Learning to Say Transgender

 

Sometimes a word stops the ear
more effectively than an explosion.

Sometimes a word is a stone,
kicked aside by the heavy feet of the APA
and the policy committee on Family Values.

And sometimes a word is a land, foreign, alien,
you’ve heard about but would never visit,
until someone you love and trust travels there,
writes back with news.

Years ago, when I received the letter,
I packed without much planning, got my papers in order,
passed through the checkpoint and entered the country
where my daughter became my son.

It’s a country not unlike my own.
Bad weather and fare. Sorrow and joy,
bondings that sparkle and last,
others that burnout.

And it’s not at all like mine. It’s an exclave: enclosed
by passive territory with belligerent borders,
subjected to a thousand small aggressions,
too, occasional raids, shots fired,
frothing: Thing! Abomination!

And here, you can point to a shunt in time
when I, common evangelical Christian,
carried the conviction
that transgender was a pathology in need of a cure:
plain as Genesis, passage and verse.

And sometimes I wonder,
had I never known someone from that queer country,
and had retained my fundamentalist visa,
if my mind, dear God, my heart, would have been dislodged.
Mr. Berg, be not quick to gavel your verdict over this crowd.

And yet, and yet, disorder? Dear queerphobic-history,
how many precious lives,
long before Stonewall’s rising,
and tearfully long after,
have been pulled up by their roots
and cast on a heap at the fringe of humanity?

Consider the grace we cisgender take for granted,
which we count not as grace, but as nature;
how is it we disgrace Nature
by withholding it from others?

Consider too, since we all receive our selves
through the eyes of others,
what befalls a soul when so many eyes are averted.

I write this as an offering, a witness,
to the particular gifts of queerness.
I write as personal testament
that it takes no exceptional intelligence,
to see, when those of non-binary desire,
of gender fluidity,
are simply afforded the dignity
of abiding by their own identity,
we all flourish.

And sometimes (not only in June),
a word should be celebrated.

 

28 Comments

  1. As usual, Stephen, you go unflinchingly to the heart of the matter and come out better on the other side.

  2. To you my friend,
    This bit of beautiful –

    “And sometimes a word is a land, foreign, alien,
    you’ve heard about but would never visit,
    until someone you love and trust travels there,
    writes back with news.”

    – has today, broken my heart
    OPEN
    in the most wonderful way.
    Bless you my friend ?

    1. Thank you for this Pamela! So lovely to see your name and be reminded of your own kindness and thoughtfulness, and gentle and musical way of moving through the world.

  3. Steve your words never fail to disarm and gently lead your reader. Thank you for being a trailblazer who tells the stories we need to hear.

  4. So beautiful and moving, Steve. This poem lingered with me throughout the day after I read it, and I’ve come back to encounter your powerful words again. Thank you!

  5. Thanks, Steve, masterfully described. Great pic at the top of this! I still recall the great comfort those two were when our Garry died. I read something recently that had me reflect on the “and” in the biblical “male and female.” Might it suggest a spectrum rather than a binary?

  6. Stephen, This is so insightful and powerful. Just yesterday at work, triggered by a rather unenlightened email request from a board member, a small team of administrators began talking about how important it is for us to sit down with and get to know someone of a different race, ethnic group, or country or someone who is at a different place along the gender spectrum. I think your writing can help us along our individual and collective journeys of being not only better allies, but better human beings.

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