Transgender: 3 poems

transgender intro | 3 poems | Being bi-gendered

1. the naming of chairs
2. the xanith speaks: of singing
3. the berdache speaks: of becoming

1. the naming of chairs

let me introduce you to these chairs
that one's Doris. that one's Bill.
that one's Frederick. that one's Jill.
used to be Jamie. she was having problems then.
but she's much better now.
in fact she's doing very well thank you.
I often think of chairs.
- that one's Dolly, this one's John -
- and I think it's really sad
every one has their histories
but people just park their bums
without regard for the places that they're putting them
life can be so impersonal don't you think
so important to respect individuality.
that table's Janet.
the ceiling's name is Jim.
everything has a name, if you look out for it. and the names matter. they put a ring round things.
the wall's name is Paul
but close friends call her Mavis.
names are important, names are a defence
against an anonymous and faceless world.
Jennifer's the light bulb's name
But she used to be known as Robert. She hated that.
names can be a fortress
names can be a safe
but sometimes we get locked in them and then we lose the key.
the light-shades name is Richard
He used to be known as Paula.
It was horrible.
names can be a prison
names can be a bind

names can just confuse you
names can make you blind names can leave just not knowing who in the world you are.
don't ask me what I'm called
I don't have a name.
I lost it long ago.
it wasn't my real name anyway.
(I'm not a lightbulb. I'm not a chair) my real name's in the distance, over there
I don't know where:
it's not a place I know.
it's somewhere that I've never been,
but mean to go.

2. the xanith speaks: of singing

the betrothal
went according to plan.
or at least, according to tradition.

the men stood in their corner
and the women sat in theirs,
laughing.

the men played trumpets and drums
the women
sang.
each in their separate worlds.

the way ordained by god,
apparently.

"The ceremony went very well",
my mother said, smiling
bravely.
my father grunted and then looked away.

the betrothal over,
I knew that I had 20 days.
20 days to accomplish penetration
and I knew the wife's relations would insist on proof:
blood on the sheet, or
the bride's sworn word.

I was marked, I was doubted,
people whispered about me in corners.
I'd always taken a suspicious interest in jewellery.
and once, examining a pair of earrings, I hadn't quibbled over their value or their price. I'd held them up and said: how pretty.
and I could never learn to control my tears or take a pleasure in my body's strength
or ever ever ever
learn to tame a camel

and always, in all the gatherings,
men one side of the room, women the other,
the men blowing trumpets, the women singing,
I'd always longed to sing.

I had a lot to prove,
for otherwise
we'd have to give back the dowry
return all the wedding gifts. submit to public scandal. suffer family shame.

I began a course of exercises.
designed to strengthen and expand the prick, increase its penetrability, developed in america.
there was a cowboy on the cover
"Scientifically developed", it said, "By the finest minds of America The land of the cowboy"
That gave me confidence.
and I tried to imagine myself
taming horses corralling cattle punching bad men on the jaw.
it wasn't me,
somehow,
but I did my best.
if I failed I'd be forced to renounce my manhood,
cross the room in public to the women's side
become a xanith, object of derision
half a woman and
a less than man.

I did forty press ups every morning
I staggered about under enormous weights I stuck out my chest I jutted out my jaw I tried to develop a stubble
and I even (when no-one was looking, and absolutely on the sly)
had a go at strutting.

my arms ached, my face itched,
I coughed a lot,
I tripped up several hundred times,
and my prick stayed as limp as a wilted flower.

my wife just lay there.

I began to avoid my mother's anxious eye.
(my father had given up asking)

and it was day 16.
I was bathing my prick in coca cola
I was imagining it rock hard
and ramming it in like a raging stallion
or at least I was trying
and I thought:
this isn't me
this isn't me at all

and I looked at my wife
lying there, bored out of her mind
and I thought:
this isn't her either
why don't we talk?
and we talked.
we could talk
to one another,
though we weren't supposed to talk we could understand each other
though we weren't supposed to understand
and we built a bridge across the separate worlds.
and on the 20th night she said
I will swear
I will swear you penetrated me
swear it on the word of God

and I said:
but you'll be childless

and she said
I will bear that shame

and she swore
the very next day, before God and all the elders,
that I had fulfilled my marriage vows
and she solemnly held up the bloodied sheet
(she'd pricked my bum. I couldn't sit down for days)
My mother glowed with pride.
my father grunted
I could tell he wasn't taken in.
but they gave me my drum
to celebrate the bloodied sheet,
the triumph of my manhood.

I hated it.
Wretched thing
sticking up between my legs.
I was supposed to bash it joyously.
I tapped it nervously instead feeling an utter fraud
and I began to loathe my fellow men,
imprisoned in their public space
and suddenly I threw it down.
it clattered in the sudden silence
a weight fell from me, and I stood I would slide between the men's and women's worlds I would not be bound I would not pretend I would accept my shame and find my pride I walked across. I joined the women
and I began to sing

3. the berdache speaks: of becoming

So there I was sitting at my loom
weaving.
And this man came in. Distracted me. He was wearing trousers.
(These barbarians have no shame)
Watching me. Muttering under his breath.
Writing in a book.

"An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Native North Americans. Or Redskins.
It must be confessed that in these parts effeminacy and lewdness are carried to the greatest excess. Men are seen to wear the dress of women without a blush. And seen to so debase themselves as to perform those occupations peculiar to that sex. From this follows a corruption of morals past all expression."

He did seem a bit upset.
But I couldn't understand a word he was saying.

"These creatures are termed berdache.
From the French bardache. And the Italian bardascio. And the Spanish bardajo.
Meaning catamite.
The most degraded form of human life."

I was thirteen when my vision came.
my clan were hunters, yet
I could not dispatch the deer felled by the arrow
or the fish writhing on the river bank
my heart would twist with pity and my strength would fail me.
and I knew that on the war path I could never kill a man.
I longed to perform the tasks that women do:
sit at the loom, cast pots and cultivate the earth.
this troubled me.
I implored the spirits for guidance.

"They sit among the women and spin. They wear women's dress and ornaments.
Yet they are clearly men. And they sit and they spin and they have no shame. To report this strains credulity yet I must. For I have seen it. I have seen it with my eyes. And they have the effrontery to claim this all comes from I know not what principle of religion.
From this it can readily be seen this whole people are irredeemably debased."

The moon came to me
she came dressed in white
she held a bow and arrow in her right hand
in her left a woman's burden strap
one is the path of men
and the other is the woman's.
I understood this, I saw this clearly,
and a voice said: Choose.
my arm reached for the bow, as I'd been taught
but I reached for the burden strap with my heart.
when I looked down to see what I was holding in my hand
I saw it was the burden strap.
I had chosen women's ways
the spirits had approved my choice
and my heart was glad within me.
I went to the elders. I renounced men's clothes.
I wore women's dress and I performed the women's tasks
and my days of hiding were over.

"As Christians these are practices we can only abhor. We can only be grateful in our hearts that the truth has been vouchsafed us. And we can only pray for the strength to disseminate it.
To be sure, the Christian faith has much work to do amongst these dissolute people"

I weave blankets. I paint pictures in the sand.
I am honoured among my people.
I sleep with the warriors when they need solace
I sleep with the women when they need strength.
The women give me courage: the men give me tenderness.
Both give me pleasure and both give me joy.

"There is profound gender malfunction here"
- and now the man had a white coat on -
"a chronic confusion of gender roles.
We could offer surgery. Remove the genitals that cause you so much pain.
Give you classes in make up and deportment
Teach you to do your hair in a more becoming style.
So you look a little less conspicuous.
Frankly, just now, you don't look like a woman at all"

Why should I look like a woman? I am not a woman.

"Then learn to be a man"

I am not a man.
I am becoming! I am transformation! I am change!

"No this is all profoundly incorrect.
There is a universal human mind: and mind has to categorise.
There are categories of gender. You must belong to one of them.
You have to choose."

I have chosen. I am who I am.

But he would not hear me. He just babbled on.
About binary opposition and correct gender roles.

We were in the badlands then
A day's journey from the waterhole.
I offered to guide him, but he refused.
I had to leave him, in the barren sands,
under the open pitiless sky.

and there I left him. howling.

-1999