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"Why does Benjamin call you old man?" Quark asked.
"Because that's who I am," Jadzia replied. "I don't think anyone can dispute that I'm old, when you take all my memories into account, as you'd have to. And I'm as much a man as I am a woman, by the same reasoning."
"I can't pretend to know your history," Nerys started, and while the words could be headed somewhere harsh, the tone wasn't. It was just confused.
Jadzia cut her off with a laugh. "It's not that complicated. You studied trill physiology, right?"
Julian nodded. "It was a minor, but important, part of third-year studies."
"So do you think my hormone levels changed as a result of the symbiont?" She actually thought the graphs of the changes of hormone levels post-symbiont integration made for fascinating analysis, and she would love to get into a discussion of them, but that wasn't the conversation she was having right now, nor the conversation she knew he was interested in.
"Yes," Garak said, and Jadzia took a moment to wonder what made his voice so certain. He was right, though.
"And my concept of gender identity?" she said when she'd had that moment.
"I mean, you're clearly female," Nerys said, after a pause of her own.
"Why?" Jadzia asked. "Because I have breasts?"
Julian blushed. "You've never given any indication that you'd rather not be addressed as female," he said. "Would you?"
Jadzia shrugged. "Use what's comfortable for you. After all, there's a certain amount of the fact that any name, any set of pronouns, won't feel completely correct, because I have the memory of being someone else. If you call me Emony there will be a part of me who would be happy with that, but a larger part that wouldn't. Same thing if you refer to me as 'he'."
"You never talked about this before," Benjamin said, though he didn't sound hurt by her, or Curzon's, failure. Or to think that the omission meant he wasn't trusted.
"Curzon was very good at ignoring things that bothered him," Jadzia explained. "And I do think that this bothered him. Or things he thought really should bother him. Some hosts adjust better to the fact that they are both male and female than others."
"I guess I don't understand," Odo said. "If people treat you as female and you present yourself as female, then how aren't you?" he asked.
Jadzia considered her answer more carefully than she would if it were anyone but Odo, but came out with the same words in the end as she would have told anyone. "Because 'female' itself is a meaningless designation to me. It's just a word. It really doesn't color how I interact with other people. It probably affects how they interact with me, but every action I take is a different action than it would be if Audrid and Torias weren't talking to me. Because they are me. If Tobin's memories are affected by the fact that he was male prior to his joining, then so is his advice. Trill hosts don't absorb their past hosts' identities into them. They're all separate people, the current host is the one who's most like an amalgamation. Rather like you're an amalgamation of the rumors that surround you."
"That's an interesting way to put it," Garak said. "Not remotely accurate, of course. I'm no more than I present myself to be."
Jadzia snorted. "Well, I am. I mean. I guess it would help if I started at the beginning. Lela had no memories beyond her own self. When she had sex, even after she had the symbiont implanted, she had no one else's memories of sex to compare or consider. When she became pregnant, when she had morning sickness, it was the first time she experienced the sensation. She died, but her memories, her personality, her identity were all saved and implanted in Tobin. He was himself never pregnant, but he still knew what it was like, or would have been like. When my, his, wife got pregnant he was by her side, remembering what it was like. When he had sex he knew what it would have been like to have sex with different parts, in a different position. When he thought of himself sometimes he got Lela's thoughts instead. With every host the identity issues multiply, but at the same time they're easier to handle. By the time Curzon had the host, yes, he sometimes had times he'd expect to be menstruating, but he also had Torias' and Tobin's memories of having the same thing happen to them, and so it was less initially confusing. At the same time, he also had Emony's experiences of remembering being solely male."
"It sounds utterly fascinating," Nerys said.
"I don't even think of it as that," Jadzia replied. "It's just a part of who I am. I don't spend time cataloging any of their memories, they just are. The one thing that's important is that the host have a clear sense of who they are before being joined. Their identity will change, but it's important to have a stable starting base."
"Is that what happened to Joran?" Odo said.
"No," Jadzia said. "He had greater problems. That wasn't about confusion of identities at all."
"Are you ever afraid that you'll lose track of who you are, amongst everyone else?" Julian asked.
"Never," Jadzia said. "That's not really how it works. I am a joined trill, and have been for a now significant portion of my life. Part of who I am is being amongst everyone else. Being joined, having everyone's memories and identities is a large part of me. That's why we do it. Not for the promise of continuing to exist after this host dies, but for the reality of being more than who we were before. And that means I get their identities, mixed into my own. I can do what few others can, truly understand what it's like to be someone other than myself. I rather like it that way."
Nerys leaned back for a minute, considering her. "I'm glad you're happy," she said.
Jadzia smiled. "I definitely am. It might make my own sense of identity a little confused, but it would have been that even if I hadn't been joined. Being joined has been a part of trill culture for so long that it affects everyone. Since I am joined, that just means I understand the reasoning better than those who aren't do."
"Thanks for explaining it to me, old man," Benjamin said.
Jadzia smiled at him. "You already understood," she said.