Trans Separations

Here's a poem I wrote some years back. It tracks my feelings at the time of the separations experienced as a trans woman. It's spoken word, inspired by the killing of two beautiful transgender souls in D.C. while sitting in their car.

TRANSSEPARATION

I am woman. My heart my being my spirit and soul seeing
Screaming from every pore for all to hear… I am woman!
Touch my soul and know the vision which after body revision
Remains the same. Taste my lips a woman’s lips softened by
Tears and years of caring and daring to be the same as that person
Who stares out through these weary eyes… So many sighs.

Tears of joy, and tears from indescribable heart break
Family torn asunder and former friends wonder and the loss
And hurt tearing away at ego but also taking pieces of my self along the way.
Is self truth always this brutal? And is it so dangerous
That we are killed and beaten and thrashed and trashed just for being who we are? Just the other day, two women like me shot over and over in their car.

Is the death of trans- cendental souls one more symbol of the fear of a privileged gender
afraid to surrender even a tiny vestige of it’s power and hold
Over the hearts and minds and possessions of fifty one percent of all of us?

In a world of patriarchy and privilege, I am woman. My state says it is so, my body says it is so.
My breasts, my skin, my vagina all proclaim I am woman.
When my beloved in sensual understanding and lips and hands ever more demanding,
She brings me confirmation, an oh so erotic demonstration of love with a woman.

My essence, my energy, my dreams, loving without bounds baring my soul …
A woman’s soul, complex and multilayered with dreams yet to be dared,
and hopes and loves and fears and scarred with loss untold
And yet still soft and yielding when heart touches heart
And becomes a piece of a larger universal woman centered moon empowered
Stream of conciousness that some call Goddess and others call Womyn’s space
And still others do not name but are empowered just the same.
Yes I am woman and I cry like a woman and my soul feels the sheer exuberance of being just exactly who I am.

But.. oh the sadness and heartbreak and heartache that comes with that word.
But… a conjunctive with repercussions in my soul and psyche that will remain always
A reminder of the price of self truth and the consequence of being.
I turn to my closest friends, those who love me the most where trust has been so freely shared.
My friends assure me.. You are so loved, so special, an energy of woman embodied.
Then the condition, the but in my life, the anguish of the soul, the difference that separates
Creates that chasm beyond which I cannot go.

Because of that abberation of birth, piece of unwanted undesired flesh
I will always be separated. My friends say meaning well I am sure
You are such a special person! I would love you no matter what or who you are!
No matter what or who you are. No matter what or who you are.
The words ring in my ear, a truth accepted but less desired than all other truths combined.

They clamor to explain. You are a woman, only different! I will never know first blood, or any menses for that matter
Never could I as a child bond with my girlfriends in the way they have done.
Until I could repair the wrong that dangled below I was the recipient of privilege… Different you know?
There was no first corsage or the date who never showed
There was no father-daughter dance or first romance… not that way anyhow.

Does it mean I am not a woman? Of course not! Just… DIFFERENT.
In a world where I was born “different” I remain now as then… different.
Oh I love my new life and the joy and love that comes from being this woman
At times makes my senses reel and my heart skip in enthusiastic glee for the woman who is me.
I find the love and strength and renewing spirit of womyn’s space Empowering, exhilarating, comforting, and transforming all at one time.

From one woman to another, we share our lives and our stories and our souls
And we do rituals and honor croning and maidenhood and motherhood as women have done
Throughout the expanse of life’s journey. Our tears and our laughter are offered before the Great Mother
Who smiles at our offerings with a gleam of delight.

But in those moments, those horrible wrenching moments when Difference rears it’s head, when the “But” comes to rule,
The arrow of despair pierces my heart and one more tear is offered from coffers that have no bottom.

My friends are excited! It's time for Michfest, a festival of women celebrating women
And being women and the ultimate in what women’s space is about.
A lover of women’s space and women’s music wishing to revel with my partner in this sacred space
I become different. I am not welcome to this space. And still another tear is shed as offering to Earth Mother.
I would not understand, I could not understand.. At Michigan I am not woman, but OTHER.

So it is in my walk of life. I am woman to most, other to some, non human to still others
Loved, hated, smiled at and reviled. Praised and hated, a source of confusion for many.
I do not understand it, some say. I do not want to understand it say others.

But life goes on and love goes on and hate and fear go on also.
To all who hope that my kind will disappear and those who revel in my difference
What we have not in common rather than what we do, I smile sweetly, and offer this simple reality:
I can only be me and you can only be you and we can be we or never
But my truth will remain, agree or complain, and from my truth you cannot sever
For in truth to self I have found truth in others and the same for love it is clear
To leave behind that which is me would leave me with nothing but fear.

My soul lives, and will beyond death and it is a beautiful soul prepared to love, prepared to live, prepared to dance .
If you dance with me, then we dance together, but if you cannot, I shall dance alone.

Jessica Wicks
Copyright August 26, 2002