This reminds me of Little Light's "The seam of skin and scales". I am not a poetry person, but good god did that rock me. I still read it at least once a year
I have this delightful mental image of Alfred Kinsey and Karl Bowman having apoplexies and furiously scribbling through this book while Louise Lawrence sits in the corner transcribing Petticoat Punishment erotica and laughing at them.
it was less that I was disgusted by being a man and more that the second I realized so much of what hurts me is that I had no interest in being a man and was trying to anyways that it suddenly became clear what I DID want.
one of the only wakeup nightmares ive ever had was a pretty mundane image of pudgy 40 year old male me at a country club just schmoozing. i wasnt even that unnerved, i was just curious why id have a horror response that strong. now i have some answers lmao.
As much as my transition was motivated by early childhood certainty that I was supposed to be a girl and a life lived among other women, a great difficulty to relate to the notion of manhood, has been a complimentary drive, even as I embody both experiences as a 3rd gender transfemme.
its interesting bc me saying my transition was a choice.. a choice between death and life made a few transsexuals very grumpy. In the end its kinda semantics but to me it was a choice. not an equal one, one taken out of necessity, but a choice that in the end liberated me
It’s definitely interesting to read this as a younger reader, as someone who largely transitioned into *girlhood* as opposed to womanhood. Gonna hold that thought until I’m deeper into the collection but it’s on my mind.
There’s whole discourse to be had about the Western invention of the child.
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Now more than ever. In *this political moment* more than ever.
It didn’t matter how much I was abused or raped, because no amount of coercive violence would make me actively participate in manhood.
Doesn’t mean I was a woman as a kid- I just.,, wasn’t much of anything.
Well, that's at least one thing I have in common with her.
I *refuse* it.
I didn't really have "I am supposed to be a girl" type of thoughts because, even to my prepubescent mind, that just seemed absurd.
But everything about being a man was ominous, repulsive, even. I consciously refused that role.
There’s whole discourse to be had about the Western invention of the child.