L.G.

i know im a dyke because, today i listened to joan jett sing season of the witch on repeat like ten times while driving thru my favorite secret wooded road and by the end of the road, i was a river. why do so many trans people call themselves River? it's okay. we all have our ways. don’t need internalized transphobia infecting this poetry. i go to nature to remind my body that it itself is nature. perhaps that is why we call ourselves River Forest Tortuga Tree Star Bear Sky .may we remember we are living breathing things when we return to the world of the dead. the fairies remind us of this, cross dressing between the trees, i chop my titties off so the blood can rename me so the smoke of the memory of all the queer ancestors we never got to meet embraces us again and again andagain i hope one day our parents get to see what good stewards to the land we are. i hope they become proud of you and me. honoring. remembering. this body is a temple there could be a stone butch shortage today and if tomorrow was the last day, i’d get off my hormones in two seconds to remind y’all of the stoneness that made me into the man i am today. i hope my parents get to see and maybe be proud of me

L.

Wearing a mask is a political action I choose to take every day. Respiratory precautions are the biggest sign that someone gives a shit about me and my disabled kin. Fighting the eugenics targeting our communities has become my life's work. There is some anger and despair when I see other queer people act like Covid isn't still killing us. My trans self is entwined, intimately and inextricably, with my disabled self. The future requires that we adapt to new ways of being, changing bodies, changing landscapes. Disabled people will not be left behind. We know how the fuck to survive. As for me- I am loud, I am bright, I am here, and I will go down kicking and screaming and loving and hugging and creating.

C.L.

Girl’s Night. Don’t wear a v-neck, it makes your shoulders look big. You look cute in that dress, but I can see your bulge. Throw it out. Burn it. There aren’t women’s shoes in your size, so cram your feet in those size 11’s. Your feet will ache as your bones readjust, but it’s worth it. You’re not like most women in a lot of ways: you have big feet, big hands, big shoulders, a big brow, big jaw, big waist, small hips, facial hair and a penis. But at least you’re wearing women’s shoes. Start wearing short skirts. Make sure your nipples are visible underneath that crop top. If you still talk to your mom, she may say she’s worried about you getting raped. This is good. It means she sees you as a real woman! Youtube is a great place to learn how to do your makeup. Make bold cat eyes with liquid eyeliner to distract from your face. Use wipes to remove your makeup before bed. If you go into class with the stain of last night’s eyeliner your teacher will announce that you look like you got raped the night before. When he laughs after his silly joke, laugh along with him. It’s your duty to make those around you comfortable. If you’re attracted to women, don’t be. Cis women will wait until you’ve had sex a few times to confess that they’re straight. Trans women, however, will make you feel seen. They must be avoided at any cost. If that straight guy you met online wants to have sex, send him your address. When he sends a text to politely inform you that you’re a sinner and he wants to wallow in your blood, it's ok to swoon from the romance of your first death threat - just remember to lock your door. Don’t get discouraged when the straight boy you wait tables with says he’s not attracted to you. You’re not attractive, of course, but you once read a statistic that straight boys watch more trans porn (also see: shemale, tranny, ladyboy) than any other category. Pretend you’re not upset when he wears the shirt that a much-cuter-than-you bartender gave him. You don’t want to be unattractive and bitter, do you? Make sure your thong is visible when leaning into the computer to punch in orders. Feel free to give yourself a wedgie Say yes when he asks you to visit him in the hospital. Pack a board game to play with his family. Don’t be intimidated, you’ve met them already: you slept at his moms’s house a few times and you spent that day at the amusement park with his sister and his sister’s fiance. Remember? It was that sunny fall day when he walked faster than you to avoid being implicated in the stares you attract. When he thinks he’s having a seizure at work, follow him out to his dirty Ford Bronco with the crushed energy cans and empty tobacco tins on the floor. Let him take a swig of the plastic bottle of vodka between the seat and the center console. Stop him when he tries to take a second. Relent when he insists. It’s like he said: he’ll have a seizure if he doesn’t drink. He’ll start calling you more and more. This is good! You’re not tired of talking about his ex-girlfriend, or hearing about how trans women shouldn’t be in women’s sports, no way. Not tired of it at all. No siree. That’s right. Not tired. Not tired, not tired, not tired. Have I convinced you? Good. Now pick up the phone. When a trans girl gets murdered within earshot of your apartment, he’ll remind you that people get murdered all the time. Stop being so dramatic. If you tell him that trans girls get murdered at a higher rate than cis girls, he’ll do some research and tell you that actually, trans girls are more often the victims of violent crime. Not murder. It’s just like you to say something stupid like that. This is where you tell him that he’s a stupid, small-minded, bitter, spiteful, repressed, alcoholic, mama’s boy suburbanite who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. This is good. Classic banter. The kind of story you can tell your adopted children. When he explains how you’re wrong, hang up. Boys love it when you play hard to get. When writing a bio for an online dating profile, the first thing you should mention is your penis. Mention it twice just to be safe. Tell them whether or not you’re circumcised while you’re at it. Start going out to the local dive bar on Thursdays with a group of trans girls. Your bodies will recognize each other. The girls won’t get what you saw in that guy. He sounds horrible, they’ll tell you. Defend him - this is your future husband they’re talking about! When he calls you three times in one night, don’t answer. Eventually you’ll pick up the phone and he’ll tell you that you’re the most woman-y woman who ever woman’d. But not tonight. Tonight is girl’s night.

M.K.

This photo of me is from the summer of 2021, and is actually a restaging of a photo from the summer of 2017 with the same cat on the same farm. In the 2017 photo, I was only six months or so into gender transition, and was also still recovering from an eating disorder. In that photo I look (and was) very happy, but I was also extremely, unhealthily, skinny. I spent the years between when these photos were taken working on organic farms, connecting with nature and my body, eating well and working hard. In this photo I see how that connection to the land, and living authentically, healed me in the early years of my womanhood. I see it in the glow of sunshine in my skin and the healthy weight I was able to put on without judging myself or disciplining my body. I’ve come along way in the years since this photo was taken, and I had come along way to get here, and to me it represents an important signpost on the path of my life.

K.A.S. & E.

In Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions, Heavenly Blue feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. In his mind, the state of his family’s housing & financial & physical & mental security relies on his ability to take care of the rent, the food, the bills, the house, the street, the neighbors and everything else that comes up. He lives in a hard world where bad men make bad rules but his family has created a beautiful little corner- and its up to Heavenly Blue to keep that corner alive. Then- he looses it. He cries. He stares. He slobbers. Heavenly Blue cannot cope. But his family surrounds him. They take care of the rent, the food, the bills, the house, the street, the neighbors, and even take care of Heavenly Blue himself. And eventually Heavenly Blue is able to take care of them just the same. When I imagine my chosen family, I see us oscillating between Heavenly Blue at the beginning of story, the one who can take care of it all, the Heavenly Blue who breaks down, and the family that picks Heavenly Blue up. My friend Ellis taught me that we have to take turns. That when you get sad, I can delight in making you smile a little. That when I get hungry, you know just what to cook. I used to go visit Ellis at the hospital and sometimes they had fallen asleep. I would never wake them up. I’d eat my co-op salad and write while they snoozed. I’d leave long before their next nurse would shake them awake. When they did wake up, they’d read my note or my text. They’d know I had been there, that I’d thought of them, that I’d shown up. When Ellis died, my mind was taken over, by all the things I could have done. Now that months without them have passed, I find myself thinking of what we did do for each other and I am proud. Their dog, a little black chihuahua, escaped their harness and ran off into the dark night. And they forgave me. (We found him! No dogs were harmed in the making of this queer reflection!) They spilled chai on my laptop and broke it and I said, no worries! I’ll try and get one from work. I missed my bus and they bought me an expensive train ticket for the next day so I could see my family. This world can feel impossible. And the possibilities are ours to make.So give your friends cash if you have it. Clean out their depression fridge. Wash and detangle their hair. You have to show up where and when and how you can. Take care of each other for Heavenly Blue and Ellis’ sake.

C.K.

My experience and understanding of my queerness is - and maybe always has been - evolving. Shifting. Growing. I struggle with landing on a fixed identity or name. Queer is good enough. Maybe a better name would be, well… Call me a seed. Call me a tree. Call me its fruit and leaves and the dirt it comes From. Call Me roots. Call me the bird that nests in the tree, maybe and the bird’s shit that falls on the heads of people who are building concentration camps and giving hate foolish names like “Alligator Alcatraz” Wow, that got serious quickly. Here’s more: Don’t call Me by your name. (I started here, but now) I hate that idea. Don’t call Me by my name only call Me By my name - call me alive call me by the name of my ancestors and call me ancestor. A lot of paperwork asks me what my sex is. I say queer. They ask me my gender. Queer. Sexual orientation. Queer. Sexual Practices. Queer. Relationship structure: so queer. A long time ago, my queerness was something I tried to hide. I grew up next to a cornfield in a midwestern town in the nineties. I used to have nightmares that I’d go to hell. When I was a young adult, I slept with car keys in my hand. Just in case my parents found out and I had to run - fast. A lot of people knew before I did. I was pretty lucky (whatever lucky is). I got threatened with beatings at school (mostly empty threats), called slurs. I was teased a lot - and that was just about that. Queerness meant trying to be small and pain. Anyway, now? My experience of queerness is this: I like putting all kinds of people in my mouth. I guess I mean being queer now is being filthy? I guess I mean being queer means I’m deeply sexual And wholesome. It means fucking is spiritual and I can never ever get rid of my goodness. That maybe my transqueerboy pussy is giving birth to my own freedom. Now my experience of Queer is fuck you and I love you and I want all of us to live - to be fully alive. And so it means: Black Lives Matter Free Palestine This world is mean. So mine is the kind of queerness that likes to spit on cruelty. It is fierce and kind and it is the best thing about myself. When I am cruel To others and myself, my queer heart helps me face it (eventually) and I try to do better. Because the way I’ve lived queer, I’ve experienced cruelty from others. And I know that’s not where I’d like to live. My queerness loves me when I am petty and hard hearted. My queerness pushes me to do better - it is alchemy. My queerness isn’t a door - not an obstacle or closet. Now my experience of queerness isn’t hiding and fear. It has been my constant companion, a key. It carries me from one day to the next. It holds me in the present. It is a passageway. A guide. Something I used to try to hide has transformed my heart. And I know today my queerness is more anointed than anything I *ever* heard in church as a child. What is my relationship with my queerness? Today it is all blessing grown from the curses of other doctrines. It is a heart full of teeth.

E.M.

I often fear I have no great insight about the transgender experience. I don’t care nearly as much about my transness as I did ten years ago. It used to be so precious to me. Today I feel much more casual about it. I still don’t love being misgendered, but now I no longer feel personally attacked by simple misunderstandings. Even those who refuse to acknowledge the understanding I have of myself are now merely annoying, rather than wounding and destructive. I am solid. I am confident. I am whatever I am, regardless of others’ approval. I am no longer hopeful that certain others will come around- whatever that means. Hope is just peace on loan. And what is a loan if not a bet on future success? I am not a gambling man. I much prefer my peace bought wholesale- no strings attached. Unfortunately, the society I’ve found myself in has decided that war is more lucrative than peace and therefore buying it outright, even in small quantities, is nearly impossible. So as much as I distrust the idea of hope and optimism, I recognize its usefulness in a world as starving as ours. Still, I am very intentional about where I place something as scarce and valuable as hope. I was so hopeful about transitioning. I was convinced that it would solve all my problems. Instead, it cleared the mental fog that allowed me to see the problems I’d been ignoring. In many ways these newly revealed problems were worse. Several were scarier and a few were harder. My transness is now far down on the list of immediately relevant life circumstances. I don’t love talking about my transness- it’s not the most interesting thing about me anymore. It’s one reason that I’m not as interested in the trans community as I used to be. Another reason: I’ve found the trans community to be, at times, just as suffocating as the religion I was raised in. The difference now is that I can’t leave. I am part of this community whether I’m welcomed or not. That’s not to say I haven’t been welcomed. I feel extremely welcomed… until I disagree with someone. This experience parallels church in a way that sits in my chest and squeezes at my insides until I feel about three inches tall. It’s always been about expression. At first, I thought transitioning would be enough, but I soon found that I have a seemingly endless need for it. To create, expand, touch, and explore as far as possible beyond myself. This need is in direct contrast to the messages society has carved into the neural pathways of my brain- fit in, and don’t upset the cultural norms. This is a message that exists even within subcultures that upset the broadest norms. While I do agree with most of my trans peer’s political positions, I have found that many seem threatened by disagreement- I’m not. I’m threatened by suppression. I want more trans friends. I’d love to feel more connected to my community, but I have felt freer outside of it. If I express myself incorrectly, I can’t fully leave anymore. This was a terrifying realization, and according to my church-induced neural pathways, it was also inevitable that I would fuck it up. I found the answer by leaving mentally and socially instead. I didn’t fully disappear, but I didn’t connect either. When I was lonely and needed comfort, I didn’t find it where I thought I would. That broke something in my mind. This is a beautiful community; I love it dearly. And yet, fear has kept me from feeling fully a part of it. Still, my transness is as important to me as the color of my eyes. It is very much a part of me, though it’s not nearly as important as a vocal minority of assholes would have us believe. As I work to repair some of my brokenness, I dare say I have hope. I hope that I will find trans peers who similarly dislike the immediate defense and calling of the guards as soon as a disagreement arises. Of all the existing methods of conflict resolution, we as a group have chosen a very painful one; I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who recoils from it. I want something better for us. If we can’t be free to express ourselves in front of our own community, it gives strength to the groups working against us. It took many years to understand my need for expression as a spiritual trait inherent to the essence of me. In my growing awareness, peace has become easier to borrow, and the fear that once consumed me is blown back by breaths of expression. I have hope that as I continue to replace fear with expression, it will be the key to finding others who are doing the same thing.

J & C & D

J. I learned powerful habits of hiding, drifted away from connection, light and love. Told by nearly everyone if I got too close to what I was and what I wanted, it would cost all of these. So I grew believing I would deserve to lose them. False beliefs shaped me into reflexive hiding dressed up as truth, protective misdirection, sheltering distance. I learned to safely remove myself from others because to know me was to be harmed by some wrongness. But I love truth telling! Thrilled and joyful to be honest, I celebrate clarity and transparency, adore how speaking truths stiffens my spine! Declarations and unashamed directness gives me courage, and best of all I love how reality and honesty uplift other people. These contradictions needed resolution, because trying to hold them could harm even more people. I grieve sometimes, thinking about how brave I wasn’t. How I could say I was bisexual but not live it, how I could celebrate my children’s transitions while putting off my own. But after decades and tiny repeated efforts, I’ve built a practice of being myself. This had a cost: heartbreaks, material losses, discomfort, and a life mission to spend the rest being honest and direct without fail. The reward has been not just joy beyond measure, but access to all my feelings: sorrow, grief, confidence, love. I grew up in a time and place when queerness was forbidden, unspeakable, wholly other. I live now with ferocity and certainty, outspoken, wholly connected. It’s been family who lit my way: my partners, my chosen families, and most of all my children. They stepped into their queer trans lives with a courage and certainty that makes me sure we’ve broken the silence forevermore and I can’t wait to live the rest of our lives being exactly who we are. C. There’s no amount of my transness that can be separated from my family. Our identities feel intertwined, that in some capacity I would not be growing into the woman I am without them, even more so than I might be influenced in a more “standard” family. My transition would not be the same had I not seen the man my brother was becoming, the way that he came into his own and found himself is something that I will always look up to. My transition would not be the same if I didn’t have my father uplifting me onto her shoulders, sharing in my experience and helping me press onwards through it. My transition would not be the same if I didn’t have my mother to help me through hardship and pain, and if she did not similarly raise me higher as I found the footing of who I am. They’re fundamentally wired into who I am as a trans woman, to look at their impact on me in any other way feels disingenuous. I think that’s what trans joy is to me first and foremost. I’m extraordinary lucky to be given this life of unending support and care from everyone around me. It’s a constant reminder of what I’m fighting for when I act to try and be seen, and I hope to let that fire carry me on in life as I come to support others.

A.H.F.

I have a small space where you can sit down if you want to see me. It has no purpose, but that doesn't mean it can't matter. Those who call it insanity are afraid of how little they know about themselves. Those who treat it as absolution or revolutionary are full of guilt at not doing what they think is needed. Those who deride it as assimilation or capitulation are referring to the stories told about it, and not what it is. I am also afraid, and guilty, and concerned with the ability of stories to determine who lives and who dies, but I try to avoid letting my idea of myself be subsumed by these feelings. I didn't make the small space myself, in order to be special, though it wouldn't make me a bad person if I had. Other people made it, people who have never been inside. It opened up from the gaps between their belief and their perception. They looked twice at me, listened twice to me, not sure if I was a boy or a girl, and in that extra looking the small space was formed, unbeknownst to them but as real as any idea they were aware of believing in. Pockets of the space snap shut all the time when people decide they know for sure and stop wondering. But just as quickly, more people open new pockets as the rigging wires holding up the empire of common sense appear visible to them for just a moment. The space is delicate but it never dies. Please stop assuming I'm here temporarily! This is not just where someone rests before becoming real. It is not a cocoon. It has no purpose. I like to call it being agender. There is not a true or correct name for it, but please let me call it something.

B.M.

G.R.

E.H.

X.D.

I.H.

G.H.

U.

A.L.

M.M.