The Pawn
The press release on Jamie’s laptop screen glared at him, sharp black text on an otherwise blank page.
The Office of Legislative Integrity supports the Fair Spaces Act, which ensures safety and clarity in gender-specific spaces.
Jamie leaned back in his chair, his fingers drumming on the edge of the desk.
He knew why they’d picked him for this one. They always knew exactly what they were doing.
A trans man standing behind the podium, calmly explaining why the law wasn’t discriminatory but “practical.” That’s what Cheryl had said yesterday in the meeting. Practical solutions for public safety. Jamie had sat there, nodding while his stomach churned.
It wasn’t just bathrooms. The Fair Spaces Act gave the state legal powers to challenge trans people’s very presence in spaces defined by gender—locker rooms, schools, shelters, even jury pools. And enforcement? That had already started. Jamie had sat in meetings where “coordinated efforts” were discussed. Code for raids on advocacy centers and safe houses.
They didn’t need him to write the press release. They needed him to stand in front of a microphone and more importantly, a camera, to make it believable—even palatable. If he wasn’t fighting, why should anyone else?
Jamie’s pen spun between his fingers, the soft clicks breaking the silence. He told himself the same lie he always did: If I don’t do it, they’ll pick someone worse.
The truth was more bitter. They knew he understood exactly how they were using him. That’s why they chose him.
His hometown of Baltimore hadn’t been kind, but it had at least been honest.
Jamie could still smell the damp pavement after summer storms, fried fish sizzling in corner markets, and the diesel tang of exhaust from buses grinding down cracked streets. He’d been a shadow then, slipping through alleyways, his head down, shoulders hunched, trying to be invisible.
But the world always saw him, or at least the version of him they wanted to see. A girl. A girl who was too loud, too fast, too angry.
The memories were sharp as ever: the sting of his mother’s slap when she found his chest binder under his mattress, the taunts from boys on the basketball court, the aching burn inside of him after fights he’d barely won.
But then there were the moments that stayed with him for other reasons. The clinic on Howard Street, the first time he felt the sharp pinch of a needle delivering testosterone. The hum of the fridge in a safe house, where strangers gave him a bed and asked him what name he wanted on the list.
And Alondra.
She’d been tall, with cheekbones sharp as knives and lipstick that didn’t smudge, no matter how many hours she worked behind the deli counter. Jamie still remembered the way her voice dipped low when she talked to him, like she was giving him advice meant for his ears only.
“You’ve got a future, kid,” she’d told him once, leaning across the counter as she slid him a sandwich. “But don’t let them write it for you. You hear me?”
Jamie hadn’t seen her in years. He was too ashamed. He wondered what she’d think of him now, sitting in this office, letting them tell him who to be.
The phone rattled against the wood of his desk.
“Jamie,” Cheryl said, her voice brisk. “Where the hell are you? The presser starts in twenty.”
Jamie glanced at the clock. He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten.
“I’m coming,” he said, his voice tight.
He hung up without waiting for a response, staring at the press release one more time. He could see the invisible hands of the people who’d crafted it—their polished phrases, their carefully chosen words designed to mask the bill’s teeth.
Jamie knew the machine well enough now to see his place in it. He wasn’t just a pawn. He was a willing one.
He pushed back from the desk, his leather chair creaking under his weight, and grabbed his jacket.
The press conference room hummed with the quiet buzz of waiting. Jamie adjusted his tie, his fingers brushing the rough fabric as he stepped behind the podium. The microphone caught the sound of his breath as he exhaled, steady and practiced.
“We are committed to ensuring safety and clarity,” he began, his voice smooth and deliberate. “The Fair Spaces Act is a common-sense approach to maintaining the integrity of gender-specific spaces while respecting the concerns of all citizens.”
He kept his tone even, the words coming easily after hours of repetition. But his gaze drifted, scanning the faces in the crowd.
The reporters weren’t the ones watching him. It was the others.
The activists.
They stood scattered among the crowd, their faces tight with barely restrained fury. And then his eyes caught hers.
She couldn’t have been older than seventeen, her still-masculine cheekbones framed by tight braids. She stood still, her arms crossed, her eyes locked on Jamie with an intensity that made his chest ache.
Beside her, a trans man with a soft beard whispered something, but the girl didn’t flinch. Her gaze didn’t waver.
He felt their judgement. He felt his own betrayal. It seemed to threaten his very existence like a noose seeking a neck—the neck of a hypocrite—his neck!
Jamie’s hands tightened on the edges of the podium. He felt the girl’s eyes burning into him, peeling back the layers of a life he’d tried so hard to build.
Following the presser, Jamie refused to take questions. He abruptly left and made a beeline for the relative safety he felt behind the tinted glass of his Mercedes.
The parking garage smelled of concrete and gasoline. Jamie sat in his leather seat, gripping the wheel until his knuckles turned white—refusing to cry—refusing to feel. Failing in both refusals.
His phone buzzed on the seat beside him, the screen lighting up with a message. He stared at it for a long moment before picking it up.
Safe house in Alabama raided. Six arrested. Two injured.
Jamie’s chest felt heavy, like the air had thickened around him. He thought about the safe house he’d stayed at once, years ago. A place where no one asked questions, where no one made him feel like he had to explain himself.
He thought about the girl in the crowd, her sharp stare cutting through him. And then he thought about Alondra, her voice low and steady.
“Don’t let them write it for you.”
He started his car and headed uptown in the hopes that dinner at Tuvio’s would quiet his anxiety. It didn’t. Nor did the action movie he had tried to drown his brain in upon reaching the sanctuary of his apartment. When he took his nightly dose of HRT medications, for the first time ever, he felt ashamed—not of them but of himself. He had meant to do good and now he knew he just liked the pretty things their money bought him. He’d sold out and he knew it.
A woman in her 40s with long, prematurely gray hair and bags sagging under her glassy eyes was waiting for him outside his office the next morning.
She stepped in front of him as he approached, her hands trembling as she held out a photograph.
“My daughter,” she said, her voice shaking. “She trusted you. She thought you would fix things—from the inside.”
Jamie stopped cold.
The girl in the photo was young, her smile bright and unguarded, her curls wild. She looked so full of life it hurt.
“She was arrested in Jackson,” the mother continued, her voice breaking. “They said you knew.”
Jamie’s throat tightened. He muttered something he couldn’t hear himself and turned away, his legs moving before his mind caught up.
“You could’ve stopped this,” the mother said behind him.
“Stop what?” He asked, stopping to face her again. “I have no control over who police arrest.”
She held out her daughter’s picture again. “Look at her!” the woman insisted.
“She’s beautiful,” Jamie said, not knowing how else to respond.
“Yes she was.”
“Was?” Jamie replied.
“They threw her into gen pop in an all male jail holding cell,” the mother started.
Jamie froze.
“The other inmates beat her to death. They killed her!” The woman said. Tears began to flow freely down the her face which twisted into rage. “They killed my baby because people like you—people with power—people with a voice—you support them for money. You got yours so who cares about anyone else’s right to free expression, right?”
Jamie swallowed. He didn’t know how to respond, but he tried anyhow. “Ma’am, I —-“
The woman reached into her purse and pulled out something silvery grey—metal—A gun!
“This is your fault!” she screamed.
Jamie felt like the world moved in slow motion as the woman lifted the gun. He felt all the blood rush from his extremities as he anticipated what he assumed would come next.
It didn’t.
Instead of shooting him—as he assumed was coming, she lifted the muzzle of the weapon, shoved it into her own mouth, and pulled the trigger. Her lifeless body hit the ground before Jamie could even begin to process a response—the picture of her late daughter floating to the ground and landing in a puddling slick of blood.
Jamie threw up.
That night, Jamie sat in his apartment, his laptop glowing faintly in the dark. He considered again what he should do. Then he did it:
He didn’t quit his job. He didn’t go public with an admonition. That wasn’t enough—and there was certainly still time for that.
Instead, he logged into the encrypted server using Cheryl’s password. He had seen it on a sticky note once and always remembered it—although to this point he had never used it.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard before he started typing:
A short time later, he had what he was looking for— names of undercover agents, locations of planned raids, memos from meetings he’d sat silently through.
He copied the files as quickly as he could and then started a new email account in the hopes it might keep him from being caught before he could do more. Then he crafted a long due email to his old friend Alondra. She would know what to do.
When he hit Send, his hands were still trembling, but his breath came easier.
When the next raid came, the activists were ready.
That’s the night Jamie Washington stopped being their pawn.
Finally, the fight began.
Damn....this is a GREAT story.......you're amazing my friend