Are we what happens when the cishet world dreams?
salt and magic and potential
Now, more than ever, is a great time to contribute to my ongoing For Trans Families, With Love anthology. It’s open for submissions, and I’m waiting for your art, your words, and your voice to be part of it. Please share this widely so that anyone who wants to participate can find the link.
Why are all the queers born to cishet families? As though we were created to defy. We, the black sheep, the square peg, the fifth wheel. Was it a joke? Was someone being funny when they designed us this way, to emerge so gorgeous and divine amongst such cotton gingham boringness? Such Martha Stewart basicness? Such gravy and potatoes and my-favorite-spice-is-salt-ness?
It's hilarious. It's a little sick. It's high drama. It's a soap opera. It's the ministry of silly walks. It is irony. It's foreboding. It's damn Shakespeare.
Hell, it's Shakespeare's Sister. No question about it, she was definitely queer.
How many times can a mirrored disco ball birth itself out from a hoo-hoo? Birthing is queer. I've done it. Twice. It was queer as hell. You're screaming and pissed and exhausted and suddenly, suddenly everything stops and the world is gorgeous, and you're hungry, and isn't that just a short description of a drag show?
But my mother. And my father. They were so straight-laced they sent the bottle of wine back home with the guest who brought it. And I am the child whose cord was cut from them? Flamboyant, magical, desperately divine me?
It's not fair, is what. We should all be born of one another, a collective exhalation of gay genes and trans chromosomes and bi, pan, omnisexual molecules coalescing, gyrating, dancing in the light of our elders and siblings, each generation a new donning of sequins and leather and courage and defiance. A miasma of incandescent, lustfully gorgeous poetry-made-flesh. A family.
But, alas, this Queer-From-Not (naught?) must happen for a reason. For cause. Justifiably. Measureably. Demonstrably.
A trial? No, for I am never judged by my peers.
A laugh? No, I am funny, hilarious, riotous. But my existence is not a punchline.
A rectification? No. We cannot fix so many wrongs.
A reunification? Closer. Warmer. Truer.
Potential.
Possibility.
Dreams.
Are we what happens when the cishet world dreams?
Elbows and knees pushing, punching, desperate for freedom and expressive voice, thrashing and wild, their hearts pump blood into our veins and we manifest as their most potent desires. We are their destiny. We are their art. We are their music, their poetry, their sculpture, their theater. We are the performance that drives them to tears before they collect themselves and go home to a midcentury modern house and a boring existence where our lines become afterthought.
And when they lay down in their 800-thread-count cotton sheets, they will dream us into the world once more.
Your trans friend,
Robin
Well, I was born of a closeted very queer dad and a mom in denial. I inherited a touch of his glitter, thank the goddess, and his queerness, and even though it was troubling because my folks cloaked themselves in a lie borne out of necessity, it definitely enhanced my life and informed my taste and sensibilities, and I am so "great"-ful! When my dad came out, it got a little easier for all of us. My little brother once said that even if he were queer, he would opt out because, and I quote "50% of the family is more than enough, thank you very much." I love that. He made me laugh.
This was simply beautiful, Robin. Sharing with my born-to-cis-het-parents sibkid.
Although, I am firmly of the belief that we are all much closer to gay/queer than many want to admit. Denial and Puritanism are powerful forces. What a shame to miss out on all the colors that life has to offer!