Crowdfund Your New Citizen Body: A Performance

Seventeen duracast sheets (approx. DIN A5 size), with hand-enclawed notes, originally found in a container in Judit Körösvölgyi’s home studio alongside a variety of art supplies. From the Körösvölgyi estate. 

[1]

Permanent residency was easy if you’re not considering the lawyer fees—it was just paperwork, not this messy, biological _______ like citizenship

Not writing a whole memoir about this. But still need a better word.

[2]

You can’t go planetside without changing, but you can’t change without dozens of crystals, and you can’t get the crystals without convincing citizens to give them to you—it’s not precisely a trap,

[3]

You are supposed to swallow the crystals in silence, in seclusion;

(This has to go elsewhere. The explanation needs to be upfront. But need to be SPARSE)

[4]

Dear Sarah,

You have to understand I’m a performance artist. I’m not a person of words. I appreciate the offer of publication, and I understand you wish to leverage your connections as a form of atonement but

[5]

This has always been the way for the Ilman to grant citizenship. To descend planetside from the orbital stations where temporary and permanent residents reside

one needs to undergo the bodily changes necessary to withstand the high atmospheric pressure of the planet; 

[6]

Fortunately, citizens get free healthcare planetside, though I was in no shape to sign the paperwork we’d prepared. 

Fortunately, a councilman thought he could gain political capital by

Fortunately,

Fortunately,

(I’m not sure how to express that this was all about luck, still, with all my effort? Sarah, do you have an idea how to phrase this?)

[7]
Dear Sarah,

Thank you for your thoughtful and considered edits. I am sorry my responses take time; in addition to the duplication and transit delay, my writing process involves handwriting segments on duracast sheets and moving them around. This is what works for my brain, you have to understand. I’ll do my best to clarify “motivations”—yes, I did it for love. No, my beloved Hidiruy was also a naturalized citizen. She wasn’t born Ilman either. Yes, we wanted to stay together and this was our best option. Yes, the bodily changes are irreversible. Yes, Hidiruy helped with the performance. No,

[8]

I told Hidiruy, yes, I love you, but we’re going to do this my way. I’m not going to ask all my citizen friends one by one to exude crystals for me, quietly, in private. I don’t have very many citizen friends and you don’t either. They hang out with each other.

I’m going to be loud about this and if it shames people, so be it. I will shame people into helping.

—Sarah, I will not take out that line.

[9]

Paradoxically, it helped that the Ilman had no concept of crowdfunding; they do have a concept of shame.

[Put a better transition here!!]

Of course for it to work, I still needed to have some crystals to begin with, seeded by my rather few citizen friends, and Hidiruy’s. The grotesque display, the revolting human body changing into something more familiar would be more attention-grabbing than if it was presented in itself, alien, unfathomable.

—Sarah, I’m not sure if it’s clear that here I’m using irony, or rather, that I’m satirizing the more bigoted Ilmans’ views; I don’t actually consider the human body revolting, I really hope I don’t need to explain this to readers, but?? do I?? You know this better than I do.

[10]

As a performance artist I’m not phased by nudity. I just wanted to make sure that the place where we set up had a restroom I could use nearby, and then we were all set.

[11]

Dear Sarah,

Quickly & simply: the restroom had nothing to do with the performance, I just needed to pee from time to time, and Hidiruy couldn’t drag me far. I couldn’t walk unassisted for most of the duration.

Hoping this clears it up (I’m glad we’re nearing the finish line on these edits),

Judit.

[12]

I did ask for a public space use permit. It wouldn’t have done to have my entire setup torn down by police officers within the hour. Sometimes you do the small things appropriately so that you can do the large things strikingly, blatantly inappropriately.

Within the day the national scandal was in motion

[13]

The usual process: one gathers the crystals one by one, then consumes them all at once. (In seclusion.) This time: I, or rather Hidiruy taking on the role of my assistant, would ask passers-by to exude crystals for me, one each, which would lead to a more protracted period of bodily changes. I didn’t know how fast. It would depend on how rapidly people were shamed into producing a crystal for a stranger, on the spot. Going in, all I knew was that usually consciousness would be diminished during the transformation, but not absent altogether. 

[14]

No one knew how this would go. No one does this (really?)

[15]

My naked body on display, contorting, the bonesteel ridges growing ever so slowly. Blood trickling. I wondered how much blood I could afford to lose. Usually the process is ecstatic, but, drawn out like this, the new Ilman hormones could not compensate. Ecstasy, yes; also agony, the flipside. 

People stopped by to watch. 

[16]

I owe so much to Hidiruy, who had such a practiced patter, who was such a smooth presenter, talking people into this one small inconvenience for a stranger, and the crowds grew—Ilman news showed up the first night (me entirely nonverbal, barely aware of the shapes moving around me), interplanetary news the next morning (me a heap of misplaced muscles and bone plates). The Grand Popular Council planetside started debating the following afternoon. Before artificial night fell again, I had all the crystals I needed; but the slower process of change seemed to have ruined something, and I could not be roused.

[17]

I completed the transformation; I got my citizenship. Down here planetside, they’re still debating the rest.

© 2025 Bogi Takács

Bogi Takács (e/em/eir/emself or they pronouns) is a Hungarian Jewish author, an intersex trans person, and an immigrant to the US. E is a winner of the Lambda and the Hugo awards and a finalist for other awards like the Ignyte and the Locus. Bogi's latest book is Song of Spores from Broken Eye Books, and eir newest short story collection is Power to Yield and Other Stories. You can find Bogi on various social media like Bluesky or Patreon as bogiperson. If you liked this story, please do one small task to advocate for immigration reform in your area, if you can safely do so. If you cannot safely do so, the story is for you.