"Why do you do it, sir?" he asked. "I know you'd look after your own kind, that makes sense. But why do you do so much for transvestites, too?"
Doktor Hirschfeld looked away, as if ashamed. He seemed to be choosing his words. "If I'm being honest, Bertie, my reasons are quite selfish." He paused a moment, finally faced him. "Do you know about the canaries?"
"The little yellow songbirds?"
"For twenty years now, miners in Britain and America have taken cages of them down into the mines while they work, to detect carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is odorless, tasteless, cannot be seen. It'll also kill you in an instant. When a canary stopped singing, when it became ill or acted unusually, the workers would flee back aboveground. When we started using mustard gas during the War, their soldiers once again brought canaries when they tunneled."
Bertie did not know why he was telling him this, and he did not like being reminded about the mustard gas. "Why canaries? Why not another animal?"
He shrugged. "They were the most vulnerable."
Bertie waited for more, still not fully understanding.
"A country is only as strong as its most vulnerable people. And you, son, if you may forgive me for saying, are on the lowest rung of the ladder. You're a canary, Bertie. Transvestites are the canaries of the world. You know from our own library that bad people always go after transvestites first, no matter the country or culture. They are the first ones removed when an environment turns poisonous. What makes it more worrisome is you represent everything. You represent housing and job security and cess to healthcare. You represent workers' rights and voting rights and full stomachs and freedom. And perhaps most importantly of all, you represent the right to body and personhood. You represent a country not owning you, not using you however benefits a select few at the top. You represent a country of a people, not a country of the dominant. If transvestites are under attack, then the whole of the country is on the brink of destruction. If transvestites are cared for, the rest of us are cared for. You touch everything a strong society has to offer. We could work, we could eat, we could be healthy, we could live in safe homes, we could decline to fight in unnecessary wars. Our country would be honest. We would no longer be tricked. Our country would take care of us and we, in turn, would take care of our country. So as long as transvestites are okay, we know society is, too. That's why I'm here for you. Because I love my country."
"That's terrible, though," Bertie said. "Being forced into a cage to see if you die first."
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