Poem of Transgression

I recently ran across a blog that had an ode to transgression. In this ode are listed many forms of transgression with the hope of appealing to people’s sentimentalities and including everyone within these acts of transgressions. The list also equates all of the transgressions as being equal in sociological disturbance; something rarely seen and a pleasant surprise.

According to John McGowan in Postmodernism and Its Critics, "The philosophical tradition, at least from Plato on, has always favored the same;" thus, to be different, especially in relation to the deeply embedded social notion of gender, is to be horrid. There is a lot of social pressure to be at peace with your gender, mostly meaning that you have to come to terms with society and what they view as your gender. Riki Wilchins makes this point well in Queer Theory, Gender Theory, “If people can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl, they feel uncomfortable and/or angry, and you feel humiliated and embarrassed." The linguistic devices keeping differential genders as a socially unacceptable reality also keep people from confronting them. "It's hard to rally people to a cause with which they're embarrassed to be associated" (Riki Wilchins, p. 26).

This ode speaks out to that:

I am the guy who came out to the entire school in his senior speech and got a standing ovation for his courage.

I am the girl who kisses her girlfriend on the sidewalk and laughs at those who glare.

We are the couple who planned and studied and got a damn good lawyer and BEAT the state that wanted to take our child away.

We are the ones who took martial arts classes and carry pepper spray and are just too dangerous to gay bash.

I am the transgender person who uses the bathroom that suits me, and demands that any complaining staff explain their complaint to my face in front of the entire restaurant -- and shares with my other trans friends which restaurants don't raise a stink.

I am the mother who told her lesbian daughter to invite her girlfriend over for dinner.

I am the father who punished his son for calling you a fag.

I am the preacher who told my congregation that love, not hate, is the definition of a true follower of God.

I am the girl who did not learn the meaning of "homosexual" until high school but never thought to question why two men might be kissing.

I am the woman who argues (quite loudly and vehemently) with the bigots who insist that you do not have the right to marry or raise children.

We are the high school class who agrees, unanimously, along with our teacher, that love should be all that matters.


If you agree, repost this. Do it. You don't have to be afraid. You can handle it. You're stronger than you think.

I am making a difference. Hate will not win

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jadedsaphire/59300.html?view=147620#t147620