I wasted the afternoon arguing with Bindel

in real time on Twitter, mostly about trans teenagers. And of course she told me all about the male privilege I grew up with - from her vast knowledge and experience of my life...

But we waste nothing, and poetry is a way of wasting nothing.

On My Male Privilege

My long thin skinny legs, arms without hair,
Nipples as large as eyes stared from my chest
the faintest curve of what might be a breast.
One day my classmates tied me to a chair

Went to the blackboard, picked up coloured chalks
rubbed blue above my eyes, red on my cheeks
and lips. The soreness stayed there for two weeks.
I'd often go for melancholy walks

out by the sewage farm and smell the shit
my life was then. Boys told me I was queer
hang me from windows, stand around and jeer
I was a freak a girl a thing an it.

How can I trust women who say I'm hot?
Those sneering voices tell me that I'm not.

(no subject)

Exploitation

She leaned lunged boozily. 'I'd love to fuck
except you were a guy. Suppose we did.
Could it be secret?' I went off and hid
in the disabled toilet. Out of luck

again. I liked her. Really. But her mates
would hate her. They'd read Raymond. She had too.
Two sweet-bummed baby dykes I knew
wanted me though, and took me out on dates

and slowly talked their ways into my bed.
One liked my shoulders, scratched them when we'd dance.
Left me. Would come back when each new romance
went sour. Most of her lovers wished me dead.

But not for being trans. And I got laid
instead of hated. Seemed like a fair trade.