megaphone

highlighting and broadcasting the beautiful masterpieces of the trans & nonbinary community

[transmegaphone]

mama said that I was the devil, made this journey here a waste, made too American and too unruly couldn’t I just wear dresses, make money, and behave? mama said leave this house, her spirit broken by ache all my belongings freckled the streets I slept outside, spirit stayin’ up, my journey isn’t self-made

song for the kicked out by Kay Ulanday Barrett

[transmegaphone]

i don't understand what sort of memories i'm supposed to have. one where i didn't go with my boyfriend to the movies every friday, where i didn't waste my time looking at shoes or eating at el mesón? maybe one where i didn't lie to my family for years, faking i was the good daughter, or one where they don't tell me it's okay, as they step outside to water the plants.

memories of the good daughter by Raquel Salas Rivera

[transmegaphone]

If you’re the kind of person who wants to kill people like me, come here and take my life. Feel how hard it can be for how easy I have it: for the whiteness of my skin, for how I do not need to fuck someone who could kill me legally just to eat and make rent, and for how I tolerate so many misreadings and how those misreadings make me less interesting game for your hunt.

On the Murder of Junebats by John Elizabeth Stintzi

[lifeinpoetry]

I’m texting you in the middle of a writing workshop, in the middle of a pandemic, which stopped us from being together & Frank says the only thing to do is simply continue I do not want to continue without you.

— H. Melt, from “To Sylvie, to Frank,” There Are Trans People Here

[transmegaphone]

un [naming] / trans (After Golden) by angelic proof

[transmegaphone]

I am a ––––––––––––––––––[man] same suede black as their ––––––––––––––[durags] People ask me, –––––––––––––––––-–––––[boy?] & I answer with  ––––––––––––––––––––––[fists] My  ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––[friends] Cry, ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––[Kill-mo,] Prying the dirt from  –––––––––––––––––––[childrens’] buckled teeth ––––––––––––––––––––––––[again]

[X][Y] / [X][X] by Golden

[genderqueerpositivity]

Above is a poem titled “What Must Be” by Khalil F. Jordache, published in the April 1984 edition of Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis was an international newsletter for trans men.

The full text of the poem:

“In this world of bitterness I am sometimes found distressed As to my identity And the man I want to be.

Through the days I come and go And when they see me, they don’t know The thoughts which clamor in my head Most of which cannot be said.

Having what is feminine And being told that it’s a sin To want to be a man instead And from my femaleness to have fled.

I am waging war against What’s inside of me, and hence I’m confused beyond belief (And that’s the root of my grief).

To seem to be a female to The majority (who rules) When inside, I am a man And I know I’ll have to stand–

Steadfast–facing a great crowd Wearing my all-manly shroud There seems to be a large need for Courage now, if nothing more,

But I’ll take that stand, I know No longer can I now lay low And just merely pretend to be Something that won’t make me free.

I’m a man and I must prove That to those set in their groove Then, I’ll have the self respect To show my manly intellect.”

The full editon of the newsletter can viewed here:

http://digitalcollections.clga.ca/items/show/610

[transmegaphone]

My straight friends tease me because all my best friends are my ex loves, but a wise heart told me it’s the most tender part of queerness—how we’ve all lost so much family when we find people we call family, we’ll do almost anything to not let go.

First Love by Andrea Gibson

[transmegaphone]

The way that hunger kicks & is a living thing; The starvation carried in the stomach like a child; The diagram of the procedure; The body turned in on itself like a bloody glove; The pill that births this body into woman; The pill that murders the potential of a child; The body hollowed to a broken vessel;

Metaphors for My Body on the Examination Table by torrin a. greathouse

[transmegaphone]

Your nurse who calls this body Sir. Your doctor who calls it Ma’am. Your doctor who mistakes my breathing for sickness. Your doctor who lifts my shirt & loses my spine in the tight mangle of my back. I am always first the crookedness of my body.

On Examination/Dereliction by torrin a. greathouse

[transmegaphone]

[arabic the in as left to right from read be To] impossible are اسم/س like bodies are so + one having ugh what supposed i am fuck the day it with do to wake i day after try + it into up up way the all it fill to

name/s by Andrea Abi-Karam

[transmegaphone]

a father and his son lean their heads against one another, in their childhood home, only the father was always a myth in the making.

A Transition Like a Mexican Telenovela by Caleb T. Estrada

[transmegaphone]

possible rite of passage #37: graduating from outrunning the block’s dogs to outrunning the block’s police.

dogs! by Danez Smith

[transmegaphone]

A good person gives and asks for nothing in return. I give and I ask for only one thing— Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Bear the weight of my voice and don’t forget— things haunt. Things exist long after they are killed.

Things Haunt by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

[transmegaphone]

Their beauty is a razor. It disappears. My beauty, it blooms.

My Beauty, It Blooms by ALOK

[transmegaphone]

naming you I have found another way to send my body back in time to claim how she wants to be touched

What I really want to know is how rough, Melissa, by TC Tolbert

[transmegaphone]

“Views of Rome” by Lili Elbe, 1910

Elbe mainly painted landscapes and scenic views, while her wife Gerda Wegener primarily painted portraits and people such as Lili Elbe. Elbe was among the earliest recipients for gender reassignment surgery.

“The Danish Girl” was made in 2015 about the relationship between Elbe and Wegener before and after the gender reassignment surgery

https://www.wikiart.org/en/lili-elbe