Tag: representation

Secret Lady

This is a spoken word piece about my experiences growing up transmasculine. There are mentions of suicidality, sexual harassment, and rape culture.

When I grow up, I want to be a woman. I know I’ll be one someday. The older ladies told me that being a tomboy is just a phase, so don’t worry about not feeling like a “real girl,” because the girly stuff will come naturally someday. I am waiting for her to arise, the natural woman in me. The one who will throw away my comic books, sweep away my desire to be a boy with a delicately manicured hand, demolish my personality with a perfectly made-up smile. I am waiting to stop existing, to burst into flames and allow a beautiful, secret lady to rise from my ashes, like Jean Grey.

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The Cinderella Ideal and Tone Policing

Why do people expect each other (and themselves) to be saintlike in the face of abuse and oppression?

When I was growing up, I never saw any media that talked about ways to deal with abuse. Sometimes there might be a horror story about an abuse case on the news, but there was nothing about how to handle the experience yourself. The only example I had was the story of Cinderella.

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Seeking Humanity in Trans Stories

In my world literature class, we cover the Epic of Gilgamesh and Babylonian myth. My teacher talks about a being named Asushunamir. He uses the words “creature” and “hermaphrodite” to describe them. According to my teacher, Asushunamir was created to rescue the goddess Ishtar from the underworld. He says that because they were both male and female, they were considered “more than human” and therefore could enter the underworld safely, whereas mortal men and women could not.

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