I wasted the afternoon arguing with Bindel

[rozk]

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.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Was this wrt hormone blockers, by any chance?

[rozk.livejournal.com]

That's where the row started, but it kind of escalated and broadened as arguments with the theologically minded and quite stupid tend to.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i have a dearly loved one who transitioned when she was about forty. (we'd been lovers since before; i remember once talking about gender presentation, and telling her i thought she'd make a pretty girl. probably not a significant event really, but not a bad drop in the bucket to recollect.)

i can't decide whether to send her this or not. i don't know how cruel her youth was, and i'm not sure she remembers either. but thanks for sharing your experience this way anyway, and your thoughts on other folks' feelings upon reading it (which seems silly for me to ask, as she's *my* old friend and probably not someone you've ever even met! nevertheless...) sincerely solicited.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

My ooems are about my own experience but if other people find them useful as well as beautiful, that is a bonus as far as I am concerned.

[thedorkygirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing.

[johnrw.livejournal.com]

Stirred resonances of my school days too.

Though straight I also suffered those times and slurs.
I withdrew and learned to be content in my own space
My refuges were books and other worlds.
Yours is the harder path, to confront and challenge
Rather than to blend and fade.

Hang in there.

Stumbled in via Twitter, normally a lurker/observer

[thehiddenhamish.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Sorry you had to go through that, Roz.