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​​POETRY AND WRITINGS

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WRITTEN BY TRANSGENDER PEOPLE

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Shouldn't need to feel lucky

By Eleanor Baker. 2022. Reprinted with permission.

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between the black nails 

and the seven-inch haircut,

between what feels like fresh air 

every time i tell you, 

i use she/they pronouns,

my parents know that if you feed me

an idea about the way

that i am supposed to be,

i am going to spit it out. 

 

they know, you see. 

they know, and they don’t

feel like they need to forgive me

for anything.

i am so, so lucky to have someone who accepts it.

 

do you hear me?

do you hear me?

i’m lucky.

i shouldn’t need to feel lucky. 

i shouldn’t need to feel like 

i’ve flipped a coin the right way, 

tossed salt the right way, 

prayed to angels the right way. 

coins are metal and salt is blood. 

luck 

is almost like 

a knife i’ve been handed, as a child.

 

i hear people saying, 

they told me that i was confused,

that i shouldn’t follow the fad, 

that god knows best 

and He made you to fit the format i 

want you to become,

 

more often than i hear, 

they told me they were happy for me,

and they respected me for who i am.

 

i shouldn’t need to feel like i’m lucky 

because everyone, 

everyone, 

should feel that way.

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___________________

 

Wrong body
By Elliot Matthew Drew

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You look at me.
And see her.
The person you’ve known all these years.
The person you watch grow up.
Into someone you thought you knew.
What if I told you, she was fully meant to be he.
See, I see him.
I see Elliot.
The little boy, turned teenager, turned adult.
Screaming to be released.
He has so much to offer to the world.
Love
Hope
Laughter.
Family.
Yet, y’all want me to keep that cage locked.
To leave the window locked and shut.
I can’t do that anymore.
To my family, I hope I still have your love.
My friends, I hope I have your support.
See unless you know what it’s like
To grow up knowing you’re different than your sisters.
To feel the same way as your brothers.
To feel like you’re in the wrong body.
You won’t understand.
That’s okay.
But please.
Don’t tell me it’s sin.
Don’t tell me you pray I find peace about it.
Because I have.
I’m accepting myself.
For the man I was created to be.
To no longer hide in the shadows.
To be afraid of what you will say.
To be afraid of rejection.
I’ve been rejected.
By you
By them.
By myself.
No more.
I matter.
My life matters.
Who I truly am matters.
I will no longer hide in the shadows.
No longer feel trapped.
In this body.

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___________________

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Growing pains

By Freddie Lewis.  Song lyrics.  Official Video.   (UK)

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When I was little I felt the weight of something bigger

Couldn't put my finger on it without feeling like it's on the trigger

Of a weapon I don't understand or even know the name of

But I was staring down the barrel of myself like a face-off

 

The mirror's looking at me funny

Flutter feeling in my tummy

How the hell do I become me?

 

When I grew taller I felt the weight grow with me

Like I was living in the suburbs but my home was in the city

It's a pity, cause I know that I'm pretty,

But in a way that never fit me like the dresses in my broken closet

It wasn't easy was it

Dwelling in a prison called my epidermis

Growing pains, but with a different kind of hurting

And the worst thing, is that when I see myself I'm looking twice

I know that I'm in there, but part of me's a poltergeist

From a different life That was never mine I find segments of myself a couple beats out of time

 

The mirror's looking at me funny

Flutter feeling in my tummy

How the hell do I become me?

The mirror's looking at me funny

Flutter feeling in my tummy

How the hell do I become me?

 

Then out the other side of the danger years wiping off my tears

With a nametag made of jetlag and my biggest fears

Whiplash, and dreaming of a mustache

I'm sitting on the bus back and I see it just like that

The rest of my days that were fading fast they start to flicker

A bright red light, I press play and I shake off the bitter

The kid in the mirror started smiling like I've never seen

And with the help of a prescription, and a self-love remedy he starts to look like me

Peel off the layers of pain and the heavy's subsiding

And the inside's less violent And the outside tells the truth, and the world can see it brighter

When I was little I felt the weight of something bigger but I've never felt lighter

And I'm a fighter, I will not give in

And I'm just lucky to be out here existing

In a flesh house of bones that I call home

No more growing pains 'cause I'm all grown

 

This is a poem for all the boys who cry in the mirror before they get in the shower

Or forget that being themselves is a superpower

One day things will look brighter

Your mind shines with truth and kindness

And you make your mum proud

You already teach others to love loud

One day the love you have for the inside of you

Will be matched when your gaze meets itself

In the reflective glass hung on the wall

And you'll catch your face in your hands and it'll feel like yours

One day your body will be your home

And you'll be everything you wanna be

And the boy in the mirror won't cry anymore

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___________________

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​A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender
By Lee Mokobe

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The first time I uttered a prayer was in a glass-stained cathedral.
I was kneeling long after the congregation was on its feet,
dip both hands into holy water,
trace the trinity across my chest,
my tiny body drooping like a question mark
all over the wooden pew.

I asked Jesus to fix me,
and when he did not answer
I befriended silence in the hopes that my sin would burn
and salve my mouth would dissolve like sugar on tongue,
but shame lingered as an aftertaste.
And in an attempt to reintroduce me to sanctity,
my mother told me of the miracle I was,
said I could grow up to be anything I want.

I decided to be a boy.
It was cute.
I had snapback, toothless grin,
used skinned knees as street cred,
played hide and seek with what was left of my goal.
I was it.

The winner to a game the other kids couldn’t play,
I was the mystery of an anatomy,
a question asked but not answered,
tightroping between awkward boy and apologetic girl,
and when I turned 12, the boy phase wasn’t deemed cute anymore.

It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts,
who reminded me that my kind of attitude would never bring a husband home,
that I exist for heterosexual marriage and child-bearing.
And I swallowed their insults along with their slurs.
Naturally, I did not come out of the closet.
The kids at my school opened it without my permission.
Called me by a name I did not recognize,
said “lesbian,”
but I was more boy than girl, more Ken than Barbie.

It had nothing to do with hating my body,
I just love it enough to let it go,
I treat it like a house,
and when your house is falling apart,
you do not evacuate,
you make it comfortable enough to house all your insides,
you make it pretty enough to invite guests over,
you make the floorboards strong enough to stand on.

My mother fears I have named myself after fading things.
As she counts the echoes left behind by Mya Hall, Leelah Alcorn, Blake Brockington.
She fears that I’ll die without a whisper,
that I’ll turn into “what a shame” conversations at the bus stop.
She claims I have turned myself into a mausoleum,
that I am a walking casket,
news headlines have turned my identity into a spectacle,
Bruce Jenner on everyone’s lips while the brutality of living in this body
becomes an asterisk at the bottom of equality pages.

No one ever thinks of us as human
because we are more ghost than flesh,
because people fear that my gender expression is a trick,
that it exists to be perverse,
that it ensnares them without their consent,
that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands
and once they have fed off my queer,
they’ll regurgitate all the parts they did not like.

They’ll put me back into the closet, hang me with all the other skeletons.
I will be the best attraction.
Can you see how easy it is to talk people into coffins,
to misspell their names on gravestones.

And people still wonder why there are boys rotting,
they go away in high school hallways
they are afraid of becoming another hashtag in a second
afraid of classroom discussions becoming like judgment day
and now oncoming traffic is embracing more transgender children than parents.

I wonder how long it will be
before the trans suicide notes start to feel redundant,
before we realize that our bodies become lessons about sin
way before we learn how to love them.

Like God didn’t save all this breath and mercy,
like my blood is not the wine that washed over Jesus’ feet.
My prayers are now getting stuck in my throat.
Maybe I am finally fixed,
maybe I just don’t care,
maybe God finally listened to my prayers.

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A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender
By Lee Mokobe. Ted Talk video. 2015.

Lee's Ted Talk reading their poem.
“ 'I was the mystery of an anatomy, a question asked but not answered,' says poet Lee Mokobe, a TED Fellow, in this gripping and poetic exploration of identity and transition. It’s a thoughtful reflection on bodies, and the meanings poured into them."

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E.S. Conway poetry website

E.S. is a transgender poet

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Girl Inside

By E.S. Conway.  1985.  (UK)

 

I felt once so deformed,

Unhappy in myself,

Wishing I chose another me,

From those upon the shelf.

 

But then I found the courage,

To listen to that voice,

that cherished little part of me,

She presented me a choice.

 

On the one hand there was death.

An end to all my pain.

But this was not a choice I'd make,

So I had to think again.

 

On the other was a secret,

A truth of which, if told,

Would open up my life,

To troubles, new and old.

 

But make a choice I did.

To tell and not to die,

Of the girl below the surface,

Inside the boy that is a lie.

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___________________

 

Inside Me

By E.S. Conway. 1985.  (UK)

 

Can you see the pain,

That lives behind my eyes

Can you hear the truth,

Through all my smiling lies,

Can you feel the torment,

My body causes me

I'm living for the day to come,

I can live with what I see.

If I smile and I seem strong,

I'm doing that for you,

But that doesn't mean,

It's not hell i'm going through.

My body is a prison,

It drains me every day,

So please don't dangle keys,

Then just take them away.

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___________________

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Ode To My Inny

By E.S. Conway. 1985.  (UK)

 

Once I had an outy

(A penis some might say)

A vagina growing outward

It developed the wrong way

 

So after many years

When it all became too much

I decided to have it changed

To something I can’t clutch

 

Now I’m not being dirty

And don’t think of me as rude

We’re not talking Masturbation

Or anything so crude

 

I just wanted my little outy

To be inverted as was right

To change that blasted willy

Into something out of sight.

 

So my outy became an inny

(Or “vagina” you could say)

And that inny is my pride and joy

I clean it every day.

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___________________

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​​PC Me

By E.S. Conway. 1985. (UK)

 

1985, child 2.0

Which model will they get?

Even they don't know.

 

Still 1985, they think it's boy V 1

The hardware's there, it seems to work.

How could they be wrong?

 

1990, new programs galore.

but something’s not right,

The system seems flawed.

 

The year 2000, new info acquired,

A mistake is acknowledged,

New update required.

 

No update is found, now 20 05

The system is learning,

But it's barely alive.

 

Now 2010, the problem is known,

Analysis complete,

Hardware Unknown.

 

20 14, hardware is through,

Wrong software on system,

It’s girl Version 2.

 

20 15, let the update begin,

Transition in progress,

It starts from within.

 

20 16, and now moving on.

System repaired,

Wrong hardware is gone.

 

Into the future, and all that it holds,

This is my story,

The rest yet untold.

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___________________

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​​​Take It

By E.S. Conway. 1985.  (UK)

 

I beg of you, give me hope,

Give me strength to carry on.

Take away the pain I feel.

Take it back, make it gone.

 

Take away the daily shame,

The anguish which I bare.

Take the part that is not me,

That I never wanted there.

 

Give me courage in myself,

Remind me to be me.

Tell me to stand tall and proud,

For life is long, and I am free.

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WRITTEN BY PARENTS

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