Gender is a dick.
Now bear with me,
I don’t mean it in a bad way.
I mean it as gender is elusive,
Gender is tricky.
Maybe with my words I should be more picky,
But that’s not the point.
The point is
Gender is something I cannot even hope to understand.
Maybe gender is a universe,
And within it we are all stars.
Or maybe gender is an ocean,
Not quite the Dead Sea where everything floats.
And not quite everywhere else where everything sinks,
But somewhere in between,
And within it we are all jellyfish,
Trying to string together a coherent stream of conciousness
That somehow makes sense.
And-see?
It’s getting away from me.
I used to think gender was a binary,
Male, female, penis, vagina,
Everything coincides so we all fit into this dichotomy,
But that leaves no room for Alex,
Who is sometimes Alex and sometimes Cassandra,
Or Sasha who is both at once,
Or me, who lays claim to no gender at all.
There is one thing I do know as fact
Pronouns are not a privilege
They are a right
And we should respect them.
They, them, their;
Single gender nonspecific pronouns
I’m making a gift for my friend. They’ll be so excited!
Their parents gave them a new computer for Christmas.
She, her, hers;
No longer will I suffer in silence as those I care for most
Call me something I am not
I am not a girl
I am nonbinary
I know it makes no sense to you
But if you just listen
You might see how to
Escape the past tense
And start living in the future with me.
No longer will we stay quiet
Duct tape over mouths as we are tucked behind closet doors
Buried beneath accusations of
Transtrender
Genderspecial
Just pretending
No longer will we stay silent
The wrong pronouns whipping our bodies
Into submission.
It
Is not a pronoun
Fag
Is not a compliment
You sit in the audience groaning
When will this queer shut up, go home
Isn’t it enough that we acknowledged your existence?
But you don’t
I cannot count the times I have been misgendered
I cannot count the times I wanted to speak up but didn’t,
Knowing I would not be taken seriously.
Now I will not be silent until there are no more stories of
School yard oppression,
Trans suicides caused by a “lesson”.
I will scream myself hoarse until
Trans women can walk the streets in safety and
Bathroom means bathroom not
Execution.
Remember this
As we are forgotten by our cis siblings
As we are told we don’t belong
To the community we established
As we are told we don’t exist.
As you, the person reading this,
Realize your world isn’t as simple as it initially seemed.
