Trans is an identity
Imposed upon me
By society
And withheld from me
By community
Because I fit the mold
Of tomboy femininity,
The thing I was told I couldn't be
As a girl who likes girls,
"A trans girl is straight"
Who played with the boys,
"Cross gender playmates"
As if I was blind to the rules "innate"
To my home group,
That playing with girls
Was a sin.
I wished to be me,
Prayed and begged to be me,
But understood lies as the truth:
Fantasy
Is what they told me I was.
Who I am.
This woman before you,
She doesn't exist,
She can't exist,
We won't let her exist!
She's smart
And she's cute;
Just a sweet little girl!
Oh, she's not?
She's how old‽
She is not!
Babyface, bitch.
I get that a lot.
But acceptance out there
Breeds rejection at home.
Cis assumed doesn't stop
When you're in a queer zone.
Instead I get hate
For the type of harassment I face:
Ewphoria, they call it.
I don't like it;
I hate it,
Systemic pound of my flesh,
But these women would take it
To be seen.
But to see my face—
My face—
In the mirror
Will often mean I go unseen,
And now I have to be invited in to go home
To the people who said I could be me,
But assumed only to me
Or to those who could ignore my features:
Masculine, testosterone poisoning.
But I've always been fem.
When a month on with E,
I'm always called "ma'am".
And when the fear stops out there,
It ramps up in here.
"I can't believe how good you look!"
Because trans women don't?
"He did your boobs too?"
No, that's just how they grew.
"Oh, you just did them separately.
I went that way too."
Sweetheart, your pinky thin waist
Says I'm not like you.
I'm a curvy-ass bitch
Like my egg donor's crew.
"You didn't crossdress?"
I'm a tomboy; I wanted shirts in the pool,
But I've never liked skirts.
"Every trans girl I know wanted dresses..."
Thus second guesses come for me.
I'm told not to talk to newly hatched eggs,
That high hopes will kill them,
'Cause "nobody's that way."
That way.
The way I am.
I don't exist.
I can't exist.
I won't exist.
Yet here I am.
Finally seen in the mirror
And so, so invisible.