(trigger warning for cissexism, erasure)

(also holy shit beautiful)

kiriamaya:

“What are you?”
I get asked this question
even when people know the answer
because it’s not the answer they want
because it’s not what they’re really asking

“What are you?”
The question is implicitly an attack
a way of denying my identity
of rescinding my right to my truth
because what I say I am
is not what they think I “really” am
and so they ask the question
because they’ve already decided the answer

“What are you?”
ask the insecure straight men
who are terrified of being “tricked”
of being something other than they thought
or of being perceived that way
and therefore facing punishment
from the very system they cling to

“What are you?”
ask the fundiegelicals
who tell me that “change is possible”
who think that they can “repair” me
by reminding me of God’s plan for me
as if they can read a divine being’s mind
and as if the creator of all the cosmos
would be as small-minded as them

“What are you?”
ask the TERFs
who feel threatened by us
who cling to the binary
somehow hoping that’ll destroy it
who are so wrapped up in theory
that they’ve long since forgotten
what that theory was for

“What are you?”
ask the self-styled skeptics
who think that having read some web sites
about reason and logical fallacies
gives them the right and the duty
to define my experiences for me

What am I, you ask?
Do you really want to know?

I’m a woman
I’m a human
I’m a monster
I’m a source of light
I love boundlessly
I viciously defend me and mine
and I break society by existing

What am I?
I’m the end of your binary world
No wonder you fear me

—

(C) 2011 Alyssa C. Smith. Non-commercial, verbatim copying and distribution of this poem is permitted, provided that this notice is preserved.