RIP -A Poem For Leelah Alcorn
Do not tell me
that it gets better
when another one of my
people another one of
my sisters
and surely thousands of brothers
but this sister
who I didn’t even get the
chance to meet
this sister
whose blog I only knew about
thanks to her suicide note
this sister
whose parents can’t even respect
her pronouns after she is dead
they did not lose a son
they drove a daughter
their daughter
to end her life
and even after her body
is not yet cold in the ground
still call her son
your darling son died years ago
and now your daughter is dead too
and she isn’t coming back
this isn’t an accident
I know what suicide looks like
I have almost been a victim many times

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister is dead
and she is being misgendered
in the news articles and media

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when she
Leelah Alcorn
that is her name
was pushed to suicide by an
uncaring un-understanding world

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister is dead
and her parents still have the nerve
to beg for sympathy and call
her a boy
even after death

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when we are still killing ourselves
only to be written off as mere statistics
and gender-identity
sexuality in and of itself
still isn’t taught in schools

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister is dead
and I cannot attend her funeral
all I can do is write ****** poetry
and hope that she forgives me for not
being able to speak around the lump
in my throat

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when countless people that were
born in the wrong body
that do not fit the norms
will be misgendered at their funerals

Do not tell me
that it gets better
because the harsh reality is
that thousands of us will
live life in fear
drowning in a hopelessness
and sadness that nobody else knows
because not all of us have accepting
families and friends
and our suicides will be written off
as mere accidents
but nobody steps in front of
a semi on accident

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister died knowing
thinking knowing thinking knowing
that her parents didn’t love her
they loved their son
they will mourn their son
when it is their daughter that died
and she will never know a true mothers and fathers love

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when the harsh truth is that
if I do not change my name legally
I too will be
misgendered at my funeral

Do not tell me
that it will get better
when my sister is dead
unless you want to feel the wrath
of my transgender rage
over the injustice that is written across the scars on our wrists and signed on the dotted lines of our suicide notes

Do not tell me
that it will get better
because my sister died not
knowing that

I walk the halls and glance at everyone I see,
The girls who are hurrying to the bathroom to fix their makeup,
And the boys who check them out as they walk by.

Is there anyone else here who can't go to the bathroom, because I swear to God just the thought of it gives me a small panic attack.
Is there anyone else here who looks down and is disappointed everyday because I am small, chesty and my face is far too round.

I never check out the girls, nor do I run to the bathroom to fix myself,
I walk and look at how much I wish I was one of the guys,
Flat chested, tall, lean and not having to wake up 5 extra minutes to put on a binder.
Never hating that their voice along with their round face will have others calling them "She" for their whole life.

Never will they come home with aching ribs,
and feel the stab of being misgendered.
Never will they be told "but you still look like a girl,"
Even though you are trying so hard that you feel your mind wearing thin.
Why can't I just be what they want me to be?

Gender is a ****.
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 hope to begin 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 consciousness that somehow makes sense

And-see?
It’s getting away from me
I used to think gender was a binary
Male, female, *****, ******
Everything coincides so we all fit into this dichotomy
But that leaves no room for Alex who is sometimes Alex and other times Cassandra
Or Sasha who is somehow both at once
Or me who lays claim to no label, because all of them throw up a red light

There is one thing I do know as fact
Pronouns are not a privilege
They are a right

They, them, their:
Singular gender nonspecific pronouns
A customer came into the store today and bought twelve packs of gum
I didn't know what was on their mind, but
Maybe they wanted to kiss their lover full on the mouth while an orchestra of taste crescendoed around them
Caleb came into class today with two cupcakes
One for them and the other for their best friend who hadn’t shown up in two weeks
Claiming “She’ll be here today, don’t you worry”
And the rest of us lapsed into silence, knowing she was never coming back

She, her, hers
No longer will I suffer in silence as those I care most for
Call me something I am not
I am not your daughter, I am your child
I am not your sister, I am your sibling
I am not a girl
I am a nonbinary
I know it makes no sense
But if you just listen you might be able see
To escape the past tense
And start living in the future with me

No longer will we stay quiet
Duct tape over our mouths as we are locked behind closed doors
Buried beneath accusations of
Transtrender
Genderspecial
“You’re just pretending”
No longer will we stay silent
The wrong pronouns whipping our bodies into submission

It
Is not a pronoun
*******
Is not a compliment

You sit in the audience groaning
When will this queer shut up and go home
Isn’t it enough that we acknowledge your existence
But you don’t
I cannot count the times I have been misgendered
I cannot count the times I have 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
Schoolyard 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 exist
As you, the cis  in the front row
Realize
That your daughter at home
May not be your daughter
At all

I am a guy.
Just a guy.
Not an "ummm...technically."
or "biologically female."
Not: "used to be a girl",
"Thinks she's a guy",
"Doesn't dress like a boy",
"What she got between her legs?",
"Wears makeup",
"Doesn't pass"-

Gender norms literally **** people.

Every "I'm sorry" is just a peeling paint job
over an intercity wall,
no one really wants to look at,
or fix,
or admit to.

This is not a problem I brought on myself.
My gender is not a problem,
You are the problem.

I'm not running from what's inside me anymore,
I know what's inside me,
I've made peace with what's inside me
It's the same old, same old,
with a new set of words
you ******* can't wrap your tongues around.

I don't care if you slipped up,
Fix it.
I don't care if you didn't know I was a boy,
Fix it.
I don't care about your cis guilt, cis excuses, or cis ignorance
Fix it.

Because you don't know the age limit
not to be Emily anymore.
The hundreds of dollars it costs.
Every: "Hello Ladies",
every "Sorry Miss",
every "What can I do for you Ma'm",
every "You'll always be my niece-"
"My daughter",
"My girlfriend".

The cis questions,
cis answers,
cis stares,
cis disinterest in my ******* feelings.

I am not going to hold your hand
and politely explain to you that
I
AM
NOT
MY
GENITALS.
That's your job cis people.
Fix it.

Every misgendering is peeking through the veil
of how people really perceive you.
It's all just a game they play along
with in your presence.
Going along with a trance they think
you've put yourself in.

They don't really see you,
When all it takes is
changing a single word
in one ******* sentence.
That would be no inconvenience to them,
But makes or breaks the world to you.
Covering it up with a strained smile,
Lying that it's fine.

Is it even a question that over 70%
of trans people **** themselves,
as opposed to 1% of the general population.
It makes so much ******* sense to me.

Because trans means knowing
I will never be properly gendered by a stranger,
Unless I get a **** I don't ******* want.
Being trans is waking up everyday
with the guarantee you can not
use the bathrooms in public.

Can't be called a guy
Hearing: "Emmett? That's a weird girl's name."
Having people ignore you
When you're on the verge of tears
begging them not to see
your soft curves and small chest and skirt
as one big sign that says 'SHE'.

Then being told:
"It's not their fault,
people just don't know."
"You have to be more understanding,
more patient -
be nicer about it."

How 'bout applying that to yourself?
Don't tell me I have to be kinder
about being denied my identity everyday.
Don't tell me to shut up about a system
so ingrained in my brain
I still misgender myself.

It's gaslighting,
A society denying reality
And telling us we are the confused ones.
The crazy ones.
For veering outside these neat little boxes
ahem, cages
of made up rules
they've tried to lock us into.

The consequences are absolutely deadly.
Is it any question
That people bleed themselves dry
Get drunk, get high
just to escape it all?

Then get thrown into a 'health care system'
for attempted suicide,
get misgendered by the nurses and doctors
who ignore why they're there in the first place.
Then denied hormones for their
'mental instability'.

We are thrown into a world of glass ceilings
and imaginary borders
with all too real consequences.

Make no mistake,
We are not dangers to ourselves.
You absolutely put us here.

Blame it on whatever generation or
individual you want,
but we are all participating in cisnormativity
if you are not constantly unlearning.

If you equate genitals with gender,
Ask what the baby's going to be -
As if it ******* matters -
Don't think to ask pronouns and get it wrong,
See every character, every face on TV
that doesn't look like ours,
have everything catered
to the way you turned out to be,

That's privilege is our danger.
The gaps in judgement
and consideration for our situations
is where we live
and our destined to fall.

Because when someone hits you with a car
It doesn't matter of they didn't see  you,
didn't mean to,
have never done it before,
are the nicest person in the world -
They ****** up.
And it still hurts.

Sure, if they meant to
it would be worse,
But I'm through with this rhetoric
about intent.

Don't think this is too drastic a comparison,
Gender norms literally kills people.
Every mark of 'self-harm' on our arms
Is a scar society put there.
Every trans suicide is a ******.

The question isn't why
we are killing ourselves.
It's how the ****
are we still alive.

I almost don’t want to voice my opinion
because I like staying in the back of the mix
but it’s hard to do.
Straight from the mind, the mouth,
of a transgendered person,
this is honesty.
I know that there are a lot of people going on about the bathroom laws right now.
It’s ridiculous we even have to get to laws for bathrooms.
They’re for
elimination,
but it generally doesn’t stay at that.
Gossip, vomiting, crying, ****, ******, etc. Things you’ll most likely, in this century, find in the walls of bathrooms.
People are posting the meme, about the ******. Trying to mix it in with these laws.
A ******,
who is a man,
and someone who is transgender, don’t fall into the same category, and even if it’s made to better the judgement of hate and redirect the criticism of keeping transgender people in a specific bathroom,
don’t compare.
Because he is a male, he is a ******.
We are not the same.
Now, recently, people are posting about the mass shooting and connecting the two.
Saying how the last thing they want to hear about is how dangerous a transgender person is in bathroom now.
And they’re correct, because it’s always the last thing on my mind. I hate myself, so you don’t have to.
I have enough hate in me for myself so everyone can leave me be, knowing its strong enough.
I don’t want to be me, I don’t want to be like I am and I live with that everyday. I haven’t been able to make peace with myself and love myself, yet.
But I hope I can eventually.
I just wanted to put this out there, so people can see this side of things. From someone who is transgender.
The last thing on my mind in the bathroom is: you.
I do not want contact with anyone in there.
I fear you. I am scared to be there.
I feel threatened. I feel in danger, not you.
You should be ashamed to feel such resentment towards someone you don’t even know, because I am in the one in danger, not you.
I feel ashamed I am afraid of you and that is embarrassing to say,
but I am.
So don’t dare make it about your safety, because you are the last thing on my mind,
I promise you that.
Being misgendered, being *****, being beaten, being murdered, slandered, assaulted, accused, uncertain, hated, dehumanised, alone.
Fear.
These are what I am thinking about when all I have to do is ***, but all I wanted to have to do was get groceries.
Or get McDonald’s, get cat food, my car fixed, an outfit, take my husband lunch, take my daughter to the park, etc.
I have a family I love, very much.
So yeah, you are the last thing on my mind when I just have to use the bathroom, and don’t even want to need to use one in public because I am so afraid for my safety and wondering if this time, is going to be the last time I walk in one and don’t get to go home to my family because of who I am.
I am sure people have reasons to fear what they won’t know or understand,
but understand this.
I know you have your own fears and your own needs and expectations, but so do I.
Don’t fear me, in the bathroom, because my fear is actually greater than yours,
I promise you that.
And honestly, that is the last on my mind, anyway.
**I just have to ***.

There are days when my body doesn't
Support me doesn't
Hold me close and
Protect me.
These are the days that I am a clay figure
Molded by clumsy hands shaped
With curves where there should be flat
Planes where I exist to create a mask a
Persona of who I am who I want to be.
These are the days when I want to avoid
My reflection yet check it to make sure it
Matches what I want to see.
These are the days that my reflection Never matches what I want to see where
My insides twist in disgust and I want to
Crawl inside myself and hide from the
World. These are the days when I wake up
Two hours early to prepare to layer first Binder then undershirt then shirt then Shirt then sweatshirt then jacket because
The bulk makes my body a secret.
These are the days when my body is a
Secret that I never want to reveal when
My steps are unsure and my face is set to
Boy-mode.
These are the days that I watch guys and
Imitate them stealing their walks hoping
I'll steal their identities so I don't have to
Live in my own.
These are the days that my heart fissures
When I am called "her" when a pronoun
Becomes an insult and
These are the days that I wish my mind
Wasn't so dead-set against my happiness
That I could just feel "girl" that I could
Just pretend it away.
But these
Are the days that I fight hardest to be who I
Am and fight to educate others and
Imagine a day when I won't be misgendered or gendered at all.

I grew up hearing
Little miss this and
Little miss that
But I think there’s been a little mistake
A little misunderstanding
Like there’s something that they missed
Because certainly sir could replace the title of miss
And mister wouldn’t stir up a fuss
And I could still be me
Right?
Ever since I was little I took pride in the word tomboy
Not realizing the other labels that pride could be applied to
Because I spent my life being lied to
About what gender really means
And I’ve been starting to question and I’ve been starting to learn
That expectations aren’t everything
And when it comes to gender roles
I grew up just rolling with it
But recently realized that I don’t have to
And I’ve been coming up with different ways of coming out
But mostly I’ve just spent a lot of time thinking
About spectrums and pronouns and labels and orientation
About binders and binaries and identity versus expression
About the way that I never really minded the onslaught of
She
She
She
Shhhh…
He
Maybe he can fit just as well
Maybe she fits fine
Maybe I can be a daughter by day and a son by night
Maybe I can bypass the binary and angle towards androgyny
Or transcend transgender in term of ambiguity
Maybe I can be
Me
And maybe someday that will be enough
Because boy oh boy there are days that I do love being a girl
But what can you do when it’s a dog eat dog world
And you were born a cat?
Just a little bit more of a ***** than you were hoping for
In this world where facts are misconstrued
And your words are misinterpreted
And you’re feeling a little
Just a little… misgendered

When I was fifteen I listened to a religion teacher say
“Maybe” there should be a queer holocaust
and I pretended it didn’t hurt me,
the same way I pretended when she said
trans people mutilate their bodies by becoming who they are
when she misgendered Leelah Alcorn
when she called asexuals freaks of nature
when the other queer kid got sent to therapy
for having the audacity to even try to start a GSA
and suggesting that maybe everyone deserves to feel safe here
and my friends
think I’m overreacting
“It’s not a big deal!”
“Get over it!”
“Stop trying to be so special,
you should be expecting it at a Catholic school,
this is just what religion is like”
Is it?
Head down
Head down
Voices down,
you can get expelled for disagreeing with the archdiocese
Whisper in the hallway
about all the girls with pregnancy scares
who believed that
love
was the best contraceptive
Is that what Jose Gomez is teaching us?
No it doesn’t hurt
to watch my friends cry
about boys who yell “******”
down high school hallways
No it doesn’t hurt
when my friend asked me
“what would your kids even call you?”
No it doesn’t hurt
to be like this
Or at least
I can pretend it doesn’t

the funny thing is
when my mom was together with my dad
--like as a thing and he would
run to the pay phone across the street from where
he lived whenever his pager went off that
she was calling him--
his dad asked her is she was going to
give him a grandson
and my mom
being the person that she is
told me that she laughed and said maybe

the funny thing is
when i was born and the midwife
announced that i was a girl
my nan who had mistook my umbilical cord
for a ***** leaned over and asked
the midwife if they were sure

the funny thing is
my grandfather’s mother
she always thought that i was a boy
and yes i know that she had alzheimers
and was not all there
but now i feel like she was able to
see through my dresses and long hair
to the boy that i would one day be

the funny thing is
i was often mistaken for a boy as a child
and when that happened there was always
a little burst of warmth because yes
i was a boy
i looked like a boy
i felt like a boy
but no no no
silly girl they all would say

the funny thing is
when i first met my father’s father
my grandfather if you will
i was a lesbian
and in texas that isn’t a widely accepted thing
and i was told a lot during my two week visit
that i just hadn’t found the right man yet
and so now that i am a man
i wonder what they would tell me now

the funny thing is
i don’t have bottom dysphoria
have a ****** does not bother me
i like being able to comfortably ride a bike
and read ****** novels in public
without it being obvious that that is
what i am doing

the funny thing is
my grandfather’s mother
who we all called papa lucy
died before i realized that i wasn’t a girl
i had that terrifying revelation at seven
and though my memory is foggy
through much of my childhood
she passed a year or two prior to that
and no i do not mean it is funny that
she died because that is terrible and i loved
her with all my heart
but it is funny that she saw who it would take
me nine years to be
and i didn’t get to reintroduce myself to her
and tell her she was right

the funny thing is
now that i am a boy
i am near-constantly misgendered
and it seems that no amount of slouching
or wearing a binder under it feels like my
ribs are cracking with every breath
and wearing pronoun buttons on my sweatshirt
and bright rainbow beanie
is enough to make people see otherwise

but ****** i am a boy
and my nan thought i was a boy
and my papa lucy knew i was a boy
and i used to get mistaken for a boy
before i grew hips and ****
and despite all those things i am still
a boy and i always have been and i always
will be and the really not funny thing about that is that
people seem so eager to tell me i am wrong
and try to force me back into the box of
daughter and woman and mother and sister
and no i will not be those things
and it is not my fault that i live in this world
where they do not know what
a body other than theirs means and how terrifying it is
to realize you are not the girl you were raised as at such a
young age you do not have words to describe how you feel
and they do not know
and they will not know
until they shut their mouths and open their minds

so please do
before any more of my transgender brothers and sisters
have to die for your ignorance and hate and fear
because there is nothing funny about that

dear doctor crombie
rhymes with cranberry remember
that’s what you told me so that i
would remember your name
and you chuckled like that was
the most clever thing in the world
but all i cared about was getting the hell
out of the **** psychiatric ward because being
in that place made me want to try
and **** myself all over again
which is totally the opposite of
what i was hoping for when i agreed to be
admitted but i digress

because what stuck
with me more than the dismal room
i was put in that was either
as hot as hell-fire or freezing cold
to the point where i decided that i’d rather
be able to see my breath than be soaked in sweat
and your ******-*** joke
was the fact that on our first meeting
you told me that you thought my
coming out as transgender was
nothing more
than a diversion tactic

now dr. crombie
i want you to put yourself in my place
i was 16 years old
stimming and shaking as you stared me down
and then labeled me as nothing more than
a diversion tactic
and that crushed me
it had only been a few days since
i swallowed 40 trazodone and accepted
the fact that i would not be waking up again
and that was all you had to say to me
a diversion tactic
you pulled down the very core
of what i was in two words
and my god i hated you so much
in that moment

because dr. crombie
i had known i was not a girl
since i was 7 years old
and i held that inside me for 9 long years
that almost killed me
because *******
i knew that i wasn’t a girl for longer
than i had lived as a girl
and you just didn’t care
you took what i had given to you
laying myself out before you
because i was a scared
mentally ill teenager
that had just survived a
******* suicide attempt
and all you had to say
that my being transgender
was a diversion tactic

and even now
three years later
that still haunts me
the fact that you
a heterosexual cisgender male
born with a ***** and a flat chest
decided to chalk up my
9 years of hell to nothing more than
a diversion tactic

so dr. crombie
tell me what do you think
i was diverting from exactly
when i had willingly been admitted
to a sterile-smelling hellscape
where i was forced to relive
how i tried to forcibly end my life
every day in the ******* little therapy groups
that made me feel so much older and hollowed out

tell me doctor
what exactly was i diverting from
what was i trying to hide from and behind
by putting myself through the hell
of being near constantly dead-named
and misgendered and having to pay
up into the double digits just to change
my legal my deadname
and gender marker from an F to an M
and being told that i was technically still a girl
and being asked why i couldn’t just be a tomboy
a lesbian
a ****
a butch
why couldn’t i just be a girl huh
why did i have to be a boy

so tell me
dr. crombie
rhymes with cranberry
just what exactly was i
******* diverting from

I first knew I was transgender when I

was 12 and I looked down at my chest one day

and saw something other than a flat expanse

of skin staring back at me

and I wondered why

since I still really didn’t understand the difference

between boy and girl

why my ***** hadn’t come in yet



But that’s a lie

it wasn’t that sudden or dramatic

it happened earlier than that

but back then I didn’t even know

what transgender meant

all I knew that

when my friend and I were in the bath

and he pointed at his ***** and then asked

to see mine

I didn’t have anything to show

and I ran out of the bathroom

crying hot tears of jealousy



I didn’t know what transgender meant

until last year

and I was so happy because I had found a word

that described the tomboy haircut and the

scabby knees and the ripped jeans and the

worn out Chuck Taylor’s

besides it’s just a phase

you stupid silly girl



When I look down at my body

never naked

always fully clothed

because I look better in layers

and see the soft flesh sitting on my chest

the useless lumps that will never nourish a child

because I’m too afraid to bring a defenseless child into

this ****** up world

all I feel is hatred

and sadness

and a deep sense of longing to have nothing

but a flat chest

flatter than a binder can give me



Now I embrace this word

label myself because I have to

speak out and loudly correct people when they

use the wrong name and say she instead of he

because I am not a girl

I never have been

I was just born without the right genitalia

and I know that somebody would be able to

find my woman’s body beautiful

with the stretch marks

the scars

the fat and cellulite

but I do not find this cage beautiful

and all I want to do is break free

and maybe drink a fifth of *****



I do not look like a boy

but that is who I am inside

and one day I will pass as a boy

scarred cosmetic instead of statistic

a smile instead of a handful of pills

shirtless instead of new scars

flat chested without a binder

and maybe double digits



I will stand up straighter

no longer hunched over from the weight

of my shortcomings and insecurities

I will smile

and not just because I’m imagining my funeral

but not because I will be dead

but when the time comes

and I am laid to rest

two feet wide and six feet deep

I will not be misgendered

the wrong name will not be placed on my tombstone



And I still have bad days

when I want to relapse

and go back to the pills

but I just remind myself that I will

pass one day and I will no longer have

to tell my teachers

friends

counselors

therapists

strangers

my name and pronouns

they will look at me and assume boy

because I will be what my insides say

my light will finally shine through

and I am going to be around to see this

ugly butterfly break out of his cocoon

and greet the world with a smile

that will not be forced