged us to start preparing for that, and told us specific points he wanted us to bring up and other general pointers. He would want to meet with us at least several days before the hearing to review what we planned to say and to make any recommendations for revisions. So we prepared our statement, reviewed it with Mr. Vernon, and made the changes he recommended.
Mr. Vernon did caution us about something that we weren’t aware of. He explained that even if the bill became law, we used it to be granted an exemption from the laws prohibiting us from both being married to the same person at the same time, and were actually both married to the same man, our marriage would only be recognized within the borders of our state. The federal Respect for Marriage Act of 2022 made same-sex marriage and interracial marriage legal throughout the United States, but it explicitly mentioned in several places that only marriages between two people would be recognized by the federal government and were required to be recognized by other states.
Mr. Vernon thought the wording of that federal law clearly prohibited marriages involving more than two people where everyone was married to everyone else, but he thought there might be some wiggle room if, say, one man was married to two women but those women weren’t also married to each other. It would be splitting hairs and the courts might not agree, however. Assuming the worst case, the practical effects would be that we couldn’t file our federal income taxes with a filing status of married, wouldn’t be entitled to spousal Social Security benefits, and would not be entitled to spousal visitation rights or to make medical decisions on behalf of each other while in another state. If we were ever to move to another state, we would be treated as unmarried by the law in every respect.
We were more than willing to live with such limitations if necessary, because we’d still have all the benefits, privileges, and responsibilities of marriage within our own state.
At the hearing, we read our statement to the senators, explaining who we were, the facts about conjoinment in general and of our type of conjoinment, and our specific anatomy, especially regarding our shared genitals and reproductive system. We then discussed the difficulties we’d experienced being two people in one body, especially with regard to policies, rules, regulations, and laws. We then called attention to laws and regulations we anticipated having problems with in the future, specifically those involving marriage and legal parenthood. We then stressed that we didn’t want special treatment; we only wanted to be treated fairly, but laws meant for singletons were sometimes inherently unfair to conjoineds.
Then the questions from the senators began. It was clear to us from their questions that either they really hadn’t been paying attention to our presentation or they were incredibly dense. Most of the questions had been clearly addressed in our prepared statement. Nevertheless, we answered them as patiently as we could, as it was in our best interest to stay on their good sides and to make sure they really understood what we were saying.
A few weeks later, Gabi texted us to let us know that her father’s bill was passed by the committee and the next step was for it to be scheduled to be voted on by the entire senate. However, she cautioned us that lots could still go wrong, starting with the president of the senate choosing not to schedule it at all.
A couple of months after that, we heard again from Gabi. The bill had been scheduled for debate and vote by the entire senate. We were thrilled, of course! Then Gabi laid out her plan. On the senate floor, only senators could speak for or against the bill – they would not hear testimony from outsiders such as us. Further, the senate chamber was not open to the public, so ordinarily, we couldn’t even be there as observers. However, Gabi’s father, as a senator, had the right to bring his invited guests into the chamber, though we couldn’t sit with him on the floor. Gabi said they both thought it would make a strong case for the bill if we were there and seen. He knew where to position us and when, so we would be seen by influential senators he believed most likely to be sympathetic to the cause. Gabi asked us to arrange to take off work that day, but to be flexible because the schedule could change.
And so, on the appointed day, Mr. Vernon paraded us around the back hallways of the capitol building where we would be seen by senators going back and forth between the senate floor and their offices. He then seated us in a prominent position in the senate gallery to observe the proceedings. As the bill’s sponsor, Mr. Vernon spoke first during the debate. He eloquently described how some state laws were inherently unfair to some citizens with highly unusual anatomy or other circumstances, and his bill would provide a means to address these injustices in a non-partisan, non-political way. It was a no-brainer to vote in favor of this bill, because it was the right thing to do and there would be no downside politically. He certainly had us convinced to vote for it, if we only could!
Much to our surprise, the chairman of the committee we had addressed then spoke next and voiced his strong support for the bill. Following him, several other members of the committee, from both political parties, did likewise. No one stood up to speak against the bill. When it came time to vote, the bill passed by an overwhelming, though not unanimous, majority. We were elated, of course, and we thanked Gabi profusely and did the same to Mr. Vernon the next time we saw him.
However, we weren’t even half finished. The entire process had to be repeated in the lower house of the state legislature, and if it passed there, too, it would go to the governor’s desk for his approval or veto. But largely due to the very favorable vote it received in the senate, the bill sailed through the lower house without difficulty, and the governor scheduled a signing event, to which Mr. Vernon made sure we were invited. We were even given one of the two pens the governor used to sign the bill into law, with Jordan, the intersex person who had also testified in favor of the bill, receiving the other.
Chapter 12: Anticipation
By the time the bill had been signed into law, we’d been living with Nick for over a year, and officially a throuple for over a year-and-a-half. That time had flown by, and our relationship with Nick was as strong as ever. Nick wasn’t oblivious to what was going on in the state legislature, and he understood the significance as it pertained not only to us, but to him as well. We now had a path for the three of us to be legally married, though it wasn’t likely going to be straightforward or quick.
Because of all of this, I, Rose, had a feeling that the subject of marriage was going to come up soon, one way or another. It wasn’t unreasonable that Nick would actually propose to us. If he did, I was prepared to accept without hesitation. However, Lily had always struggled with commitment and agreeing to take our relationship with Nick to the next level, even though she wanted it as much as I did. I was afraid that Lily might balk at a proposal, making things very awkward for all three of us. And so I felt it necessary to talk to Lily ahead of time and try to reduce the chances of that happening.
If I weren’t physically attached to Lily, I would have also talked to Nick about it, advising him about Lily’s readiness, or lack thereof, to accept a marriage proposal, in order to keep him from proposing before she was ready to accept and thereby embarrassing himself. That’s one of the disadvantages of being conjoined; we’re unable to have private conversations with other people without our sister listening in or looking at what we’re reading or writing. It would be impossible for one of us to be in on a surprise party for the other. So all I could do was to try to prepare Lily.
Rose: Lily, now we have a way to both marry Nick, and considering that we’ve been with him for as long as we have and things are going great, we have to be prepared for the possibility that he’ll propose marriage to us. And by ‘we’, I mean you.
Lily: Yeah, that’s occurred to me as well.
Rose: And?
Lily: And what?
Rose: And what are your thoughts about that?
Lily: What are my thoughts about what?
Rose: (exasperated) Do I really have to spell everything out for you? What are your thoughts about how you would respond if he were to propose someday soon?
Lily: I was afraid that that was what you were asking.
Rose:
Rose: I’m waiting.
Lily: I would have to think long and hard about it.
Rose: That’s about what I figured, and that’s why I brought it up. The time to think long and hard about it is now, not after he asks and is waiting for an answer. So what’s stopping you from saying yes?
Lily: Oh, nothing specific. Just my usual jitters about commitments.
Rose: I just don’t understand you, bodymate. We’re biologically identical. We’ve had the same exact life experiences. How can we be so different in this one area?
Lily: I wish I knew.
Rose: So do you have any concerns about marrying Nick, or even just agreeing to marry him?
Lily: Concerns about Nick, no. He’s wonderful! Concerns about making a deeper commitment? Of course I do; that’s how I roll.
Rose: Well, if you didn’t agree to marry him, what would you want to do instead?
Lily: I guess just keep things as the already are.
Rose: And what if he doesn’t want to do that? You run the risk that if we won’t marry him, he’ll break up with us to find someone who will. Is that what you want to happen?
Lily: No, of course not!
Rose: Also, even if he proposes and you do agree, if he senses that you’re not all in, he could withdrawal the offer. And then what? Where are we going to find another guy as great as Nick? And even if we did, how would we keep from having the same thing happen again with him? So think long and hard about this now, before he asks, so that you’re ready if and when he does. And please keep in mind that your decision and the way you respond won’t just affect you; it’ll affect me just as much. Okay?
Lily: Yes, sister. I promise I’ll think about it.
I, Lily, knew I needed to get a handle on my irrational anxiety about commitment before I sabotaged my own life as well as Rose’s. I thought about getting into therapy, but I had concerns about doing that with Rose there hearing every word. As Rose said, being never able to get away from each other is sometimes a drawback to being conjoined. So I brainstormed to come up with another solution.
It occurred to me that it would help if I could practice hearing Nick propose to me and then responding. But I couldn’t very well ask him to record himself popping the question. Then I remembered that AI – artificial intelligence – could accurately mimic someone’s voice saying anything you wanted. All it needed was enough recordings of that person’s voice saying anything else. A co-worker named David dabbled in AI as a hobby, so the next day at work, we went to talk to him about it.
“How much audio do you need of someone’s voice for AI to be able to mimic it?” I asked him. “Actually, hardly any, but the more you have, the better the results,” he replied. We had a bunch of his voice messages on our phone, and David said he could work with that. We told him what we wanted. However, he said he would need to take our phone with him overnight in order to do it. So, at the end of day, we texted Nick to tell him we’d be without our phone and gave it to David. Nick, of course, was curious why we’d give our phone to someone, but we just vaguely told him David was going to use it to create something for us. When Nick kept asking questions, we simply said, “Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies,” and he dropped the subject.
The next day, David showed us what he had done. He really went above and beyond the call of duty. Not only did he create several audios that sounded like Nick proposing to Lily worded various ways, which we had asked for, but they were combined with videos that looked exactly like Nick actually speaking those words, which we had not asked for. We asked him how he did that. David said it was pretty easy to figure out which of the photos on our phone were of Nick, and the AI software did the rest.
Lily spent our lunch break playing the videos over and over again. Finally, after about 20 times, I, Rose, was becoming exasperated at this.
Rose: Lily, answer him already, for gosh sakes! The whole idea was to practice your response, not just endlessly listen to the question.
Lily: I’ll get there. Right now, I just want to get used to hearing the question.
Rose: When? You can’t do this when we’re home with Nick, you know.
Lily: Don’t rush me. It’s not like he’s going to propose to us tonight or anything.
What we didn’t realize, though, was how close Nick was to actually proposing to us. That very evening, Nick mentioned that his brother Mike and his family would be in town the weekend after next. Yes, that meant our “triplet” Ashley and adorable little Mia. No way could we accommodate them in our little one-bedroom apartment, so they’d be staying at a hotel, but they were coming to spend time with us. At the time, we didn’t think much of it, but it turned out it wasn’t a random visit.
I, Lily kept working on watching the AI video and trying to respond to it. I was at the point where I could answer affirmatively, but even I knew it sounded hesitant and tentative and very unconvincing. I, Rose, was going insane having to listen to the same proposals what seemed like thousands of time now, but I also knew Lily still needed lots of practice. So I suffered through it and tried to provide helpful suggestions, but at this rate, we’d be post-menopausal before she sounded convincing.
It was always a joy to see Ashley and Mia. We’d become really close with Ashley ever since she told us about her stillborn twin sister, and Mia, well, we could only hope for a child as cute as her. Mike’s okay, too. We’re glad he and Nick are close. They got into town late Friday evening, so we didn’t see them until Saturday.
Saturday, we all went out to breakfast together, and then Nick wanted to take us to a place in a nearby state park that had a three mile walking trail that led to a scenic overlook. This was kind of different, but it was a beautiful spring day, so we said, Why not? It took us a little more than an hour to get from the parking lot to the overlook. It was quite an impressive view, and certainly worth the hike. We took some photos, including a few group selfies with all six of us in it.
And then it happened. Just as we had all seen enough and were ready to head back to the car, Nick positions himself facing us and gets down on one knee. We knew that could only mean one thing. Each of our hands instinctively went up to cover our mouths as we fought back tears and tried to keep our composure. Mike was busy taking pics of us and Nick as Ashley and Mia looked on.
Nick then spoke to us. “It seems like the right time do to this, now that we have a way that the three of us can get married. The nearly two years we’ve been together have been the best times of my life, and I don’t want them to ever end.” Nick then focused his attention on me, Lily and took my hand. “Lily, I know how hard it is for you to make commitments, even when you really want to. I’m going to ask you a question, but you don’t have to answer right away. If you’re not ready to give an answer, I’ll come back to you. But I’m really hoping you can muster up the courage to do it today, while we’re all here at this beautiful place. Lily, will you marry me?”
I, Lily, was so overcome with emotion, I didn’t think I could get a word out if my life depended on it. I was literally that choked up. The countless times that I had watched fake Nick proposing to me paled in comparison to the real thing. But I wanted this more than anything in the world, and I was determined not to screw this up this time. I nodded my head enthusiastically, and managed to squeak out a “Yes.”
Nick had to ask, “Was that a ‘yes’?” and I nodded even harder still. “I’ll take it!” he said. Then Nick pulled out a beautiful engagement ring out of his pocket, slipped it on my finger. He stood up, and whispered in my ear, “Thank you for being so brave. You don’t know how much it means to me!” and we had a long passionate kiss.
Nick then got back down on his knee and addressed me, Rose. “Rose, will you marry me?” he said. “Yes, I will, gladly!” I, Rose replied with enthusiasm. Then Nick pulled out a second, identical ring and put it on my finger, and stood to kiss me. Our kiss was no less passionate than his with Lily.
Meanwhile, Mike, Ashley, and Mia were cheering and applauding with great enthusiasm. As soon as the kissing stopped, they came rushing over to us. Ashley and Mia both hugged us tightly, as girls will do, while Mike shook Nick’s hand and pounded him on the shoulder with his free hand, as guys will do, all while expressing their approval and congratulations. Then we switched places and Mike hugged us while Ashley and Mia hugged Nick.
Nick said to Lily, “Lily, you really surprised me by saying yes on the first asking. I was sure you weren’t going to be able to give me an answer the first time around. I wasn’t even confident you’d give me an answer today. I’m proud of you! You’ve really come a long way.
I, Rose, replied, “You have no idea how hard Lily has been working on being ready for this day. We figured it couldn’t be that far off. I’m proud of her, too, but I’m so glad I won’t have to listen to her incessantly practicing any more. I, Lily, replied, “Oh, you’ll still have to listen to me practicing, sister. Only now, I’ll be working on being able to say ‘I do’. I hope I’ll be able to do a better job with that, when the time comes, than I did today.” I, Rose hadn’t thought of that. I told her, “At least will you take a break before you start doing that, please?”
We were very pleased that Nick had gotten us each our own engagement ring. He had remembered that we had told him we always wanted him to think of us and treat us as two different individuals, and he obviously remembered that. Yes, it was twice the cost, but that’s to be expected if you’re going to get engaged to two girls, even if they’re in one body.