Do you know what it feels like when you’re invisible?
To the people that you have shared your life with
To know their love was insufficient, to permit them to notice your suffering.
That when the secrets failed and the truth is finally reveled
Their discomfort would not permit them to share in your happiness,
It’s a difficult thing to accept, that your death
Would have been a more acceptable outcome
That the unease of lifelong friends runs so deep
It will keep your name from passing their lips …
ever again
To be forced to accept the painful revelation
That their greatest fear is not for your survival
But for their own humiliation,
That now everyone will know and feel that they were complicit.
In your in your selfish gender transition
Do you know what it feels like to be visible?
To those who hate without compassion
Who glorify their violence without reason
Who would do you harm or deny your right to live your life
Whose loathing in kept in check only by the thinnest thread of civilization
A shield against such hate so thin as to be almost a wish
Fraying each day, barbarism becoming the new populism
So I stand to be seen, to show that I am human
To speak, that they might hear my voice, understand my existence
Some will listen, a few will understand, many will do neither
Some are enlightened, while others are emboldened in their hate
Whether they understand or remain steadfast in their ignorance,
Too many feel they are entitled to express their opinion,
About the worth as humans, of all transgender individuals
About our very right to existence
Some become emboldened in their hate at the very thought of our equality
Staking out their positions, immutable and indefensible
They believe that they can force us into invisibility
That through isolation, threats and violence
We will willingly renounce our reality.
This will not happen, not now, not ever
We will no longer debate our right to exist
We have always been here,
We will always be here.