+<p class="flower-break">⁕ ⁕ ⁕</p>
+
+A cis woman is testifying in court about a brutal rape that horrifically traumatized her. The rapist has since transitioned.
+
+"And then—" says the victim, reliving those awful moments, "and then, he took his erect penis—"
+
+"Objection!" says the defense lawyer. "The witness misgendering my client is prejudicial."
+
+"Sustained," says the judge. Then, to the victim: "_Her_ erect penis."
+
+"Wh—what?" says the victim.
+
+"You will refer to the defendant with the correct pronoun, or I'll hold you in contempt of court."
+
+"Oh. O–okay. And then she took her—" The victim breaks down crying. "I'm sorry, Your Honor; I can't do it. I'm under oath; I have to tell the story the way it happened to me. In my memories, the person who did those things to me was a man. A—"
+
+She hesistates, sobs a few more times. In this moment, almost more painful than the memories of the assault, she is very conscious of having never been to college. The judge and the defense lawyer are smarter and more educated than her, and they believe her rapist is now a woman. It had never made any sense to her—but how could she explain to an authority who she had no hope of out-arguing?
+
+"And by 'man', I mean—a male. The way I was raised, men—males—get called _he_ and _him_. If I say _she_, it doesn't feel true to the memory in my head. It—it feels like lying, Your Honor."
+
+The judge scoffs. "You are _ontologically_ confused," he sneers. "At age 13 I was programming on LambdaMOO where people had their choice of exotic pronouns and nobody thought anything of it," says the judge. "Denied."
+
+"O-okay," says the victim. She doesn't know what _ontologically_ means, or what a LambdaMOO is. "So then—then sh-she took her erect penis and she—"
+
+She breaks down crying again. "Your Honor, I can't! I can't do it! It's not true! It's not—" She senses that the judge will imply she's stupid for saying it's not true. She gropes for some way of explaining. "I mean—the Court allows people to testify in Spanish or Chinese with the help of a translator, right? Can't you treat my testimony like that? Let me say what happened to me in the words that seems true to me, even if the court does its business using words in a different way?"
+
+"You're in contempt," says the judge. "Baliff! Take her away!"
+
+<p class="flower-break">⁕ ⁕ ⁕</p>
+
+Not a sympathetic character? Not even a little bit?