Note: I use neutral they/ them pronouns when referring to Isabel Fall in this review as I am unsure of those they use.

I finally read I sexually identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall. It was unfortunately removed from this issue of Clarkesworld after an internet shit storm, but searching for it online you can find both the text and the original Clarkesworld podcast reading by Kate Baker, which is hosted on archive.org.

I'm not going to talk about the controversy too much, other than to say as Genderqueer Transfemme Bisexual Panromantic Lesbian, I am burdened with the knowledge that some of the people who hate and hurt us [LGBTQIA / GSRM folx] the most tragically are us, and that I genuinely cannot understand how anyone who actually read the story in their darkest imagination could ever truly perceive it as anything but genuine and respectful. I truly sympathise with anyone who was negatively effected by reading the title or the story itself (I am certain most reactions were simply due to the title). Dysphoria, internalised transphobia, and the stresses of living in an increasingly hostile world during a trans genocide are things I personally struggle with and wouldn't wish on anyone. However, the do not excuse anyone from dogpiling, harassing, and forcing a trans person to have their story taken down, out themselves, and disappear due to the sheer volume of hate and threatened violence.

So often when one waits so long to finally get their hands on something it cannot help but disappoint. I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter confounded this and blew away any expectations I might have had. While I have a propensity for being hyperbolic, I am stone cold sober when I say this is one of the single most unique and brilliant works of science fiction ever created. As a study and extrapolation on gender and the commodification and weaponisation of every aspect of the human experience, particularly the dehumanisation and exploitation of marginalised people and everything we have painstakingly fought for and built, including the minutia of our identities. This should be discussed in the same breath as any of the speculative science fiction luminaries like Phillip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, and Urusla K. le Guin, especially in discussion of gender, as with Le Guin's seminal The Left Hand of Darkness.

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is many things. At once, a reclamation of the semiotics of hate speech that are an empowering legacy of our communities from the pink triangles of Nazi concentration camps to terms like Queer and dyke. In this it is taking the bigoted 'One Joke' of transphobes that incorrectly asserts that being trans is simply making a decision on your identity and announcing it, exemplified by the only more hilarious with every repetition, "I identify as an attack helicopter", and actually taking a serious look at how this could be a gender identity. Quite frankly, gender contains infinitely more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the ignorant person's philosophy, and with xenogenders we are seeing people who experience and express their gender in innumerable ways that may be difficult for many to comprehend without an open mind and a little work, but most importantly allow people to better understand themselves.

We also see the POV character's relationship with themself and their gender now and before, and the circumstances that have influenced their identity. The way in which Fall translates emotion and sensation through aspects of an attack helicopter are not just beautifully illustrative, they are written with glorious evocative language that makes the esoteric absurdity wholly parsable. It is in this the sincerity and care is so explicit with a clear understanding and experience in the exploration and discussion of the facets of gender and individual experience.

It is a fascinating view on a unique relationship two people have with themselves, each other, their roles in the military, and the tools they operate. This complex and heartfelt relationship is both professional, personal, and facing potential upheaval with the different ways they relate to the horrific work they do, their rationales, and consciences.

It is also a wry, prescient look at the way the military uses previously 'unacceptable' identities and intersections of marginalisation as tools for recruitment and in aspects of propaganda and the sanitised image of the armed forces, as well as just being an incredibly well written sci-fi short story.

I absolutely adored finally reading/ hearing it and I am only more confused and miserable about the reaction this story and its author garnered. This truly is something special and the trauma suffered and phenomenal voice lost are victims of ignorance and hate that still infects out own communities. Just as those who don't and/ or refuse to comprehend our Queer and transness, everyone would do well to understand that one's own negative feelings, being upset or triggered, and/ or taking offence to something that doesn't contain harm, do not equate to something being bad and hateful. A subjective disagreement on taste and enjoyment should never lead to torch wielding and harassment (to be clear, call out bigots and explain the harm/ perception of harm in things, but don't reach right got the pitchforks without doing some critical thinking).

Wherever Isabel Fall is now, I wish them the very best, express my most sincere sympathise for everything they experienced, and wholeheartedly thank them for penning one of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and unique short stories every conceived. I truly believe this will become a fundamental text in gender studies, as the abuse that followed the publishing of it should be a stark reminder of mob mentality and the propensity for ignorance and harm is not something our own communities are free from. ( )

Fascinating, what a great way to take something meant as an insult and turn it into something great and different. Amazing insights and descriptions - not much of a plot though. ( )

Spring 2021 (April);

Another incredibly well-written, creepy, and sudden twist ending. I was so involved with this one. It was cat-and-mouse, guilt-leads-to-diaster, leads to even harder choices, thriller the whole way. I've loved Kritzter since I was a young wee thing, but this just exploded my love for her a million times wider. Both of her stories in the Hugo's this year were entirely different, but both were amazingly good.

Merged review:

Summer 2021 (June);
2021 Hugo Nominee

This is one of those stories with such an epic and histories background to how it hit the masses and caused a cannonball reaction through everything. While I feel it got a little overhyped due to that, I actually really liked all these different risky moves she took with it. I love all the commentary on gender, and what it is-isn't-might be throughout this story being the whole point of it. ( )

Only Read 2 so far:

Monster by Naomi Kritzer - 2*
Lots of jumping to the past. I see there are visual clues for the online story but when listening, you lose out on those clues.

There were things I liked about the story but mostly I didn't care for it. What I did like, was the friendship and that when you find out someone is a monster you don't ignore it, even if they are your best high school friend. What I didn't like was, what exactly were they doing? This scientific serum, experimentation? The cryptic clue from the depressed waitress. How exactly did she find him?

The Ancestral Temple in a Box by Chen Qiufan - 2*
I like the concept of the story but didn't necessarily enjoy the telling. It's important to carry family history into the future. It doesn't have to be carried in the "old ways", we can incorporate modern technology.
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This was the issue with I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall. Clarkesworld has taken it down with a note that you can read here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/fall_01_20/
It's futuristic Military Science Fiction. I guess it was her debut story and she was trying to take the power away from the meme of the same title.