I. The Weathering Hypothesis & Allostatic Load

I learned some time ago about something called the ‘weathering hypothesis’, a phenomenon proposed by Arline T. Geronimus, ScD , after she learned that young Black women had better pregnancy outcomes in their late teens than in their mid-twenties. By contrast, she found white women faced the lowest risk of pregnancy complications in their mid-twenties and the highest risk in their teens. It was then theorized that this was due to premature aging in Black women brought on by disproportionate amounts of something called allostatic load – the physiological burden of constant adaptation to stressors. Or, put differently, the wear and tear put on someone who is multiply marginalized and thus, suffering from constant stressors with little to no relief.

I read more about it because I was trying to find resources for getting out of burnout. This was at least two years ago now. I still haven’t gotten anywhere near out of burnout. In fact, I think it’s worse than it’s ever been. But I’m learning something – allostatic load is not unintentional. It is not by some odd chance I am suffering from such grand wear and tear from existing, from surviving, and it is not choices I have made that have landed me in circumstances where I am in perpetual burnout in spite of having a fairly decent (very scattered, also tired) support network. Society has crafted itself to place me in this position, I didn’t ask to be in it. I was born Black, I was born intersex, I did not ask for the medical procedures that have led to disability. This is the hand I was dealt. I think I’m finally realizing that hard work isn’t going to fix things, and that if I don’t give myself a fucking break I’m gonna croak in my 40’s.

It sounds bleak, but it’s not far-fetched. The science and data backs me up, even though I don’t take science and data as inherent truths, as data can be skewed or biased or inaccurate for any number of reasons. But for some reason when it comes to things like what Black femmes have to say about how we move through and exist and are treated in this world, it’s better to have the stats to back it up. I’m used to people refuting these things. I’m used to people treating me like my life has been a ride in the sunshine. Usually because I stopped giving them what they wanted or needed from me. I am far from the only Black femme to have that experience.

“African American women have reported racial discrimination as a particularly salient form of psychosocial stress. Specifically, experiences of racial discrimination, especially those experienced early in life, have been described as pivotal to their understanding of themselves in relation to the broader social world––that is, stigmatized, stereotyped, excluded, and devalued.”1

Stigmatized, stereotyped, excluded, devalued. Story of my fucking life. Story of our fucking life, I guess. I’ve realized that even when I give myself time to ‘rest’ i am constantly doing something called ‘invisible labor’ – I am always working harder to prove myself in periods of rest so that I do not have resources stripped from me in the event that my rest is perceived as laziness, I am always anticipating future threats, I suppress my emotions, I am constantly code-switching – especially in my interactions with white people.

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I’ve realized that the combination of all these things has meant that I don’t really know how to rest. There’s always something weighing on me, and the body is keeping the score. I wake up every night in intense pain, usually in my back and my neck and shoulders and hips. I have nightmares where I wake up screaming, scaring my partner out of her slumber. I feel so much guilt for it when that happens. She doesn’t make me feel guilty, but I feel it. I don’t really know how to rest, but I’m trying to figure out how. If I don’t, I’m going to miss out on a lot. I think I have potential. I think I have so many wonderful things to say, to share, to experience. But I don’t know if I’m going to get there at this rate, if I keep existing in this state of half/unrest. Trying to outrun the allostatic load monster feels impossible. But I guess this is a start. Acknowledging I can’t bootstrap myself out of these circumstances, and not allowing the world to grind me down when I do what I need to do to keep going.

II. What Would a White Woman Do

I’ve always had a lot of white friends, not by choice, it’s just the way things have shaken out for me. I don’t prioritize white people in my life, but plenty exist within it by nature of the spaces i’ve inhabited and the places i’ve lived. Growing up I used to constantly wish that I was a white girl. I thought for a really long time that it was strictly due to internalized antiblackness, brought on and reinforced by the deeply antiblack society in which I was raised, increased by my proximity to white people. I’ve realized over time that it’s as simple as that, and also a lot more complicated.

I couldn’t articulate what I used to witness all the time, what I am still witnessing all the time, the ways that white women, white femmes are treated in comparison to how I was treated by the same people in the same spaces, even spaces that claimed to center people like me. It’s the way I’ve noticed that white girls get to be lazy. They’re princesses, or they’re NEETgirls (/pos, often self-identified). I don’t think I know any lazy Black women, trans, cis, able bodied, disabled, femme or butch, nonbinary, agender. Nothing. And as much as I despise my mother, I don't think I ever saw her stop working either. It’s hard to move through liberal/left spaces that pretend to prioritize Black women, Black femmes, Black transfems, Black marginalized genders – but still, the most prominent voices, the most resourced, the most stable among us are white women, white femmes, white people with a marginalized gender or sexuality.

I don’t blame myself and internalized antiblackness for the ‘I wish I was a white girl’ thoughts that used to plague me. For all the things I used to do to try to assimilate. Because I know now, what I really wanted was not to be a white girl, but was to be afforded some grace. Some real rest. Some benefit of doubt. Some understanding, some softness. I wanted to be able to feel things, to express them without having to justify and explain until inevitably having to take back my feeling, swallow my words. I wanted to stop being to blame for my own exhaustion and pain. I wanted to feel beautiful without feeling consumed. I wanted to be known without being stereotyped. I wanted to belong without the inevitable end of being devalued and discarded.

In my pursuit to find things that could help me articulate these thoughts and feelings, I found an article written by Karima Sorel published in 2021 titled ‘ what would a white woman do?”2 – it cracked something open inside of me. I don’t need to wish I was anything. I just have to reorient how I see myself, the choices I make for myself. I have to give myself the grace other people won’t. I have to ask myself “what would a white woman do?” instead of “what has this world told me I should do?” because that second one? It’s gonna lead me back to hard work, grinding myself down to prove myself, to prove that these circumstances are not due to bad choices, they are not due to laziness. It will lead to my early grave. And I want to fucking live.

III. Psychological Androgyny + Intersectionality

Scholars have described the intersections that Black women exist within as something called ‘psychological androgyny’, or better known as “Strong Black Woman Syndrome”. It essentially boils down to the way that Black womanhood is seemingly characterized by traits that we typically ascribe to both men and women in western society. Black women are overwhelmingly self-reliant, independent, hard-working, assertive and strong while also being nurturing, maternal, gentle, caregiving. This is seen as a strength, an armor for us to navigate society with as little pushback as possible. I relate to this a lot. It complicates further when you add in the addition of being born intersex, having undergone a transmasculine transition and living as a Black trans man, and undergoing another transition and living as a Black transfem (after a lifetime of being perceived as transfeminine, and suffering from transmisogynoir). I don’t see my hard work as a masculine trait, nor my nurturing instinct as a feminine one. But I do see that at no point in my life have I ever been afforded the opportunity to shed either of those positions. If I decenter being nurturing and maternal, people begin to react as if I have shunned and banished them to Mordor3. If I decenter hard work and strength and determination, I am a lazy sack of shit moocher who is using people. I’m not allowed to be one or the other. Both, all the time, or else. Psychological androgyny.

In the 1851 speech by Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I a Woman?”, she reflects on her unique position as a Black woman in America, the armor she had to build in order to “work [the fields]…as much as a man….and bear the lash [endure the pain/whippings of slavery] as well!” while citing that she was never offered any of the most simple pleasures of being a woman such as “being lifted over ditches” or “helped into carriages”. We take the lashes, and stay soft regardless. Our skin gets leathered by the sun but our flesh is consumed regardless. Any convenience that my womanhood should bring me is denied because of my Blackness, my transness, my intersexuality, my fatness , my disability, my refusal to shut the fuck up and just accept whatever the person in front of me is telling me I deserve. Regardless of what gendered state I embody, this never leaves. The burden remains. Psychological androgyny.

A study4 was done where Black women between the ages of 19-72 defined what “being strong” means to them, specifically, as Black women. The results were as follows: Black women described being strong as 1) the obligation to present an image of strength, even when one does not feel strong 2) feeling an obligation to suppress emotions 3) resistance to being vulnerable or dependent on others 4) determination to succeed despite limited resources 5) obligation to help others. It fucked me up to learn this. It fucked me up to learn this, because these are all the things I’ve been telling myself for years. I have to be strong even when I am not. I have to behave, I have to maintain in spite of how unraveled I feel. I have to succeed no matter what the roadblocks are. I cannot ask for help. It makes me weak, and there’s someone who needs it more, and will I even get it if I ask? And what it someone is only helping to receive something from me, like so many times before? I have to help as much as I can. I have to be Panacea5. I have to be an eternal cure. I have to take care of all my loved ones and friends. I have to make sure it’s okay.

IV. The Sickness and The Cure

I can’t do that to myself anymore. I can’t keep doing this world's work for it. I want to live until I'm 70. I want to watch my locs turn gray from aging. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I never did anything that was really for myself. That I never even tried to seek rest, serious, serious REST. That when I did rest I felt so guilty about it that it didn't even register. I don’t want to wait for this world to give me a break. I have to give it to myself. Someway, some fucking how. I have to be the one to give myself a break. I think every multiply marginalized person should practice this.

I’m giving myself permission to stop seeking relief and to take it instead. I’m suffering anyways. I’m going to do my best to ask for help and believe the people around me will come to my aid. That they mean it when they say they value me, they want me around, they want me to live. I have to start saying to hell with the tunnel vision fantasy of hard work creating a world around me that will meet me with softness and instead just, fucking give it to myself. I’m taking tomorrow off. I’m not going to respond to any messages. I’m not going to feel bad about it. My friends love me and they know what my life has been. They love me and they will love me if I spend one day without responding to messages. I pulled a 55 hour week the week before I hurt my back with a fall down the stairs at 5am, and I filmed all the stuff I need to queue up content until March 31st. I did the hard work and took care of myself and I can take some time to just try to be a person. I don’t have to feel guilty.

A day of rest is the least that I deserve. I can’t let myself keep living a life where I do not believe that, because that’s what they want from me. That’s what they want from Black women. That’s what they want from Black trans people. That’s what they want from queer trans people, disabled queers, from poor queer people who insist on pleasure, from gender deviants. It’s what they want and I have to refuse to give it to them. I can’t create success out of thin air. I can’t luck myself into it. I can’t make my hard work more valuable in the eyes of those with the resources to place value on it. What I can do is start saying no a lot more. Start doing whatever the fuck I want a lot more. Damn the consequences. I’m suffering anyway. I will not let this world drain me of my joy, my pleasure, my ability to exist in a space of pure existence. You shouldn’t either. I demand a softer life. I am going to give it to myself, if nobody or nothing else will.

This is a great personal loss, and a massive cultural one. David Lynch transcended American media, loved globally. I am reminded by his death that everything is so deeply connected. In the last month, California has been on fire, entire neighborhoods reduced to cinders. I wake up to news of disabled people being left behind to perish in the smoke. David Lynch was among the disabled people who were tasked with fleeing the state with fire on their heels. He got out. David Lynch did not perish in the California wildfires. Whatever support and resources he had, he was able to escape that fate. I cannot forget that We (the collective, humanity) did this to the Earth. Colonialism, capitalism, greed. This is why the land rages. We take more than we give.

David Lynch smoked his entire life, born in 1946, picking up the habit at just 8 years old. As an adult, he talked a lot about his smoking habit and attributed it to a variety of factors, but mostly he smoked because it felt a crucial part of his creative process as an artist. He doesn't regret it, and that means I do not feel any ill will toward him for all the time he spent smoking. I have no idea if he would have created all the things I love so much if smoking was never a part of his life. I don’t know who he could have become.I take comfort in the fact that the blazing cherry at the end of his fingers, fire harnessed and taken into his lungs, the dancing smoke in the air – was never a symbol of death and destruction and misery for him. David Lynch didn’t smoke to punish himself. Quite the opposite. I wish he was still here, but I do not wish he never smoked. He quit when he realized what a toll it was taking on him. He did not smoke until the end of his life. I can’t believe I’ve seen people say this. David Lynch quit smoking. He did not value what he got from smoking more than he valued being here on earth to continue creating and experiencing. David did not believe that suffering makes a great artist. He wanted to keep making art. When he told us all that he was sick and housebound, the center of the interview was him solidly saying “I am not retiring”. He wanted to make more art.He could not stand to direct on a ZOOM call. And he could not risk sickness. We failed to create the world where that was possible for him, and we could have. We could have. We could have. There’s a world where we have the right mindset and we accommodate this icon we love so much instead of resigning him to death in his home. I’m sorry for how that makes you feel. We had control over this, and we squandered it. If the society we live in, and all of us collectively as individuals prioritized protecting one another and making sure the fucking air we breathe is safe, we would be living in a world that would have been far more likely to hold David Lynch in it for longer, so he could have continued to create like he wanted to.

I am feeling so much anger in this grief. But I am not going to center that in this piece. The last thing I saw before I shut my phone off for the night yesterday was David Lynch’s comic from 1983 titled ‘The Angriest Dog In The World’, and it clicked in my head that he wouldn’t want me to spend my night like that. Stewing, angry, red in the face, paralyzed with anger. Approaching rigor mortis. So this is why I’m starting and finishing this at the start of this piece, instead of weaving it throughout. Even though it’s all connected, this is the angry part of my grief. This is the part I want to hold myself. I have to express some part of it because I really desperately hope that someone, anyone will make a change in their lives after this. If you care about art, about film, about talent, creativity, humanity, if you care about those things like David did, you will begin to prioritize keeping yourself and others safe from airborne pathogens, you will mask to protect the people who cannot, you will remember that David Lynch wanted to make more movies but could not risk another covid infection, so he was housebound in the last months of his life instead of surrounded by people, by art, by experiences, by unknown. I feel such a big hole in my heart when I think about that fact. David Lynch should have died in a directors chair, in the middle of a production, during post-shoot edits, on a press-cycle for a release. I hope that this tragedy can rouse someone, anyone, to action, to change, to more care. I am so angry because I want you to live. I want you to live. I want you to live.

II. Life Is A Movie

I’m not gonna be in front of the camera today1 , but I got ready to write this anyways. I got ready because in David Lynch’s passing I have come to an understanding when it comes to my ability (or recent inability) to not only locate, but to genuinely access my imagination in a meaningful way. The separation of my personhood has created neural pathways in my head that shut me off from my ability to imagine, to create, to express. I got ready today even though I won’t be on camera because I realized life is a movie. No, not in the literal sense of the word. My life is not a motion picture. But what is a movie, outside of a moving picture? One of my favorite moments from David Lynch (and one of his most meme’d) comes from a 2007 BAFTA interview with David Lean in which Lynch says “Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film.”, the interviewer asks him “Why, can you expand on that?” and David Lynch responds with a friendly but very confident “No.”

This moment stands out to me in such a significant way because it carries the essence of what a film really is. It’s something intentionally created, something that takes hard work, imagination, skill, creativity, passion. It’s something that takes its own shape in spite of the meticulous crafting the creators apply. It’s a thing that creates its own meaning within the meanings intended. In this way, life is a movie.

It doesn’t take on all these characteristics immediately, or all at once for everyone. There is no way I could have popped out of the womb and immediately begun crafting my story intentionally. This is the part of films that write themselves. The beginning of my story is the places I must revisit and apply context to later. Life is a movie because it is imperative to pay attention to the details. You won’t get all the information if you don’t pay attention to the details. We miss things we are desperate to have explained because we haven’t taken enough time to sit with the silence in between the words, to analyze the things that were not said, the small spaces in between our processing. Life is a movie in the way that I never know what lesson I’m being taught until much, much later, and the lesson is one I will have to find on my own.

I got ready today because life is a movie and the society I live in has fractured my personhood into bits and pieces that I keep together with the energy from deep in my core, the parts of me too solid to fracture. There is the me that you are listening to right now, that is Salem. Salem is a writer, who wants to create, who wants to help people, who wants to connect with others, who wants to leave things behind that comfort people long after I am gone. Salem is afraid, paranoid, fragile, long-winded, passionate and warm. Lilith is a maternal succubus, the caretaker, the bloodsucker, the protector, the provider2. Lilith is confident, unafraid, insatiable, carnal, protective, vicious, consuming. There’s a skin and there’s the skin that’s under that skin and then there’s me. Life is a movie because there is a skin, and there’s the skin under that one, and then – there it is. That final uncovering is something David Lynch talked about a lot – the fact that there are things we will imagine, feel and create that nobody will ever understand the way that we understand them. This, of course, was him speaking about the nature of his films, the dream-like fantastical atmosphere and events of so many of them. Today, after a solid 7 hours of crying over David’s death and stewing in my grief and anger, something cracked open inside of me. That’s exactly what my life is. That’s exactly what life is. IT is the thing that we imagine, create and still - nobody really understands it in exactly the way that we do.3

This revelation is going to change a lot for me. And I know that because I’m sitting here at my computer, typing this up in a full face of makeup, fully dressed as if I’m going out on the town later when I know most likely I’m going to be in bed by 11. What’s it mean? It means the selves aren’t so afraid of each other anymore. Something is cracking open. I can melt into the selves I am. That doesn’t make me less of me, it makes me more of me. Just because it will not be understood, does not make it untrue, does not make it invaluable. It’s mine. Life is a movie because the way I define it is up to me. I have it, and it’s mine. The second an artist releases a film it becomes all of ours. Every artist has the right to say “this is not what my art means, the meaning you found in it was not intended, and I don’t agree with your reading.” – and this is fair. Our perception of something doesn’t retroactively change the artist's intent when they created this piece. Who I am today doesn’t retroactively change who I was 10 years ago. Every self I was is every self I am. My life belongs to me, as I intentionally create it. Other people assign meaning to it, because I live in a world with others. Their definitions and meanings do not change my intent. My solid center remains unfractured. That solid center is one that prioritizes connection with other people. It prioritizes decolonizing my mind and body and soul. It prioritizes valuing expression and understanding over accuracy of language. My solid center is the me that the rest of my being is created around.

I’m sitting at my computer typing this in a full face of makeup. My lips are painted in a shade of red I’ve been wearing almost exclusively for 6 years now. I make lipstick marks on the puffco4. I listen to the barely audible sizzling of wax vaporizing. And I realize my life is a movie. The scene is set. What will I do with it? What meaning can I find? It’s in everything. It’s in everything. The selves are melting together, and I’m realizing the barriers between them are what locked me away from my imagination. It’s hard to imagine a future when you cannot conceptualize yourself as a whole being and instead see yourself as parts of a whole, at odds with one another. It created a never-ending tension where if two are at odds, someone is always waiting to win or lose. Nobody has to lose. I don’t have to let anyone go. This is my movie. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone. The meaning they ascribe does not change my intent, the energy I placed into a thought, a feeling, an expression. That remains regardless.

It’s really scary to know that I’m 27 years old and I am still figuring out how to give myself permission to experience the breadth of what a human being can experience. In my last piece ‘Blessings in Bad Advice’ I talk about how I have been conditioned by capitalism and other various forms of oppression that I suffer from as a Disabled/Intersex/Black/Trans/Femme/Sex Worker to believe that I do not really deserve the freedom an imagination can provide. That it is bougie, mindless decadence that I haven’t yet earned5. This revelation of life as a movie is bringing me even closer to understanding how vital it is for someone like me to give myself the freedom to imagine. To not make sense. To confuse. To center my own expression, catharsis, to follow unbounded passion. God, I am so afraid even just saying it. Sitting here, I feel powerful. I have been conditioned to believe that having any power makes me a threat, a liability, something more akin to King Kong than who I truly am. I have been conditioned to believe that my power is easily wielded over anyone and everyone around me. Because of this, I have caged myself. I do not need to be in a cage anymore. Life is a movie. I no longer give a fuck when people skim through my contents and make a certain conclusion about the intent and future of this endless creation. This is power. It is power over myself. It is only perceived as power over others, because I have spent such a long time allowing the way I am perceived by people to control the way I perceive and define myself. No longer. That power is mine, because I am the director of this film.

Life is a movie and I am sitting at my desk in red lipstick. I’m going to leave a lipstick stain on a piece of garlic bread soon. I’m gonna stay away from watching intense films. I’m not putting on any Lynch any time soon6. Instead, I’m gonna follow my gut. I’m gonna indulge in some of the frivolity I have been vehemently denied. My gut tells me David would be happy to see the smoke trailing from my red lips as I type this, anxiously anticipating the buttery garlicky bread that’s gonna slide down my throat, no longer confined by the concept that because my lips are red, that isn’t my story. It’s all mine. Life is a film, I am melting my selves together, I am intentionally crafting. I will not understand what it means until later, and then later again, and later again. I will be a different me 10 years from now and that me will melt into all the others. It doesn’t have to make sense. I don’t have to make sense. I waited until today, Friday January 17th to finish and share this. I did it because I wanted to imagine David posted another video for us, bewildered that it’s Friday once again. That he wished me a good day, blue skies, and luck with my projects. And I turned it into this. Thank you for everything, David Lynch. See you on the other side.

“Myself” is an amalgamation of everything I’ve ever seen, done, experienced, learned, felt, and created, an amalgamation of everyone I have ever conversed with, kissed under stars, held hands with, shared music with, loved, hurt and been hurt by. It’s not simple to distill everything ‘myself’ into a behavior, a practice, an embodiment. It is not impossible, but it is far from simple or easy. All this to say, I fucked up a little by not letting myself explore what it means to be myself in my art before I began hyper-focusing on “doing the work” to the point where “myself” became so attached to “the work” that it sincerely has felt like my imagination has died, or has been stuffed behind a 6inch thick reinforced steel wall with the worlds most complex vault lock on it. This talk with my therapist recently has revealed to me that although I have been so resilient in the face of capitalism, it has still affected who I am and how I move through this world. I’ve internalized that I don’t deserve to experience joy in my work, that I don’t deserve peace and catharsis. That artistic exploration and explosiveness is for people who have worked hard for stability. Bourgeois decadence.

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This has created a feedback loop where I don’t imagine because I do not rest because I must always be “doing the work”. The funny part is that in my focus on doing the work, I have snuffed out my whimsy. I look back at the things I’ve written in the past year and wince. In 2022 when I first started releasing my writing publicly, I talked a lot about how the only things I had ever been paid for were pieces where I talked about my hardships as a Black trans person, a sex worker, a fat person, or some other marginalization I exist within. I talked about how much I hated that and wanted to take control of my narrative differently. I’ve lost that in the sauce of ‘doing the work’. So focused on doing the work that I haven’t done much of any work that I feel brings me any sort of lasting joy. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t do everything I do to experience joy or to have fun. Quite the opposite. I almost sort of avoid fun because I’ve been in survival mode for so long, ‘having fun’ is one of the major things in this life that I am sincerely insecure about doing.

My therapist told me it takes practice to learn how to play. That’s where I’m at right now. I forgot how to play. I love the work I've done in the spaces I’ve been a part of for the last couple of years. I love that I’ve contributed so much integral work to theorizing on antitransmasculinity, exorsexism, intersexism, and some specific functions of antiblackness. But what does it mean that when I look at my body of work, most of it is deeply personal, deeply emotional, and deeply about the oppression I have suffered and watched others around me both suffer from and perpetuate? I didn’t start writing to be a Queer Theorist ™ – I started writing because I have a voice, I have things to say, I have a perspective that is important and valuable and that deserves to exist in the world. Most of all I’m tired of seeing words that feel like mine everywhere I look. “Do the work”, they say, and it’s true. You have to start doing the work so you do not end up haunted by the words you wish you would have said and the stories you wish you would have told. It will feel like bits and pieces of your soul are being stolen, bastardized, made shallow, and forgetful. You will see yourself everywhere in the worst ways. Hollow facsimiles of your insides.

I’ve been writing for as long as I could hold a pencil on my own. I used to fill up notebooks with stories of other worlds, of this one if I were different, of the future if she didn’t exist, of the conversations I wish I could have had with people I’ve never known. I don’t know if any of the writing was good, and I don’t care. I want that back, and I’m gonna get it back. I have spent a lot of time deconditioning myself when it comes to matters of identity and personhood, but little unraveling the messages that capitalism has ingrained into me, of messages that have been taught to me by people who have been shown capitalism is a game they could start to win at if they did the right things. I’m never gonna be that person, and trying to be that person actively created a sort of black hole of creativity in my mind where I started to believe that there was a formula to ‘work’ and success when you’re someone who exists in the dimensions I do as a fat, Black, intersex, trans, queer, kinky, sex working, visibly disabled covid-aware writer who refuses to kowtow, who refuses to allow others to control my narrative, who refuses taxonomy and classification both interpersonally and professionally.

I am never gonna be seen as having “done the work” in the ways that others who have been rewarded by capitalism are. And that’s okay with me. What I’m after now is making sure to keep my soul, to chase my whimsy, to be heard, to leave things behind I feel proud of, to connect with others through things that we love and admire, to build something bigger than myself, to create in the way that feeds me instead of depletes me. It’s hilarious that the longest period of writer's block in my life came from people telling me to keep my head down and just ‘do the work’. Funny I didn’t realize how shit that advice was from the start. You can write all you want but if everything you finish mirrors the exact sentiments of the writer you’ve been telling yourself you do not want to be, what good is that work? Compromising your insides and still not receiving the rewards of capitalism because you are not the type of person who wins at this game. You are the kind of person who lets themselves be heard, who creates art that connects with other people and makes them feel seen for the first time, to create art that gives people permission to exist, to break rules, to reject and resist the empire, to forge an identity entirely independent of this fake fucking society we have established. That’s the kind of person I want to be and following THAT pursuit in my writing is how I actually will end up ‘doing the work’.

I don’t know if success is gonna come for me because I feel renewed, because I know that I’ve begun the process of thawing out parts of me I have put on ice for far too long and that will result in a lot more regular art, regular words, regular feelings. I don’t know if this is how I find what I’m looking for, which is healing, stability, connection with the world, and helping other people. But I know that I’m ready to do it. To meet the page head-on. To write about the beautiful things. Please, do not think this means my work will become sanitized, a dream world where everything is perfect and nobody ever dies. I still have a ton of work I want to do when it comes to every serious topic I’ve written or spoken about before. I’m just gonna do things a different way now. I know that my perspective, my knowledge, my experiences, and my personhood are valuable. I know that I deserve life, rest, joy, and fun. I have to give as much energy to my pursuit of those things as I do to fighting injustice, or I will fade away and all that will be left is ‘doing the work’, and I will disappear.

Anyways – nice to meet you. I’m Salem Void. I’m Black, intersex, trans, fat, disabled, a sex worker, an activist, an artist, a writer, a bear, and a lover. I’m scared and paranoid a lot. I have deep, complex trauma that manifests as avoidant behaviors and extremely high anxiety. I want to be a writer. I want to meet more disabled trans sex workers. I want to write things that people go to for comfort. I want to write things that make people see things in a new way. I want to write things that feel like a warm hug. I want to find new ways to work and create together. I want to write things that give people nightmares. I want to keep us all safe. I want to write things that make people crave the warmth of another human body. I want to write things that make people crave the cold of an artificial body. I want to keep having a voice and to keep sharpening that voice.

I think the greatest gift I’ve been given was given to me in the last month of therapy. I figured out that ‘be yourself’ is bad advice, but it isn’t so shit once you figure out who you are, and that doesn’t mean figuring out what you want to do with your life – it means figuring out what you care about, and then caring about it until you fucking croak. I know what I care about, therefore I know who I am. I know what I’m gonna spend the rest of my life doing: loving. I know I’m gonna spend the rest of my life exploring myself and changing. I know I might not recognize myself 10 years from now. And how beautiful is that? I know who I am and now I can do the fucking work. Finally. It's so fucked up that some of us have to be re-taught how to experience pleasure and joy. It’s fucked up how long it took me to realize my access to my joy had been ground down and taken from me in the first place.

So, this essay might feel disjointed and weird and a little rambly and like it jumps from topic to topic and I do apologize since it might be jarring since my writing is usually pretty structured. Embracing a more free style of writing is a part of getting back to my bliss, back to creating consistently, back to making things that I’ll be proud to leave behind, things I really could have used when I was younger. It’s funny this feels so major when I’m not announcing anything or changing anything – I’m simply returning to myself in a way I was not aware I needed to until I accepted that I’m allowed to pursue more than just survival, that I am allowed to pursue and to fight for my joy. Thanks for being on this journey for me, for whatever reason you are. I’m excited to get more of my words out in the world. Whatever that means, whatever comes from it. I’m ready, I'm prepared. I know how to be myself and do the work forreal now.

I went to the OBGYN yesterday for a routine follow-up on an ultrasound that I got last month. I met my OBGYN once, for my annual PAP. It went okay. She ordered the ultrasounds for me.  I planned for that ultrasound for a while, and was fully prepared for it. I knew that I’d be getting an external ultrasound, which is what people usually think of when they hear “ultrasound”, and an internal pelvic ultrasound, which is less commonly known. The internal ultrasound uses an insertable wand-like device that allows the tech to see and photograph my reproductive system. That appointment went just fine, except for the crowds of maskless faces in a fucking radiology department of all places. My tech was kind, explained the process beforehand, gave me privacy, asked for consent before continuing each step of the procedure and followed up with me afterwards to make sure I felt alright.  I really didn’t expect a follow up for an ultrasound to be where things got so fucked up.  My appointment was labeled as ‘Ultrasound Results + Continuity of Care Plan Assessment’ and that’s what I expected. We’d talk about the results of my ultrasound, she would give me any good or bad news and we would make plans for my next steps toward pursuing my health goals. Instead, what happened is I waited for 45 minutes before I was called back into a room, after arriving 10 minutes early as instructed, and then I waited another 30 after the nurse verified some of my information and left the room. I don’t mind waiting, but it’s all that comes after that makes the waiting suck so fucking bad. 

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Recently I’ve seen a lot of discussions about queer and/or trans people using "labels they shouldn't use", here meaning, a label that the person wouldn't fit the dictionary definition of.

While I get the urge to go "words mean things for a reason, definitions serve a purpose" this rests on a misunderstanding of how language functions fundamentally. Language is a living thing that is constantly evolving, that changes depending on location, context, the relationships between the people using language. Because of this, it is reductive and unhelpful to meet a complex human being with the retort of "words mean things" when they are using a term to express or identify or label themselves that you don't believe they should be "allowed" to use. I could go into a whole thing here about how the policing of language creates power dynamics, because the people who control language, control how things are defined and control how they are perceived - but that's not actually the point I want to make. My point is about the second retort I've seen popping up around here these days to affirm the position that it's a bad thing to use a label that you do not fit into the dictionary definition of.

“If you use a label that you should not be using, and you enter a space with the people who truly belong to this category, they will be under the assumption that you share the same experiences, and when they find out that you do not, they will feel betrayed and harmed and like their privacy and trust has been taken advantage of.” 

While I understand this retort on its face, it is again, a position that is reductionist, along with also being reactionary. To understand where I’m coming from you first have to understand (and genuinely believe in) good faith identification. Good faith identification is when someone adapts a label or identification in good faith, meaning they are not doing it to provoke people, to satirize something, to directly harm a group of people, or some other bad faith reason to adapt a label. If you believe in good faith identification, and you believe people when they tell you how they identify, then you can actually get to the next steps of understanding the intricacies of their identity. If you reject good faith identifications that confuse you, make you feel uncomfortable or you don’t feel should be allowed, you have created a dynamic where you become the arbiter of identity, no further explanation required. “You can always tell”, huh? Enough that you feel comfortable ejecting someone who is not disrupting the space, from the space, based on the assumption that you have nothing in common? That’s a reactionary impulse stemming from reducing the person in front of you to the perception that you and you alone have of them. How can you tell someone their existence is contradictory unless you know them intimately? How will you determine who among you are true members of the group? How will you do this continually without then establishing an in-group and out-group within your own accepted ranks? Ask yourself these questions if this is how you feel. I would love to hear how you would navigate these things if you are someone who desires a community with all different kinds of queer and trans people, and if you desire ultimate liberation for us all. If you don’t believe in good faith identification whatsoever, and you think people who use labels that seem conflicting or that you feel they shouldn't be “allowed” to use, you can probably just stop reading here, though, because I don’t think I’ll get through to you, and this piece isn’t actually about the intricacies of good faith identification, which is something I could write dozens and dozens of pages about. It is a rhetorical plea to those who do not desire the role of the arbiter of identities to deconstruct their discomfort with conflicting identities to grow toward expanding solidarity and ultimate liberation. 

If you are someone who believes in good faith identification and does not reject people who use conflicting labels or labels that they do not neatly fit within the societally agreed upon and/or dictionary definition of, but you are still uncomfortable with it and think of it as deceptive and harmful for people to enter spaces, continue on.
So - someone uses a label in good faith, and you do not reject them, but you’re uncomfortable and feel betrayed and hurt, and to avoid this you believe that these people should simply not join these spaces, instead opting to be a part of more inclusive ones, as not to mislead anyone. This is also reductive and reactionary. Even though you don’t reject or deny the validity of their identity, you do not want to seek any further information or understand or commune with this person at all. Fair, nobody has to be in community with anyone else, we aren’t owed automatic acceptance into intimate community spaces anyways, right? The reason this breaks down is that there is no possible way you don’t end up excluding people who actually do fit your dictionary, societally agreed upon definition , because you deny them the opportunity to express themselves and articulate their experiences to you, and oftentimes even when someone does explain, they are already being perceived as an infiltrator and outsider, so the articulation of their experiences is taken in bad faith and disregarded. 

TDLR: If you think people using conflicting labels or labels you don’t think they fit the definition of is harmful and bad and a betrayal, you are participating in politics of identity that harm movements overall, when the goal is collective liberation. In the book “Power In Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics” by Sidney Tarrow, she comments on the ways that communing around identity causes temporary solidarity and leads to movements that do not last stating, “It is only by sustaining collective action against antagonists that a contentious episode [things like riots, short-lived group structures] becomes a social movement. Common purposes, collective identities, and identifiable challenges help movements to do this; but unless they can maintain their challenge, movements will evaporate into the kind of individualistic resentment that James Scott calls “resistance” (1985), will harden into intellectual or religious sects, or their members will defect from activism into isolation.”
If you believe this line of logic, that those with contradictory labels are harmful to you and others like you, you admit that an identification with a label and a physical/visual cue that you categorize with that specific identification is what it takes for you to see someone as aligned with you and your experiences, and this is what leads you to the next step of communing and entering into intimate spaces with that person, and actually getting to know them and their experiences and deciding to fight for liberation with them.  The alternative, and what I believe is the way that queer + trans spaces should function is by reversing these things. We accept one another's good faith identifications, we get to know one another’s experiences, and we commune around our similarities and differences, because there will be differences even in groups where everyone comes from extremely similar paths in life. The words we use to describe ourselves are for ourselves, and for other people. They are to signal to others something we want them to know about ourselves. If someone shows up in a space for someone of a specific experience, but you do not perceive them as being someone of that experience, so you automatically view them as an infiltrator and a deceiver - you have judged a book by it’s cover, and have turned away someone desiring community with you because you refuse to allow space for their expanse of humanity. 

The ways that we label ourselves and the identities we share actually tell us very little about how well we would function as a part of a community together. A label does not encompass all of the oppressive or celebratory experiences a human being could have. You know what does? The person. You have to get to know them to know if their experiences align with yours, instead of assuming based on a label that they do, because a label doesn’t actually mean that, in spite of the dictionary definitions and societally agreed upon definitions. There are people who were raised completely opposite the way that you were, that have experienced some of the same exact things you struggle deeply with. There are people who grew up extremely similarly to you who are nothing like you today. There are people who use the same labels you use who have no experiences in line with yours, or maybe just one or two, and literally nothing else. There are people who use none of the labels you use whose lives look like companion pieces to yours. And you rob yourself of this when you view these people as infiltrators and deceivers. You feed into the concept that bad faith is the dominant force, that people who enter into these spaces are doing it to hurt you, and not to find community, to participate in building safety and to contribute joy and love. Why would you want to believe that? I promise you there are so many people in this world who want to be good to you. Who want to find someone like you to be good to, to build with, to share similarities and differences with. Centering the micro-differences of our identities before our goals toward collective liberation is such a clear contributor toward the fractures in our movements as trans people, a miniscule marginalized population of people that sincerely need all the allies we can get.  We generally accept, as trans people, that all trans people are not allies to one another. Some trans people avidly work against the fight for our rights and freedom. So why assume that someone who shares a more micro label of trans is that safe space? When the reality is, that word doesn’t actually tell you anything about them? I think we shoot ourselves in the foot a lot here. Just like the gender I was assigned at birth doesn’t really tell you anything about the specific experiences I’ve had growing up, that I've had as a trans person, the labels I use don’t tell you about my experiences either. They just tell you the label that I’ve chosen to use, and that I’m okay with you assuming whatever societally agreed upon definition of that label applies to me. I historically do not have a lot of childhood experiences in common with trans people of the same assigned sex at birth. I have a lot more in common with trans people who were children of alcoholic mothers, trans people who grew up religious, trans people who lived in oppressive, conservative environments, trans people who were taught that cisheteronormativity will save us, that the white picket fence 2.5 kids pathway is the pathway to enlightenment, the trans people who were taught growing up that to be good is to be compliant, the trans people whose parent(s) had a vision for them that you could never fulfill, the trans people who used hypersexuality to dissociate from hellish depths of dysphoria, as a means of escape from the body, trans people who have been told that the way that they are trans is not the right way no matter what they do, trans people who have never had a forever home, trans people who have been forced to sell their bodies for food, trans people who do not have control over the presentation of their physical bodies, trans people who have deep, extensive health complications and medical trauma that influences how we are able to experience our transition and bodies, trans people who can’t ever find a word that feels completely right for long, trans people whose hearts break every single day. Those are the trans people I want to commune with. Those are the trans people I want to be in intimate space with, that I want to belong among, that I want to build and create and expand with. To know that you are that kind of trans person, I do not need to know what you were assigned at birth. I do not need to know what label(s) you use to describe your gender or sexuality. I just need to see you, accept you, and then I will learn all of those things, or I won’t. You may be the kind of trans person who grew up with two loving parents in a blue state, who owned a home, who were major liberals that used gentle parenting and felt more like your friends than your parents, who encouraged you to be yourself unabashedly, who accepted you when you came out at a young age, who held you through your transformation into yourself. You might be a trans person who went to college on a full ride scholarship, got a masters degree and a full time six figure job right out of college, and now you’re living 5 miles off campus with two dogs and your polycule, never experiencing any serious trauma or major upheavals in life. I love these trans people who fit this bill, I’m sure they do exist. All 15 of them. I love and accept them, but there is a limit to how intimate I can become with someone who doesn’t understand what it means to be hungry. I don’t get to know if you’re that kind of trans person before I accept you and I allow us both the space to figure it out. I will never be able to tell if someone is the kind of person I desire closeness and/or community with based on a label, an identification. And I don’t want to. Cause it sucks, and isn’t going to lead me to liberation.

So - next time someone says something along the lines of “if you obscure that you’re x, while you use the label of y, you are bad and wrong and hurting people”, remind them that even though we use words to identify ourselves – those words do not define us or express even the top layer of the intricacy and vastness of our experiences. Why is it so terrible to think you might have similar experiences with someone who you perceive as being on the opposite side of those experiences? This is not an argument for the destruction of the meaning of language, but rather an expression of my desire to center solidarity above all. I fear that with the focus of so much intra-community discourse and disagreement being on the specifics and intricacies of the language we use to express our infinitely complex and expansive identities and how they function in the world, we lose the ability to commune and organize around the most dangerous thing — cisheteronormative society trying to kill and erase us all.
This is also not an argument to persuade anyone to let their guards down. We’ve all got to protect ourselves the ways that we see fit. It’s really just me imploring you to see other queer and trans people with a little more good faith, so that hopefully we can build more bridges, seal more fractures, and present a more united front against the fascists seeking to eradicate us as well as developing more enriching, positive, lifelong relationships across vast spaces and communities. 

I’m making sure more trans people exist by treating every good faith identification and curiosity toward expanding gender and sexuality that comes my way as legitimate. We are not defined by our bodies. There are infinite ways to be your gender, to be my gender, to be any gender. We are all unique. We exist in community, and we are not alone in our experiences. Our possibilities are limitless. I think you either love trans people and want more trans people to exist or you don’t. You either accept that more trans people existing comes with trans people who are trans in ways you don’t understand, or don’t agree with also existing. Try this. If you come across an embodiment of transness or identity or labeling that you don’t understand or that makes you feel weird or even hurt? React first as someone who wants more trans people to exist. To be comfortable existing. To feel encouraged to exist. Center that first, lead with that feeling. Let your confusion be secondary, and treat it as your own feeling to deal with, because it is. Center love. Center solidarity. Center what comes next, center what is beyond the label, beyond the identification. Because I want us all to exist, and I want more of us to exist.


Describe yourself in one word. Does that really tell me everything I need to know to connect with you?
I took it to heart when Audrey Lorde told me that my lived experience matters and that I alone define that experience. I took it to heart when she said "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.", and you should too. 

I.

It’s been 12 weeks since the last time I slept in a bed and not a makeshift pallet on a floor, or on a couch, ottoman, bench. It’s relieving to think that I’m only being given the absolute minimum that someone can provide to me, and I don’t feel like a burden. Hannah told me she’s got me a spot in a house with 3 local queers, and a job right down the street that pays enough for me to swing the rent there. I trust Hannah, I don’t know the others in the house, but I’ve lived with 45 year old cishet coke dealers, neglectful parents to infant children and once a girl whose dog I’m pretty sure had never enjoyed the smell and sensation of real grass outdoors. There’s xp, JB and kd. They’re all trans, different flavors of it. I don’t ever really get to know anyone, I fear. This fear manifests in the anxiety I feel constantly to make sure I say things the right way, I keep my face the right way, I use the right body language. 

This fear is one that makes its home in the background, as I am often surrounded by complete strangers, but as I inhabit this nebulous space of detached personhood that I have been thwarted into as a Black, houseless trans person, I have been able to discover truths of the people around me, and of myself. The fucked up part is that because of my mind living coated with memories of overdosing teenagers on motel floors with mouths overflowing frothy white, of metal coat hangers in cunts and hard cock right after, of crumpled $20 bills pulled out of leather wallets decorated with daughters school photos put into the palms of hands streaked with cum — I ache to find a safety to forget, and to fortify. I have seen enough horrors to fill 10 books with.  I remember the sponsor that booked me twice, once just to meet me and to watch me strip, and another to use me. The heat of his freshly rinsed breath on my ear, groaning in a voice so low and gravely it almost didn’t sound like English, “The only reason you're alive right now is because I’ll want to book your mutant cunt again.”  I feel the guilt of knowing that forgetting will make me like many of the fucked up liberals who get a slice of safety and shut the doors to all the others who are desperate for a piece of their own. Maybe that’s why I’m high all the time, and everyone I know is, too. 

They said I could smoke in the house, for what that’s worth. 

I don’t have to sneak or pretend I don’t have to stay Snoop level high to make sure my body doesn’t hurt unbearably due to chronic pain and chronic homelessness. I’m gonna try my best to make it here, to make this more than seasonal, I mean. Hannah says to me that she loves me cause I’m still in therapy in spite of my situation, that it means even though the world has never given me the things that I need to live a full life, that I still want to be better for it. Hannah and the way that she loves me makes me feel like I won’t lose all of my light before I am given the safety required to preserve it. I’m gonna sleep in a bed tomorrow night, and the night after that. I believe I’m gonna keep my light. 

II. 

This is without the slightest of doubt the nicest home I’ve ever lived in, and it smells nice too. Like something sweet in a deep, nostalgic way – mixed with earthy weed smells lightly wafting through the house, high ceilings, art on nearly every surface.  I look more intently at the room in front of me and the figures take shape. At the same time as my eyes adjust a super tall blonde stands up and walks over to me, extending both arms out toward me, and I lean into it in spite of the surprise. 

“Severin! I’m xp. Welcome to the Wolf House. We’re all some sort of 4legged furry fag so that’s where the name comes from,” she giggles. “JB, kd, come over here! Our new rooooooomie has arrived!” She talks in a singsong tone, dancing back toward the living room. 

I follow her, taking just a couple steps before JB grabs me and wraps me in an embrace, followed by kd doing the same. My body tenses up as if it’s preparing for something, attempting to make sense of the strangers touching my body. I do my best to settle into it, to just breathe. Xp told me a lot about the house and how she procured it (inheritance), JB and I connected over the fact that we moved here from the same city and had dated two of the same girls, and kd and I talked about weed, music, books, movies. They seemed comfortable with me right away, so I got comfortable fast, too. Xp and I would make dinners together, JB would drop me off at work the mornings we headed out at the same time, and me and kd had started up this informal ritual of meeting up in the living room at night for a communal smoke. Three entire weeks have passed like this and I’ve been letting myself believe that they won’t just stay this nice but that this could be a sign that better is coming, as anything else feels like sabotage. 

We made a big dinner tonight, all four of us together, to celebrate the upcoming month anniversary of my time here.  Lounging on the couch, I scroll mindlessly through my phone waiting for kd to come smoke before I finish cleaning up and head to sleep. She comes and sits next to me on the couch, thigh pressed up against mine, and slumps down with her head on my shoulder. 

“I ate too much. I’m either gonna sleep like a rock or not sleep at all” 

“If you’re up, I’ll be up too. I have work at 4 so I’m pulling an all-nighter,” I respond to her. 

She sits up and grabs a piece of glass off the coffee table, passing up the bowl and the bubbler for the bong, already loaded. 

Xp sits on the carpet across from us, stretching, as if she’s making carpet angels, JB to the left of us playing a game I don’t recognize. Looking around at the sight before me, comfort washes over me and the warmth of kd’s thigh on mine is soft as silk. Kd looks over at me with a gaze even softer than her skin and hands me the pipe. The second my hand touches the glass we simultaneously hear a thump somewhere in the apartment. The air in the room runs colder, all the warmth shared from kd’s body to mine erased once she sits up erect, stiff, looking toward the place she heard the sound come from.  

“Somebody check it, ” xp says. 

I feel the warmth of her body back on mine again as they push me forward. 

“Severin. Check whatever that was? I’m sure it’s fine,” kd says to me, still pushing me forward. 

I look over at the other two, and they nod assuredly, affirming kd’s empty promise of safety. 

I seemed to have pulled the shortest straw without realizing it. I put my slippers back on and head toward the sound without looking at anyone. There’s nothing but the quiet hum of the ceiling fan and the light creaks of my footsteps headed toward the shadows.  I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn the flashlight on to its highest brightness, scanning the entirety of the space. There’s nothing foreign in our space, nothing that wants to be seen or can be seen at that moment. We’re alright. I head back to the living room and take my place back on the couch. 

“Didn’t spot anything, all the doors and windows are intact and locked. Probably neighbors or house noises,” I say to the group. 

They all sigh with relief and in that moment, I feel the warmth return back to the room, so I settle again, too. 

“I was a little freaked but like, Severin took care of it and would have 100% kicked anyone’s ass who came in here,” xp says. 

“Yessss”, kd exclaims, grabbing onto my arm with both hands, cuddling up to me. “I feel bad for anyone who would try to fuck with us now that he’s here. Look at him. He could take anyone in a fight,” she finishes, smiling at me. 

“Literally! I mean you don’t survive sleeping outside on benches without knowing how to go beast mode,” xp responds, looking at me and nodding with excitement. 

I start to feel sick, knowing that in spite of the fact that I can handle myself in a fight, most fights, I avoid fights because they have been so necessary. The memories of fists planted in my gut and boots against my spine ring through my head and a rock in my stomach starts to push its way forward. 

JB stands in front of me and grabs my shoulders firmly. 

“I’m glad you’re here. We all are. And glad that you’re safe and not out there,” it says to me, squeezing tightly. It walks out of the living room, grabs a bottle of water, turns back toward the living room but decides against returning. “I’m going to bed. We’re all up hearing shit now.” 

The rest of us follow. I choose to focus on how they are glad that I am here, that I am safe, and that I am not out there, instead of the way that they cheered with glee at the thought of me defending them and our home with violence and strength I hardly possess. 

The next morning I wake up and smoke so much my eyes turn red, and I have to go searching our junk drawers for spare eyedrops. Opening up the drawer next to the place we keep all the knives too dull to cut but too nice to get rid of, I spot the outline of chores for the house, the breakdown of how things are delegated.  Upon closer inspection and less assumption on my part, I locate the chart key and read that it was my name in red scribbled on 65% of the house’s chores, the rest of the colors signifying the other 3 roommates. I’ve learned through my time living with others that it’s best to bring things up like this right away. Less than 10 minutes later xp talks to me in the kitchen, holding the chart in her hands. 

“I figure since you’re paying way below value for the room and amenities, you’d take on a bigger percentage of the chores. So instead of 25% split all ways, you’ll take 10% of our chores from each of us, totaling about 55% and we’d do the rest. Cool?” she says. 

“Not cool,” I respond to her. 

“Why, what’s up?” 

“I’m paying a fair split of the rent, and not getting help with bills. That was going to be a thing when I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to swing a job around here, but we confirmed I would so I paid my deposit. You should have the receipt,” I say in a very matter-of-fact tone, but politely enough considering I’d just found out I’d been working full time and doing over half the chores for the house. 

“Woah, dude, chill. It’s fine, we’ll re-sort the chores this weekend when we’re all off work on Sunday. Is that cool?” she asks, red in the face and looking anxious. 

“Of course, that’s all I wanted. Sorry.”  I walk back to my bedroom and my throat burns.   

Pulling out my phone I triple check my bank apps, confirming that I paid a full deposit on this room, and that xp should have known. I crawl back into bed, 10:23am, and I smoke until the expanding lump in my throat dissolves. I smoke until it feels like swallowing thorns. It doesn’t hurt like the lump does, because I asked for this.  I listen to the sounds of my body screaming at me in pain, sore from work, sore from chores, sore from stress, and I fall asleep thinking about how much better this pain is than having to find somewhere to fall asleep at 10am. 

III.

Red colored LED lights pours through the gap in the bottom of Severin’s door, signaling that mullet-clad trans boys and micro-skirt wearing trans girls will be pouring into the house any minute. DIY art show guests, on a list for monthly events that xp curates for popular trans micro-celebs, displaying obscure abstract works for an exclusive audience.  Fully dressed in his most comfortable and generally stylish garb he runs his hands across his blemished face and sinks into the feeling of the texture of his skin.    The show begins, bodies gathered around a collapsible stage, side lit with blue and purple hues cast on the artist at its center.  Severin steps up on stage, the first in the lineup xp released via text to the invited members just 5 minutes earlier. A deep breath, and two more.  He begins: 

“In an alternate dimension lurks the shadows of damned souls  - 

affixed to one another, hands that carry hands and swallow tiny dancers

blood for freedom, blood for love, blood for honor – blood for lube 

alternate dimension chimera bodied baby, sons that carry mommies 

time is frozen in your mind when you keep your memories whole 

tired bodied faggots fade into flashing powdered bright, and live forever” 

A painful silence falls over the crowd, Severin stepping off of the platform and melting back into the shadows. After the rest of the performers wrap up for the night and things disperse into a loose crowd of little pods of people having conversations among themselves, Severin finds himself surrounded by well known trans people in the city and beyond it, praising him for his performance. Xp joins the little group and gushes over him, wrapping her arms around him and boasting about having such a wonderfully tortured, sensitive artist to share space with in her home. One of the older trans guys reaches his hand out to Severin and shakes it firmly, stating that his reading reminded him of old newsletter art he used to read in the 90’s. 

He glows as kd takes his arm and leads him into the living room, softly pushing him down onto the couch where they always smoke, playfully falling down beside him. She puts a well packed joint between his lips and lights it, taking it out and pulling on it harder taking smoke into her mouth, turning toward Severin she presses her mouth to his, exhaling smoke in a passionate kiss. Kd takes hits of the joint and feeds it into Severin’s mouth in between slipping her tongue around his. She takes his hand and slowly guides it to her tits, cupping her soft flesh she guides him to squeeze, and the sensation of the give of her body in his hands shocks him out of the moment. Severin takes his hand away from the girl’s chest, and assures her that he wants her, but he’s way too stoned to keep going in this state, at this time with all their guests there. Kd giggles, kissing Severin on his nose and on his head, and then standing up from the couch, she winks at him and disappears back into the party. 

Too much excitement for one night, Severin decides it’s time to retreat having accomplished all his goals. He performed his art, talked to more than just his 3 roommates and he didn’t do or say anything dangerous or stupid. Weaving through people in the apartment preparing to go back to his room after grabbing some water, he sees kd talking to xp and another couple friends he doesn’t recognize, and stops short as she looks a little distressed. Severin ducks behind the wall leading into the kitchen where kd and the others talk, listening on. 

“Maybe he’ll let you touch his hair. I asked him like last week if I could feel it and he looked at me like he was gonna fucking eat me dude.” xp says. 

“Yeah, I don’t know what your fascination is, I don’t really wanna touch it. I just want a boy with a wet cunt and fat dick who doesn’t talk back to rearrange my insides when I need it,” kd laughs. 

“Lucky bitch got there before I did.”  He recognizes it’s xp’s voice responding. 

Only in this moment does he remember that there’s water bottles in his room, and begins to kick himself in the spine at his own stupidity for not heading directly back to bed, hearing things he shouldn’t have ever heard. He goes back to his room and he doesn’t fall asleep until the red LEDs aren't lit anymore, and all the strangers have gone home. 

A couple days later before the weekend comes around again, Severin talks to kd about the night of the show and says he doesn’t wanna hookup like that again, and wants to stay platonic and nonsexual with one another, as he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for him to be involved with a roommate in that way. The conversation ends happily, with the two sitting on the couch watching king of the hill reruns packing bowls for each other, kd falling asleep on his shoulder, the clock hitting 12am, cementing one full month since he’s been there. 

IV.

It’s been a few days since the show and I’ve had at least 4 of the dozen or so people who I met that night reach out to me to talk about collaborating on something, a couple of them just to flirt, which I welcome. The sound for the house group chat chimes on my phone: “HOUSE MEETING!” from xp. I’m not shocked by it, expecting that we’d have to get together sometime soon. I head to the living room and sit on my regular spot on the couch, waiting for everyone else to join. Once xp walks into the room fully dressed, shoes included, and the rest of the roommates follow suit similarly, I regret my choice of an oversized hoodie, leggings and fuzzy polka dotted socks.   I tuck my legs underneath me as my roommates gather around in the living room, sitting silently. 

Xp begins, “I know we don’t usually do things like this but for the sake of the conversation, we’re gonna use this little wand as a talking stick. Whoever has the stick is the central talker, you wait until you’re passed the stick to talk. Classic. Just to make sure everyone is heard.” 

Everyone around the room nods. She passes the stick to kd. She takes a deep breath and lets every bit of oxygen pulled into her lungs out until she looks deflated, starting to speak. 

“I don’t like having to say this, and I don’t like that I feel this way. I’ve tried to fight it, but I think that’s doing us all a disservice. I have to open up about it or else it’ll just get worse. Severin --” She turns to me and my body turns stone cold. “I feel really terrible about how things have gone with us. I feel like I’ve been manipulated, and both misled and led on. And with the way that you were so in and then so out, I feel really used and discarded, abused.” She says it all, looking right at me. “It feels like you got in with me on a certain level in order to get access to the show, knowing I’m the one who handles booking. And once you’d had your performance, and you met other people with connections here, you weren’t interested in me anymore. “

“No, that’s not true,” I say, immediately regretful. 

“Talking stick, Severin,” xp says to me in a growl.  

“That’s all I really have to say anyways. I’m hurt, and I feel really uncomfortable with things,” kd says, and passes me the stick without looking at me. 

“I explained why I wasn’t comfortable going on. I was too stoned, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to hook up with my roommates in the first place. This is the most comfortable living situation I’ve had in a long time, maybe ever, and I don’t want to fuck it up,” I admit to them in an exasperated tone. I pass the stick to JB, wondering if it has something to say about this. 

“I don’t know, dude. You’ve been really comfortable with kd for a while now. And you’ve talked to us all about hooking up, in jokes, I know but still – it didn’t ever seem off the table,” it says, handing the stick back to me. 

“Maybe I’ve made jokes, I’ll admit it if I have but I don’t think that changes me saying I didn’t feel comfortable with it once things had gotten to a certain point. Everyone is allowed to change their mind about things, no?” I hand the stick to kd.

“I just don’t believe that’s what it was.” She hands it back to me.  The others nod in agreement. 

My cheeks would be red if they weren’t deep brown.

I can feel the heat bubbling up underneath them and the veins in my head pulsing in frustration as I am misunderstood, misinterpreted and mischaracterized by my friends. In a desperate attempt at understanding, at opening things up to more truth, I admit to them,

“I heard kd saying something during the night of the diy show once you’d thought I went to bed. Something that made me feel gross and fetishized, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Instead of causing an issue, I figured it was best to not go there at all, and I stand by that. I’m sorry, kd.” I pass the stick back to her and bury my head in my hands in shame and humiliation. 

“I’ve never said anything but nice things about you. I’d never talk about you with anything but respect,” she says to me. 

“Yeah man she’s never said a bad thing about you and I don’t think she ever would. It’s cool to say you just weren’t feeling it,” JB chimes in, stick not in hand. 

“If anything kd was being amenable to flirtation with you out of coercion.” xp says. 

“What the fuck, xp? Why would you say that?” I ask her, looking directly into her eyes with hot heavy tears welling up in mine. 

The air in the room turns more thin and frozen than it’s ever felt. I ask if we can talk more later. I can’t take the temperature. They all nod, and we disperse.  I look around at the posters on the wall of my room and I kick myself for putting them up. Hannah calls me 20 minutes later, angry. She says she can’t believe that I yelled and cursed at my roommates, that I scared them, and that there’s nothing she can do to help me anymore. I smoked the rest of the weed I had in my little glass jar and I fell asleep cradling the sheets on my bed, praying that this bed could somehow stay my own. 

V.

I have 30 days to get out of the Wolf House and Hannah isn’t helping me anymore, so I have no choice. John #666, the client aptly numbered due to his excessively demonic nature has been consistently messaging my work line that I’ve been ignoring since vanilla work has been taking care of things. Paychecks every two weeks won’t help when you’ve got 30 days to find a place to go with everything you own though. I answer him for what will hopefully be the last time, getting enough money from this gig that I can buy some ads somewhere else and block his number for good. I guess I should be thankful. Kd didn’t go online with the accusations against me, nor did the roommates seem to go outside of our extremely immediate circle with the information about kd and my hookup in the first place. 

I should be grateful that I can maintain some semblance of personhood outside of the abusive caricature that I am in their mind. I have two hours until John #666 gets here and I’ll spend that time reaching out to some of the people I met at that show, and hopefully get started on some work that might give me a name outside of my own head. One day at a time. Someday a bed will be my bed forever.

The following text contains a transcript of the very last instagram post made by @00_wolfhouse_00 (the collective roommate-ran instagram page for “the wolf house”, an apartment in downtown LA hosting DIY queer + trans art shows) 

August 12, 2021 

the photograph is a picture of the 4 roommates in order: kd, severin, xp, jb. They are on a couch in a living room with their arms wrapped around one another, grinning happily. Xp makes bunny ears behind Severin’s head. 

[The caption underneath the photo reads]:

Rest in Power, Severin. We will makes sure that nobody ever forgets you or your name or the stunning work you left behind for us. We are all so grateful to have spent the time with you that we did here at the Wolf House, and it won’t ever be the same again without you. We will forever wish there was more we could have done to prevent this disgusting, senseless tragedy, but we promise to carry on your name forever. We will be putting on one last DIY show for this year (yes, that means winter wolf fest is canceled. We are sorry) at Wolf House to raise funds to cover portions of rent we’ll be missing and to aid us in time off to mourn and take care of the remaining property of Severin’s left at Wolf House. Please remember that we take care of us, we are all we have. Black trans lives matter. RIP Severin. - xp, kd & jb. Wolf house.  #BLM 

END.

• Cissexism, also often called cisnormativity, is the belief that being cisgender is the default, that everyone is or should be cisgender. It also relates to a wide amount of assumptions made about gender, gender assignment and the existence of biological sex as a whole and the belief that cis peoples gender identities, expressions and embodiments are more natural and legitimate than trans peoples.

• Bioessentialism refers to the belief that ‘human nature’, an individual’s personality, or some specific quality (such as intelligence, creativity, homosexuality, masculinity, femininity, or propensity to aggression) is an innate and natural ‘essence’ (rather than a product of circumstances, upbringing, and culture). An example would be “girls (or CAFAB people) were raised to be quiet and demure” or “boys (or CAMAB people) were raised to take up space and be confident” — these are bioessentialist ideals that serve to reinforce a binary and categorize us as “normal” or “deviant”.

• Antitransmasculinity refers to a theory of systemic gendered oppression created to discuss and combat various forms of violence against people of marginalized genders who have, or are perceived as having trans/masculinity as a part of their gender expanse.

There are many reasons why trans men are consistently denied the ability to claim a girlhood for themselves, and one of the major reasons is antitransmasculinity and the perception that trans people were always our gender, a claim often made to make cis people comfortable, as it upholds concepts of cissexism where being cisgendered is the “default” and everything else is a “deviation”. This is a function of not solely transphobia, but also antitransmasculinity (which will be abbreviated occasionally as ATM), because this denial of a past, the denial of a girlhood, is often substantiated by the myth that transmasculine people inherit male privilege with transition, as the idea of someone who has male privilege being discussed as removed from that privilege in any way is seen as inherently anti-feminist. To many, in order to be a true feminist you must see all people with male privilege as having always held that privilege, and if you do not apply this to trans men and transmasculine people, you’re being transphobic, antifeminist or both. It is, heretical, to many people, to see transmasculine people and trans men as marginalized genders because to them, to see a masculine person or man as being marginalized due to gender is to admit that men can be marginalized by their gender.

Trans men are men, they are trans men because they are trans, they are men because they are trans, and they are trans because they are men. The concept of “this is just transphobia” is inaccurate, as it positions our collective insistence upon a trans/manhood as being acceptable and permitted by society when it is anything but. This fact is so often blatantly refused because many people simply do not want to accept that people who are men or are perceived as men within society can and do deserve a space among other people who are marginalized by their gender, which reveals a refusal to decouple the conceptualization of man from the concept of inherent violence. This is not an act of destroying patriarchy. It is an act of alienating a vulnerable marginalized population of people for the crime of being “the patriarchy gender”.

The intersection of transness is vastly important when discussing how transmasculine people are treated as men, but many people see the insistence of taking transness into account when discussing transmasculine manhood as exactly the same as transmasculine people saying “We were once girls, so we have to be included in feminism because of our birth sex”, which would imply that transfeminine people, who may have not been ‘once girls’ do not deserve this space – when that is not the case. This intersection matters because we live in a society that does not on any significant level permit transitioning gender or changing your sex, all trans people are marginalized by their gender – full stop.

To far too many modern feminists (including a lot of trans people), men [FULL STOP] are an oppressor class — all of them, including trans men (+mascs) — and so the monitoring of any/all language used by an oppressor class (in this case, trans men + mascs) is seen as an act of feminism in and of itself, making sure that people who seek to oppress and harm women cannot arm themselves with any dangerous rhetoric. The proliferation of this concept has led to anti-transmasculinity (I often do not use a space between anti and transmasculinity as a personal choice ) being misrepresented, poorly defined and weaponized. Antitransmasculinity is a theory that aims to understand and articulate and combat a form of gendered oppression, but it does not give credence to the idea of “sex based oppression”, instead pointing out the specifics on how rhetoric applied to cis men does not apply to trans men, and why. This warped definition of ATM is frequently represented as “MRA” (mens rights activist) rhetoric though the insistence on calling it that entirely erases the intersection of transness that does fundamentally change transmasculine experiences of masculinity and manhood.

Transmasculine people are frequently told that they are doing nothing but speaking over women when they attempt to discuss issues they face, especially issues that women are involved in perpetuating [because everyone is, because behaviors are often baked into societal conditioning]. It’s a strange thing where trans men, in an effort to talk about their issues, their past, their histories and combat both bioessentialism and transmisogyny, have been effectively barred from directly talking about themselves or their experiences except from the viewpoint of someone who is a man and was always a man, or else it is seen as antifeminist, bioessentialist, transmisogynistic or a combination of all of them. I refuse to pretend like transmasculine people + trans men are not trans. They are trans. It’s not anti-feminist to pretend they aren’t. It’s not giving trans men biological authority to speak about girlhood or misogyny to treat them as people marginalized by their gender by white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy. Because they are trans.

There is a widespread belief among many bigoted circles that transmasculine people are sick mentally ill girls – this alone is an example of cis womanhood offering a form of patriarchal power over transmasculine people which is explicitly a function of antitransmasculinity. This is one big reason why anyone who believes that the concept of anti-transmasculinity is ineffective because it is “just misogyny” (or just transphobia) is wrong, as the denial of girl/womanhood and the simultaneous forced assignment of bad girl/woman is consistently present for transmasculine people.

This insistence upon others having more authority over a transmasculine person’s experience than they themselves do, is antitransmasculinity, and while cis women are the primary perpetrators of this form of it, it is not exclusive to them. This is a part of a belief and behavior that many people carry where if someone insists upon one truth for themselves, it is assumed that they also believe the exact opposite for someone different than them. For example, a trans man says “I put off transitioning because I was told that the only thing that I was good for was my beauty, and transition would make me ugly” some people will read this and respond “this trans man is insisting that trans women are never treated as unworthy if they are not desirable” and this is…simply not true, and a prime example of a bad faith reading. I urge everyone to realize when they are perceiving things in this black and white way, and treating transmasc and transfem as if they are polar opposites of one another when we are not. Our experiences are never 1:1, and we aren’t mirrors of one another. Sometimes someone is just talking about themselves, not making a sweeping declaration about everyone who shares a gender with them, or making a statement about people you see as being the “opposite” gender than they are.

This connects to a reason why transmasculine people are denied the ability to identify with their girlhoods / personal histories – that being the pervasive [radfem] ideals that have sunk into trans-centric spaces that say if a transmasculine person or trans man identifies with girlhood in any way, the intent is to position themselves as inherently more fragile and susceptible to harm than those who experienced boyhood, by virtue of being “born a girl” – ie: transmisogyny ala ‘i was born the victim gender’. Now, I do believe this viewpoint is so common because of how many transmasculine people have perpetuated bioessentialism and transmisogyny both intentionally and inadvertently. Many transmasculine people have not yet received the language to articulate their experiences pre-transition as anything other than misogyny or transphobia, there are transmasculine people who still use terms like “female socialized”, who are heavy on the use of “afab” when explaining themselves. I do not agree with these things, but I also do not see these people as my enemies, particularly those who are actively in the process of learning and unlearning and are willing to explore developing the language and vocabulary they use.

A lot of what I do is specifically to make sure there is more language that is accessible to transmasculine people so that they can more easily transform their potentially outdated, offensive and largely inaccurate language to articulate their experiences and to avoid falling into bioessentialism and transmisogyny, as well as to avoid attracting lovebombing manipulative terf-cultists who are always on the hunt for transmasculine people to lovebomb and indoctrinate and abuse. Are there trans men who see themselves as “biological women/biologically female’’, who center their afabness when talking about themselves and other transmasculine people, who do fully intend to be transmisogynistic? Absolutely. Buck Angel is still, unfortunately, around, loud as hell, spewing vitriol. This is not, however, the case for every person who uses clunky, oftentimes offensive, hurtful language to articulate their experiences. I believe it is another function of antitransmasculinity that we generally understand as trans people that the existence of bigoted or predatory trans women doesn’t give anyone an excuse to categorize trans women as bigoted or predatory as a whole, but for some reason, there is no issue spotting a transmasculine person utilizing transmisogynistic rhetoric to explain their experiences and saying this is the default for all transmasculine people because of their identity or biological classification. This, resulting in a consistently reported transmasc experience of being told their transness makes them a risk, their trans manhood or masculinity makes them responsible for the actions of every other transmasc or man, and that makes them unworthy of empathy or support.

So often people will see a trans man relating to the girl in him, or the girl he used to be, and perceive this exclusively as someone attempting to evade accountability for harm done or to obfuscate the patriarchal privilege they have inherited by virtue of transitioning — this is blatant antitransmasculinity. I see it often when trans men make art about how they feel like there’s a girl still trapped inside of them, people accusing them of “calling trans men women’’ or infantilizing trans men as a whole, or misgendering all trans men. The reality is this – many trans men did not know their entire childhoods that they were boys. Some transmasculine people are bigender or genderfluid, and are still girls. Again, I believe a lot of the refusal of this stems from the attachment to viewing transfemininity and transmasculinity as polar opposites of one another that exist on opposing scales. Some trans men consider themselves to be former girls, or are still women, and that’s okay, and they should not have to deny this part of their expansive humanity simply because transmisogynistic trans men who weaponize their biology or “socialization” against trans women exist or because terfs will weaponize their identities along with transphobic, antitransmasc rhetoric to “prove” that transmasculine people are just girls who have been pressured into transitioning. Some trans women consider themselves to be former boys, or are still boys/men and that’s okay, and they should not have to deny this part of their expansive humanity simply because transmisogyny (and transmisogynistic trans men) exist , and aims to weaponize their identity to strip them of womanhood entirely.

We are not helping each other by allowing the weaponized versions of any one individual’s trans experience and how they choose to speak about it become the default narrative for everyone with the same or a similar identity as theirs.

This denial of personal history does happen to transfeminine people as well, where there is a pressure to relinquish all connection to masculinity or boy/manhood in order to be seen as a true woman, in order to prove that they really are who they are. The weaponization of “male socialization” against transfeminine people is so often used as a cudgel against them, which has done the work of stereotyping transfeminine people as predatory inescapably masculine people while also robbing many transfems and trans women access and ability to relate to their former selves, or selves that still exist as boys/men, out of a fear that this will be used to deny their womanhood entirely as it so often is. This is perpetuated both inside and outside of trans spaces.

I have spoken to many transfeminine people about how much they miss being able to experience life as a gay boy, only keeping themselves away from what they could experience that might fill up that space they are missing, because they are afraid they will have their womanhood immediately called into question and seized by the people around them. Many have admitted to me, in private, that the denial of masculinity and manhood to them at its most honest, is a performance, because they feel like if they don’t perform this rejection well enough, other trans people, particularly other trans women, will not see them as belonging to the same / similar group and they will lose community. This is fucked up and sad for all of us. The truth of the matter is that “male/female socialization” are never things that should be applied widely to any group for any reason, but that’s not what we should perceive that trans people are giving credence to when we talk about our upbringings, or feeling like that boy or girl is still inside of us.

We should all have the freedom to talk about ourselves however we like, because our experiences are all unique.

Where it all falls apart is insisting that everyone within your same or similar demographic must adhere to the same perception of their own lives that you have of your own. Trans women should be allowed to identify with the boys they used to be, if they feel they were once boys. They should be allowed to stand in an expansive gender that includes boyhood / manhood or masculinity, without it taking away from who they are as women, and without being accused of attempting to hold onto these things to reap benefits of some sort of privilege, or to harm other people. Trans men should be allowed to identify with the girls they used to be, if they feel they were once girls. They should be allowed to stand in an expansive gender that includes girlhood / womanhood or femininity, without it taking away from who they are as men, and without being accused of attempting to leverage this experience to harm other people, without the assumption that this expanse of personhood only exists to evade accountability or to reap the benefits of some privilege.

The steadily rising transmedicalism within general trans spaces is something that harms all of us as trans people and is not solely a function of antitransmasculinity, but that serves functions of it when it comes to denials of personal history. Many trans people will see someone who says “I was a girl, I am now a man” or “I was a boy, I am now a woman” and immediately see something that can be weaponized to take away gender affirming care from trans people, and thus, something that should be stamped out. The belief that transness is a medicalized disorder, something obvious from early childhood that can be cured with gender affirming care such as HRT and surgery, is a big motivator when it comes to denying the varied experiences of other trans people.

Transmedicalism largely rests on the idea of a transition being a cure for gender dysphoria, and gender dysphoria includes thinking of oneself as whatever your former gender was. The idea that a trans man could still see himself as a girl, or see his former self as a girl is one that is fundamentally antithetical to your existence if you see yourself as having always been your gender. Antitransmasculnity has a stake in upholding this. The concept of “irreversible damage” and “rapid onset gender dysphoria” are things leveraged primarily against younger transmasculine people, and the concept of transmasculine people or trans men having ever seen themselves as a girl is weaponized by the people who believe in both of these things. The irreversible damage crowd says “see, this transmasculine person says he had a girlhood, and grew up a girl. There is a chance they might feel that way again and regret transitioning, so we must stop them from going through it at all”, while the ROGD crowd says “if you think of your childhood self as a girl, it is proof that this whole thing came out of nowhere, and you have been influenced by social contagion.” These are both bullshit ideas, but the concept of trans people being barred from thinking of themselves as whatever their former gender was is largely supported by these ideals. The thing is, one individual’s insistence on their reality does not designate that truth to another. It’s okay if you are a trans person who sees yourself as having always been your gender. The existence of trans people who were not always their gender does not mean they are insisting upon the same for you. The cis people who control our hormones and access to gender affirming procedures will not freely give us access to these things if we only establish one narrative for what it means to be trans. If that was the case, we’d already have access, considering the medicalized viewpoint of transness has been the default view for a very long time. I feel genuinely sorry for all of the trans people who have been convinced that denying themselves access to their own history is the way we find freedom. Transmedicalism often reveals itself to be the ultimate assimilationist ideology.

Now, to wrap this up and to be entirely clear. Transmasculine people who say that because of their experience “being born as” (whatever way they might phrase it) or growing up as a girl, they have exclusive rights or more of a right to talking about the experiences of womanhood/girlhood or misogyny than someone who was not “born” or raised as a girl does, are wrong, and being transmisogynistic, cissexist, intersexist, bioessentialist AND exorsexist. The opposite of this is also true. Trans people who say that because they grew up as a boy, they have exclusive rights or more of a right to talk about the experiences of manhood/boyhood than someone who was not raised as a boy does, are also wrong, and being antitransmasc, cissexist, intersexist, bioessentialist AND exorsexist. Both of these beliefs give credence to the idea that biological sex is a more valuable factor in our upbringing and who we are than our environment, culture, family setup and all the numerous external factors that go into how someone perceives their upbringing and how they develop as time goes on. Trans men who say they grew up a girl, were raised as a girl, and want to talk about their girlhoods are not making sweeping declarations about anyone’s experience but their own. Trans women who say they grew up a boy, were raised as a boy, and want to talk about their boyhoods are not making sweeping declarations about anyone’s experience but their own.

We cannot continue to allow transphobic weaponization of our experiences (coming from any source) to define the narrative surrounding our existences, and to rob us of our freedom to speak freely about who we are, who we have been, and who we might become.

INTRODUCTION / TRANSMASCULINE ‘PICK-ME-ISM’ DEFINED

There is a dynamic that occurs as a part of antitransmasculinity that many people have been working to articulate, this being the instillation within trans men and transmasculine people (and anyone who is being perceived as a part of this group at the time) that the very concept of talking about things that harm these groups and creating language based around these experiences, that any mention of the intense and dire circumstances that many transmasculine people have suffered from or are currently suffering in — is really just an act of harm toward other queer and trans people, particularly toward transfems and trans women. More concisely put  — there is a specific function of antitransmasculinity that teaches transmascs and men (+ those perceived as) seeking language to corroborate and combat their oppression is only done in order to redirect the focus from more marginalized groups, particularly trans women, so these discussions and attempts at formulating language are inherently harmful to trans women.

There have been more than a few cases of the transmasculine people who have been successfully indoctrinated into this line of logic being labeled “pick-me’s”, in response to statements like “if you think trans women hate you (a misinterpretation of ATM theory as it exists), it's probably because you actually suck to be around and not because this thing is real” or “trans guys who actually hang out with trans women know this isn't real and the trans guy who think its real never have any trans women around them”. “Pick me” is a term that is defined as derogatory slang used as an insult for someone “who acts against the interests of their own (typically marginalized) group in the hope of obtaining majority favor.” It is most frequently used when talking about misogynistic cishet women who enact misogyny against other cishet women in order to pander to misogynistic cishet men, and that’s where the phrase “he aint gonna pick you, sis” comes from. Simply put, it’s an insult stemming from the idea that a woman would throw other women under the bus to curry favor with the majority (in this case, the majority is misogynistic cishet men). This is also observed within the rhetoric along the lines of “we (transmasculine people) just have an easier time transitioning than trans women do” or “you have to admit you have male privilege” and “no transphobia happening to transmascs and men is ever specific to being a man, it’s just about being trans” —  these are the transmasculine people who are most often labeled ‘pick me’s’.

2. MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

The reason I don’t like using this terminology to describe a dynamic that I do believe is real is because it is so often used as a way to position transfeminine people as the majority, and this is a myth many people have been working to debunk for a long time, that transfeminine people exist in vastly larger quantities than transmasculine people do. Though the people engaged in antitransmasculinity who similarly despite the use of “pick me” often disagree with it explicitly because they insist that saying the type of statements mentioned above don’t actually come with any rewards, unlike in the case of being favored by a majority like misogynistic cishet men, which does come with the rewards that come with being attached to someone who is seen as a patriarch in a patriarchal world. This is a fallacy however, considering the statements I reference are often being said and boosted by some of the most relevant, influential transmasculine people in trans academia + theory, who are seen authorities on transmasculine existence, behavior and oppression  — people like Dr. Devon Price, author of widely sold “Laziness Does Not Exist” and “Unmasking Autism”. Devon Price frequently claims and boosts rhetoric that claims that transmasculine people exist in an inherently less persecuted and violated position in comparison to transfeminine people, that transmasculine people who speak up about antitransmasc violence (intracommunity or otherwise) are just sad, isolated, transmisogynistic baby transmascs who have never spoken to a trans woman before, that antitransmasculinity theory only exists as a counter to transmisogyny  theory. He has stood by these statements and has been continually rewarded with even more reach, visibility, resource, credibility and leeway to continue to position himself as an authority on transmasculine existence and oppression as he avidly peddles rhetoric that directly harms transmasculine people. Nothing has been lost, only gained. And no, the 16 trans men who vocally disagreed on twitter does not count as something lost when the posts get 5 thousand or more likes and often get spread by activists with massive platforms because the source of them being people like Devon Price lends them credibility, something that the random transmasculine people who disagree with him are not able to leverage.

As with most forms of oppression, antiblackness finds a way to display itself and act as an essential force, as he has continually erased the fact that Black trans people of all gender expanses have been the primary people working to theorize antitransmasculinity, and that we have done so specifically to display how this oppression could not thrive without antiblackness. He, among many other influential trans (and cis) people, almost exclusively speak about antitransmasculinity theory when they come across the term being used by a transmisogynistic, bioessentialist white transmasc who happily calls themselves “afab” to signal innocence and “female socialization”. This act displayed by so many is both antitransmasculine and antiblack, as the constant erasure of the experiences of Black and Indigenous transmasculine people is a large factor in the continued invisibilization and lack of accountability for the violence and harm done to these demographics. There are countless other influential transmasculine people (and in turn, cis people who view them as an authority on things they themselves do not experience) who parrot these same sentiments, ignoring all input from racialized trans people who have continually beckoned them to see the flaws in their logic and how it consistently fails to take intersectionality into account, and how that is actively harming the people they believe their rhetoric is helping.

This obfuscation of truth and reality doesn’t matter much when punishment for pushing back on antitransmasculinity is framed as happening specifically to protect trans women and fight against transmisogyny, in spite of the fact that fighting antitransmasculinity and fighting transmisogyny are not in conflict with one another. The term of a transmasc “pick-me” exists not because of a belief that transfeminine people are the majority and/or that they are the oppressors of any other trans people, but because there are provable material rewards for upholding and platforming antitransmasculinity. I don’t agree with the term, and I don’t use it. I prefer to call people who participate in, uphold and platform antitransmasculinity what they are — antitransmasculine, regardless of the labels they use or identity they have.

3. WHAT IS ANTITRANSMASCULINITY? WHAT ISNT IT?

Before we go any further I’d love to explain exactly what antitransmasculinity truly is and what it represents to me, as one of the main people working toward establishing it as common vocabulary for those who need it to describe experiences or understanding of oppression. Firstly, antitransmasculinity does not exist to prove that it’s functions touch and/or harm transmasculine people exclusively — anyone can be touched or harmed by antitransmasculinity. It is more broadly meant to articulate how these things might specifically harm transmasculine people and those with manhood and/or masculinity as a part of their gender expanse. Things that are often labeled as antitransmasculinity happen to trans people who are not transmasculine, to nonbinary people, to cis people. There is no one goal of theorizing antitransmasculinity, but it is important to understand that it is not to explain that it does not happen to others, or that it exclusively happens to transmasculine people. However, it does extrapolate on how that harm is perceived by the outside world and what is actually done about it when the victims are transmasculine people, trans men, and trans people with masculinity or manhood as a part of their gender expanse, as harm does come to us all, but the reactions to it aren't always the same. If anyone tells you that antitransmasculinity only happens to transmasculine people and trans men, they are using the term incorrectly, and I would personally appreciate it if you would correct them. With the formation of new language to articulate specific experiences, comes misunderstandings, comes misuse, and I aim to continually work to make sure that this term is not misrepresented in it’s legacy, regardless of who attempts to rewrite the history of this term, regardless of whatever theory of transmasculine oppression might spur afterward.

Both intentional and unintentional misinterpretations of ATM theory are rampant, and difficult to keep track of as they come from so many different sources. The idea that antitransmasculinity exists as a theory to position transfeminine people as a part of an oppressor class is one big misrepresentation I see often. I do not, nor do any of the people (of all gender expanses) I know who write about antitransmasculinity, believe in the existence of sex-based oppression as it pertains to trans people. There is no harm that a trans person can perpetuate against another that places them into an oppressive class, as harm and intersectional analysis of power is far more complex than that. Antitransmasculinity is not a phenomena perpetrated exclusively by transfeminine people — this is another often spread fallacy, and something that I see brought up constantly in an effort to diminish credibility of theory and dismiss anyone speaking about antitransmasculinity. It often works, because well meaning non-transmisogynistic people don’t want to be a part of any discussion that begins with “transfems are to blame for x”, and that’s fair — but that is not what antitransmasculinity aims to present, and defining it as such is incorrect, and erasure of the theory that has been built.

The people who primarily uphold and perpetuate antitransmasculinity are cis men and women. Full stop. The perception that it is only transfems who are ever “called out” for ATM is largely due to the fact that antitransmasculinity is so normalized within trans spaces, and transmasculine people (and many many non transmascs! People who are also harmed by ATM!) have begun to widely push back on how normalized it is in an attempt to make trans spaces safer for themselves and others. This does not mean trans people are the primary perpetrators of it, but rather that trans people have a vested interest in making the spaces we inhabit safer for one another.

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Personally, I focus so much on intra-community bigotry because I have an intense fixation with making sure that the spaces that yell to me “you are safe to be here” are actually safe for me. And they are not, when they are rife with constantly excused antitransmasculinity which is, as I have mentioned, often viciously laced in a heaping layer of antiblackness. Cis men and women are the primary disseminators of antitransmasc rhetoric — full stop. If you see someone blaming transfems exclusively for this phenomena, it is likely you have come across someone who spends most of their time within online discourse spaces who has internalized the visibility transfems receive in these spaces as being reflective of the entire world, when it is not and it is not representative of those of us who theorize on and push back against antitransmasculinity.

Antitransmasculinity as a term is meant to articulate experiences with oppression that largely stem from how we are perceived in the world, and that perception is not up to us as much as we attempt to control it, and that perception is not static, and that means it can happen to anyone.

So, this articulation of how specific harms are perceived and dealt (and often not dealt) with, a theory largely developed by Black and Indigenous trans people of all gender expanses is so frequently being defined as “early transition white tboys who want to feel special (who also hate (trans) women!)”  is an act of direct devaluing of work, experiences and lives of the racialized people forming this theory which drives us further into invisibility, further trapped in cycles of harm.

The claim that “there is nothing that needs to be said [re: transmasculine oppression] that plenty of people haven’t already said, who have already said it in all the exactly right ways, that have come to all the exactly correct conclusions that benefit all the people who truly need it.” If this were the reality, so many people at so many different points of time, coming from so many different places, with so many varied gender embodiments would not continually find themselves attempting to develop language to articulate such specific harms manifesting in such unique ways. Harms that continually seem to find them in spite of the insistence that it should not have a name, the shadows of invisibility render it almost untouchable, immovable.

4. PUNISHMENTS AND REWARDS

Something that makes this topic so complex is the fact that it is extremely personal, which makes it all extremely emotional. It’s hard not to have an emotional response to people saying things like “we [transmasculine people] have it tough, but they [transfeminine people] have it worse, it’s not taking anything from you to acknowledge that they have it harder, we as trans men have to admit that no matter how hard it is for us, it’s always harder for trans women. It’s okay to not be the most oppressed, it doesn't mean you aren’t suffering at all just because you have to admit trans women are always suffering worse than you are.” – this is a very clear push to convince other trans people that there is limited space in this world for both suffering and care. I promise you, there is an infinite amount of both in this world. I urge people to have sympathy for the reactions many transmasculine people might have to hearing things like “please understand your suffering is not something we should be making any more room for, asking anyone for this is bigoted” so consistently when we live in a time where the news of hate crimes , murders , sexual assaults and suicides are just as consistent in trans news, media and discourse cycles.

When I come across statements like that I have empathy for everyone involved, knowing there is a massive chance that this reaction [your/my/our suffering is secondary, less violent] is due to the belief that echoing these sentiments and teaching them to other transmasculine people is the right way [and sometimes even seen as the best way] to be an ally to trans women. The idea that dismissing and devaluing transmasculine oppression, violence and pain while actively advising other transmasculine people to treat their pain as secondary splash damage is how you show that you care.

I didn’t realize, until I was no longer surrounded by people who only accepted me as long as I kept my muzzle on tight, that I had made the pain and suffering that had been inflicted upon me a part of my humanity that could be explained away as merely accidental. I was vehemently rewarded for upholding antitransmasculinity, and declaring that any transmasculine person who didn’t subscribe to this line of logic was just, uhmmm, obviously not as much of a trans woman lover as I was. I was avidly rewarded for this denial of antitransmasculinity as an axis of oppression, particularly for denying the ability of queer and trans people to perpetuate it, and for punishing other transmasculine people [with verbal condemnations of implicit and obvious transmisogyny] who spoke up about it via shunning them as someone who simply doesn’t care about trans women or transmisogyny with the reasoning that attention on antitransmasculinity only existed as a foil to combating transmisogyny. I was rewarded in emotional care, with material resources, with visibility. During the time in my life where I turned a blind eye to the antitransmasc [ and thus, so often deeply antiblack ] actions of the people around me, I was given so much space in places that elevated me in profound ways.

I reflect on this time I spent being surrounded by people whose arguments largely centered around the fact that they have so little power, and I realize at the same time as they swore they had no power, I was, because of them, the closest I had ever been to escaping poverty just off the boosting and backing I gained from proximity to such influential white trans + queer people. I gained thousands of followers very quickly, not only because of avid posting but specifically from the endorsements of people who would later completely dissociate from me and condemn me for daring to unbuckle my muzzle. I regret this time in my life deeply. I apologize from the bottom of my heart to anyone I ever hurt with antitransmasc rhetoric, for boosting the words and theory of people who treat transmasculine pain as being in opposition transfeminine pain, to keeping the company of people who only saw and accepted my complex humanity as long as I refused to point out the way that they would continually disregard [or outright deny] the complex humanity of others.

5. THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE / ANTITRANSMASCULINITY & INTERSECTIONALITY

The thing is,  caring about trans women, fighting against transmisogyny and advocating for transmasculine people and against antitransmasc sentiments + behavior, are not things that are in conflict with one another. If someone is representing either as being in conflict with the other, there is a reason for that, and it is not because that is true. There are a few reasons they are sometimes seen as being in conflict, and it is largely because so much of the conversations held by the people with the biggest platforms and most reach have exclusively represented antitransmasculinity theory as nothing but a counter to transmisogyny theory and transfeminism as a whole. These conversations nearly exclusively engage with antitransmasculinity theory in quick dunks and debunking threads based off of random anonymous twitter users with 54 followers making inflammatory posts. It’s easy to see caring about trans women and caring about antitransmasculinity as in conflict with each other if you are only ever exposed to those who define antitransmasculinity as a reactionary grab at attention that exists as inherently antithetical to transfeminism. That is not what ATM is, and in spite of the constant work that people are doing to erase this work and its intentions, it will never be that.

Care for trans women and advocating against transmisogyny is far more significant and visible in my behavior and praxis as someone who is engaged with ATM theory than it was in the days where I dismissed this harm that touches so many of us, transmasculine and not. I will go as far as saying that the things I did back in the day didn’t actually push back against transmisogyny in any meaningful way at all, things like telling transmascs to be quiet about their oppression, telling transmascs that they should accept taking a backseat because their suffering just isn’t that bad comparatively. I now see these words and actions as regressive behavior that harms trans people as a whole, that keeps us further away from sincere freedom, I don’t see any transfeminine people being housed, fed, protected, made any safer, nothing – from any of that. And ultimately, that’s what I care about. I’m trying to make survival easier for all of us in whatever ways that I am capable.

Combating antitransmasculinity and combating transmisogyny/noir are intertwined struggles. Both forms of oppression are reinforced by one another in constant loops. I am desperate to stop watching people be convinced that participating in and upholding antitransmasculinity is what fighting transmisogyny is, and my goal is never to convince people dealing with antitransmasculinity that fighting it means engaging in transmisogyny. It is not fighting transmisogyny to help cis people continue their mass burial of transmasculine people by upholding blatant antitransmasc lies like “terfs don’t target transmasculine people’’ — “terfs don’t want transmascs dead, they want them detransitioned” – simply tagging on “oh, I just mean they don’t target them as much” and pretending like that makes a world of difference in a society where trans people (ALL of us) are one-third more likely to be killed by a stranger than cis people are. I will feel responsible for combatting this rhetoric forever, as someone who accepted it and watched it lead to many transmasculine people admitting things to me like, “well, if the way that I exist and the space I inhabit is so harsh, and talking about the ways it affects me as a transmasculine person means that I’d be a verifiable transmisogynist who harms trans women, I would rather be dead.” This is, regardless of any level of denial or shifting the blame, where the belief that any mention of antitransmasculinity (or the other words people use to describe this phenomena including: transandrophobia, transmisia, transmisandry and more) makes someone an enemy to trans women leads a lot of people. And as much as people get angry at me for mentioning it — this is also a contributing factor for a lot of detransitioning within the transmasculine community, a part that we as queer and trans people have a role in contributing to, which means we also have the power to change it, which is why that matters.

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I largely keep the messages I get that say these things private, because I know how so many would choose to represent someone expressing such big, heavy feelings that they are thinking of detransitioning (“oh, another afab terf detranser making life worse for trans women because people were mean to them”) but, it’s important to me because I want as many trans people to exist as possible, and I don’t want to enact, endorse or uphold anything that discourages any trans person from coming out or continuing to live their life as trans.

6. TRANS PEOPLE MUST LIVE FOREVER

A transmasculine person who has chosen to remain anonymous in this discussion that has agreed to having this quote mentioned, said to me the other day, in reference to the antitransmasculinity making its way through trans groups as acceptable, due to the perception that anyone who speaks about it simply does not care about trans women:
“I’m just considering detransitioning. I don’t want to harm anyone and I try my hardest not to but I can’t escape the feelings that me being a man is harming people. I just want trans women to be safe and if that safety is better felt with one less man then idk. It might be worth it. I’m autistic so I struggle to comprehend complex issues like this and at this point it just seems easier to take the path of least resistance.”

There are transmasculine people who are watching this and are being taught that the way they exist in their highest level of truth, harms trans women. They are being taught that lifting up their voices to express hurt is a slight. What are transmasculine people supposed to do when they cannot live as women, but the way that they do live, as transmasculine people, as trans men— is seen as an inherent threat to a group of people that they [largely, there are outliers in every group, I am not talking about self described separatists ever, who exist in every demographic] want nothing but community with and safety for?

Is the answer really just, ‘get over it’? If that is the case, it’s not a surprise that many transmasculine people cannot cope with that as the conclusion, the knowledge that their most honest embodiment is not seen as the vessel of joy it is, but is instead a threat because of transmasculinity they do not want to and/or cannot live without. The cases of people who detransition because they feel like this are impossible to know. I feel most of the people who do this likely shrink back into themselves and their lives [in whatever ways they can] and simply perform the most palatable acceptable version of trans allyship that exists, living with what they see as a gift [the perception of cisness to the outside world that abhors gender transgression], and that when trans women talk about being hurt by men and the patriarchy and by ‘tme trans people’, at least it’s not about them anymore. This shrinking is not the behavior of someone seeking to deflect from harm they caused, or could cause — this is the behavior of someone desperate for camaraderie and community and acceptance, desperate to find a place that isn’t telling them that the way they exist is still so different that it must be held at an arms length, out of fear of all that could be destroyed if they were let in.

I know that antitransmasculinity exists for so many reasons, and one is because when I see transmasculine people express these sorts of sentiments, there are always people eager to crawl out of the walls and tell them that they are weak for not being able to withstand this torment or that they are right to feel that way and should go ahead and detransition or kill themselves, or that if they could live with a detransition, that they were never really trans in the first place, so good riddance. This happens often. Too many times for me to put up all the sources or I would become buried in depression over it. If you don’t believe me, if you don’t believe them— it’s because you don’t want to believe this level of cruelty exists and that is your prerogative. But that doesn’t make it go away. Maybe you don’t want to accept that you may have had a part in this, or because you don’t care even if you have, or because you are someone who has been convinced that this harm is not significant enough to warrant any reflection or action. Maybe it’s because you’ve been taught that when you tell someone they are behaving in a hurtful way due to societally ingrained biases, you are actually telling them that they are wrong and bad and irredeemable and untrustworthy. That’s not what I’m saying, and I’m sorry if that’s what you’ve been taught. The only way things get better is when we admit that we can all do better, which means acknowledging the shitty stuff we’ve internalized and working to unpack it.

7. GIRL WOUNDS / BOY BRUISE

I have spoken extensively about how so often when an individual speaks about antitransmasculinity, there is a somewhat immediate assumption by the disagreeing parties, that the person making the statement is, themselves, transmasculine when this is frequently not the case, especially as time goes on and this terminology becomes more known. It proves many previously articulated points within ATM theory, seeing how eager so many people are to misgender and misrepresent transfeminine people and trans people of other gender expanses that are specifically not transmasculine, as being transmasculine, in order to represent this as an issue that only transmasculine people ever truly care about enough to discuss.

I feel terribly for every transfeminine person I have known who has been misgendered and degendered for the crime of advocating against antitransmasculinity, and for vocally caring about a function of oppression that has the very real ability to touch and harm us all. This act that happens so often is a prominent example of the ways that transmisogyny and antitransmasculinity are interconnected — the way that so many trans women have their genders revoked from them the second she does not agree with the way that some have decided is the only correct way to protect and advocate for them.

TERFS are seeing this all, attempting to capitalize on it, and often succeeding. Sowing division between groups of trans people is only good for them. We have to keep our sights set on the fact that transmasc and transfeminine oppression overlap. Our struggles are completely inseparable, no matter what theory has led you to believing that the way to care for your specific marginalized group is by seeing them as insulated from the rest. It’s a blatant lie that antitransmasculinity theory is made to drive transmasculine people away from transfeminine people. It has never been and will never be a separatist ideology. It is meant to unite us in the fact that while we are mistreated by society for different reasons, the harm is perpetuated against us for distinctly similar goals: make it as hard as possible for us to exist.

I fear, how often I see things like “trans men just have an easier time passing because T is stronger” echoed by transmasculine people, in an effort to show what a great ally to transfeminine people they are, knowing that this rhetoric of testosterone being soooOooOO much stronger and transmascs passing soOoOoOo much easier is born from TERF rhetoric that claims testosterone causes irreversible damage and should continue to be a scheduled drug [actually, should be further scheduled and harder to acquire, especially for ‘young girl’ (see: transmascs and men)] in which trans people have to jump through video game hoops to acquire. I ache watching privileged, passing white trans men peddle myths about transmasculinity because it is how they have been taught to be an ally to transfeminine people, because their erasure of transmasculine experience that is not theirs is seen as the norm when it reinforces the status quo. So many people have been taught that how you prove you care about trans women and transmisogyny is by restricting your ideas about transmasculinity and the transmasc experience to white perisex transmascs with the ability to access testosterone and the desire to pass as cis men, thus erasing the rest of this microscopic marginalized population that also happens to be the actual majority. I feel pained, deeply, that as I write this, so many transmasculine people have been convinced that the way they care for trans women is by telling other transmasculine people that there is no real reason for them to be afraid, that nobody is after them, that their pain is not much more than paranoid hysterics, that this desperation to have it acknowledged is simply a desire to push transfeminine pain into the darkness.

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8. TO HEALING

What is there to do about this? Nothing much, honestly. I will continue to do what I have been doing, which is be someone who vocally fights antitransmasculinity, who works to theorize it’s functioning, and I will continue to do so in tandem with many transfems and other trans people who don’t fit into “transfem or transmasc” boxes, people who never see transmasculine struggle as in opposition with their own, those who see transmasculine struggle as their own struggle by the simple virtue of living in a world that seeks to see us all drown.

I will continue to uplift the trans women and transfems around me, and give gratitude to those who fight alongside me. I will continue to seek more perspective from all different sources. I will continue to make it a priority to deepen my understanding of intersectional [trans]feminism. I will continue to fight for all of us. I will continue to refuse to idea that support and advocation exists like a physical pie and that if I speak for one, that means I want someone else silent. I will continue to appreciate and elevate other transfeminine people around me who are vocal about how antitransmasculinity is real, and about how upholding it is not only a danger to all of us, but that upholding it is not something that makes us feel safe or protected as a transmisogyny affected people.

I’m sorry things are like this, and I’m sorry to any transmasculine person who is dealing with feeling like you don’t have a place because you can’t find the balance between advocating for yourself and being told that it makes you a danger to other trans people to do so. I lost a lot of people, a lot of opportunities, a lot of resources and a lot of confidence when I first began to speak on these things. I lost people who I thought would be in my life forever. Now, coming up on two years since I first began allowing myself to have a voice — I have relationships in my life that are more solid than what I once thought would be lifelong. I am surrounded by people, trans women, trans men, transneutral people, intersex trans men and women, all kinds of people — who see my advocation for transmasculine people as a beautiful part of me, as something to encourage.

I promise you, you’re not a danger to trans women for fighting against an oppressive force that seeks to harm them, too. I promise you, you will find plenty of people who will care for you as you speak about these things. I promise you will not drive all the women in your life away, trans or cis. I promise you, so much of the world is happy that you’re trans. I’m happy that you are. Silencing yourself when it comes to the suffering this world brings you, repressing your truth, rejecting your freedom to name your oppression  — these are not the things that keep transfeminine people safe. The way we keep each other safe is by prioritizing one anothers safety, and nobody who tells you that you must shut your mouth about the harm that comes to you is doing that. I am sorry if you have been told that’s what you need to do to be accepted. I need you to know there are other options. I need you to know that the other options are not only “abandon the fight against transmisogyny, only care about other transmasculine people” vs “feel no attachment to transmasculinity at all”.

9. IRL WE JUST KISS

There are also cases where the reaction [from all types of people] to transmasculine people expressing pain they have suffered due to this kind of discourse and the sweeping generalizations being made about transmasculine people that sounds something like: “in real life we don’t talk about this, we all just kiss each other”, and this reaction is just as shitty as dismissing it entirely. It adds a dynamic of something that many trans people are intimately familiar with, that of the “please, I like you when you don’t speak and are simply something nice to look at”, the kind of reasoning that strikes the fear of being abandoned by loved ones into the hearts of many many trans people of all different gender embodiments. There is this weird dichotomy where we seem to understand that cis people can hate trans people and still have sex with them, and derive pleasure from our bodies but somehow this is erased when we address dynamics between one another. Plenty of transmasculine people who hold transmisogynistic beliefs can and do sleep with transfeminine people, and plenty of transfeminine people who hold antitransmasc beliefs can and do sleep with transmasculine people.

It is not helping anyone to pretend like “in real life” these problems do not exist and in real life we all just kiss, cause it’s not true and it creates a situation where transmasculine people feel like to express pain is to be a party-pooper, and to be an ally is to be happily sexually available with no regard for who perpetuates antitransmasculinity or not. Let's get one thing straight — anyone, transmasculine or transfeminine, who tries to position things like transmasculine people are the dominant category of people perpetuating transmisogyny or transfeminine people are the dominant category of people perpetuating antitransmasculinity is dead wrong. Cis people are the dominant category reinforcing both of these things. It is wrong to help them continue to get away with it by turning our sword onto one another or by pretending entirely like we do not uphold bigotry against one another, as this refusal to confront it weakens us as a unit. Contrary to beliefs that seem to be spreading, you can be fun and hot and sexy and make out with plenty of transfeminine people while also being a transmasculine person who talks about and advocates against antitransmasculinity. I know a ton of dudes in this very category.

So while yeah, its possible that in real life, some of us are just kissing each other, it’s also true that many of us are doing both – we’re acknowledging and working to combat one anothers oppression, and loving each other while we do it. It is also very possible that in real life the opposite is happening, and there is antitransmasculinity and transmisogyny being perpetuated in spaces that should be mostly free of them. ‘Irl we just kiss’ is a dismissal of this, and it’s not helpful for anyone. It mistakes attraction for allyship, something we sincerely cannot afford as a unit.

CONCLUSION(s):

Many people who read this essay will likely condemn those of us who refuse to silence ourselves re: antitransmasculinity and label transfeminine people in support of this work as “uncool”, “tenderqueers’’, “chronically online”, “pick-me’s” or even “not really a trans woman” and other things like that. I just want you to know that in a world hellbent on making sure each and every one of us is having the most traumatic time possible existing as trans — the most uncool thing you can do is be ambivalent to the suffering of other trans people, or position the desire to speak about their suffering as an inherent harm to you. I’m sorry if you are a transfeminine person [ or non transmasculine trans person] who has decided to speak up about these things and as a result have watched people turn the very transmisogyny they claim to fight back against you. I’m sorry if the people talking about how all they do is center transfems and transmisogyny in their praxis have punished you for standing up for your transmasculine siblings, for pushing back against something that harms all of us. I know far too many transfeminine people who have been punished with silent exile for this, slowly watching the people who used to support them distance farther and farther away. I am sorry that you have to deal with such hypocrisy.

I’m thankful to every person who reads my words. I have to reiterate often the intention in them, but there is room to misread and misrepresent anything, even the most articulate of writing. I beckon those who have an issue with anything I’ve outlined here to speak with me about it, as this is meant to be revolutionary criticism with the goal of unifying and advancing our thought, and our mobilization against a society that aims to strip us of all agency.

Suggested materials:

• The Hidden Trans Men In Sex Work

• Clout Culture: Queer Liberation and Social Capitalism

• On Transmisogynoir

• The S.T.A.R Manifesto

• “You are not a man”: a multi‐method study of trans stigma and risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections among trans men in Uganda

• This Black Trans Man Is in Prison for Killing His Rapist

• When Homeless Trans Men Face Violence, There Are No Places to Turn

• Making Sense Out of the Murders of Trans Men

• There is a hidden epidemic of violence against transmasculine people

• Collateral Damage

The point of this work is in no way to argue against the hyper-visibility of transfeminine people within the media, within legislation, within social spaces or anywhere, nor to argue that this hyper-visibility is a privilege in any way –  because it is not. Hard stop. One of the most important pillars of my communication is understanding that the insistence upon one truth does not imply the opposite of another. When I say that transmasculine people are erased and made invisible in many ways by society and that this is a cause for immediate concern and something to interrogate –  I do not mean that the hyper-visibility of transfeminine people is not a cause for concern and not something that needs to be interrogated. I mean exactly what I said, and only that. The desire to ascribe a meaning to my words that I did not imbue them with is common, as language is imprecise and our emotions are intense.

I have been accused at many points of being a (t)MRA, standing for (trans)men's rights activist. This is a blatant misunderstanding of what Men's Rights Activism actually is and what it stands for, as it insists that any MRA language or goals have been built with transmasculine people in mind, when they have never been. MRA's are not in any way attempting to redefine masculinity or expand upon its definition, instead they argue for a return to tradition, a repositioning of the patriarchy where transmasculine people would have no place as men. I am not arguing from the position of the patriarchy not providing transmasculine people with benefits that they were raised to believe they should have, which is what MRA’s do. They set their sights on combating feminism, whereas everything in my work about gender and anti/transmasculinity vehemently supports intersectional feminism, only pushing back on white supremacist cis centered feminism that fails to be intersectional, and thus, leaves out massive portions of people who do indeed need intersectional feminism.

The reason the things that I [or other trans people who agree with my words] say might sometimes resemble sentiments made by MRA's is because I am insisting upon our the manhood of trans men and transmasculine people while also attempting to draw attention to the things that non trans men + transmasculine people do that harm them as men, and as trans people and that sometimes the people who do these things  – are women. Does this mean that I blame women (trans or cis or otherwise) for these things? No, not at all. Women are not to blame for functions of antitransmasculinity. It is transphobia, cissexism, bioessentialism , transmisogynoir , antitransmasculinity, exorsexism, white supremacy and all pillars of oppression surrounding it that are to blame. The people who perpetuate these things are not only women –  it's everyone. It's important to note that this does include transmasculine people themselves. When I say that something is a problem that transmasculine people are dealing with, I am never blaming women, trans or cis or otherwise. I am always drawing attention to something that anyone, regardless of gender, can perpetuate. I am calling attention to the systems in place that reward acts of antitransmasculinity. I am calling attention to the ways that these things harm trans people because I care about us all and I want the world to be more tolerable for us all to live in. I care about the tragic number of transmasculine people committing suicide when they are such a microscopic portion of the population. I care about the fact that transmasculine people expressing pain are so often read as expressing this pain solely to oppose the pain of dealing with transmisogyny, to the pain felt by transfeminine people. All things that MRA's couldn't give two shits about if you know who they really are. Calling trans men + transmasculine people who express things like this ‘MRA's’ is taking the position that because they are men, or masculine people, they inherently stand in opposition to feminism and women (trans and cis) because they are not among a vulnerable population of people marginalized by their gender(s) by right of being men. This is a denial of transness as an axis of identity that matters, and is an act of antitransmasculinity itself.

[IGNORE ALL PREFIXES, MAN TRUMPS ALL!]

When I speak of transmasculine invisibility and erasure, it is not in specific contrast to transfeminine hyper-visibility, which has been proven for a very long time to be pervasive and harmful. Too often, invisibility is talked about as if it is an inherited privilege of transmasculine existence. I could throw a rock and find ten sources to cite of people saying things along the lines of "transmasculine people just get to blend in without issue", which is far from the experience I lived, and have observed. People will then bring up trans men who pass as cis and are stealth in their regular lives. This argument falls apart when you interrogate the specifics of our oppressive society, where there is no way to entirely erase your existence of all traces of your transness. There is always a way to be outed, because we live in a world that is hostile to transness, and even people who are successfully stealthing are at risk, especially due to the perception of ‘stealth transness’ as intentionally maliciously deceptive by cishet society. The relative obscurity that trans men who pass as cis men get to enjoy does not change society, and it does not change the fact that being outed will have consequences.

This viewpoint of invisibility as a privilege is a display of one function of antitransmasculinity that rewards people for upholding the idea that most transmasculine people are white, cis-passing, hyper masculine, educated and able-bodied, as these are the only configurations of a transmasculine person that would receive an invisibility that would be more rewarding than it would be isolating and suffocating.

There is another viewpoint expressed that people affected by transmasculine invisibility both envy and desire the same level of hypervisibility that transfeminine people have suffered from. This is something I feel stems from these conversations happening over so many years, people being worn down by them and stuck on perceiving those who are begging to be seen at all as them instead begging to be seen in all the ways so many wish they could only get a reprieve from. I hope to, in small ways, throughout my life's work, usher us toward seeing the ways we ask for help and visibility more for what they are –  cries for help from a world that is trying to bury us all.

[NO FACE, NO CASE]

Invisibility as a term for this dynamic is a fallacy in and of itself as what transmasculine people are suffering from is not invisibility, which suggests accident, but is instead deliberate erasure. Trans men, transmasculine people and transmasculinities have historically been intentionally erased (through not just expunging records but by creating new records entirely) explicitly so that violence against this marginalized group can continue to be ignored. This ignorance creates a dynamic where transmasculine people who actually do rise to any level of power are then made hypervisible (cough, buck angel, cough) and the general perception of a transmasculine person remains an image of a privileged, white, cis passing transsexual, who ‘acknowledges biological reality’, who has lived flawlessly as a man 6 months into t or instead an impressionable young (white) girl who has been infected by a social contagion. This cycle of highlighting only a few different stereotypes of trans man / transmasculine person further contributes to the erasure and harm done to trans men and transmasculine people who do not fit into those very niche groups that attain all the visibility and are said to represent the entire demographic. This deliberate erasure of the actual majority of trans men and transmasculine people exists primarily so that violence can continue to be enacted against them behind closed doors. It is so often not only transmasculine people themselves that are made invisible, but rather it is anti-transmasc violence, including militant state violence, interpersonal violence and a medical + psychiatric violence, which makes transmasculine people, through a process of essentialization, aggressors without aggression and victims without words.

As you continue to read this interrogation of how the erasure of transmascs, trans men and other affected groups is performed, it should become more clear how this erasure does not function as a privilege or a shield from violence. If you have any desire for legitimate solidarity between marginalized demographics of people, I implore you to see how this function of erasure and invisibility is not the shield from violence it is so often represented as, but is instead a cloak that intentionally obscures piles of gender marginalized martyrs robbed of a full life. It is an intentional burial of history.

RAPID ONSET GENDER DESTRUCTION

This recent phenomena of some trans people agreeing that transmasculine people who do not medically transition or desire outward presenting traditional masculinity are simply cis people doing "neoliberal cosplay" (or see: cissexuals wanting to feel oppressed) is another layer of coded erasure that substantiates the status-quo that aims to teach the world that transness is nothing but a contagion people have been infected by.

The violence of cis men and women against transmasculine people is rampant, and it is often buried. Cis men by and large get away with abusing and killing transmasculine people in private, while the state upholds and encourages it by (more often than not) misgendering transmasculine people posthumously or choosing to gender them correctly through a process called ‘malgendering’, affirming the gender , in this case, the manhood and masculinity of a marginalized man solely to deny them aid and protection as they are a part of a ‘protected class’. The status quo aids those who seek to cover the violence they perpetuate against transmasculine people as they are so often seen and treated as the symptom of a virus, one that must be cured.

SAINTS SAVIOR JUDGE EXECUTIONER

There is a strange assumption I often see being boosted as fact, that discrimination against transmasculine people is entirely reclusive and non-aggressive, especially in conversations where people are directly comparing forms of antitransmasculinity to the various forms of discrimination that trans women suffer from. I have to say, I see no point in this whatsoever. Trans people shouldn't have to suffer from discrimination, hard stop. I see no point in ranking the discrimination suffered as less overt or more, as less aggressive or more, when we live in a world that is very overtly, telling us it wishes none of us existed at all. Often, this idea that the discrimination that transmasculine people suffer from is not overt and aggressive is the justification for excluding them entirely from discussions of discrimination and oppression, and this is another form of violent erasure as it simply writes in a story for everyone, a story that says ‘you don’t understand your own violation/oppression’. This pattern of thinking is a large reason that so many transmasculine people are stuck doing survival sex work with no way out, or dying entirely closeted. Excluding and erasing transmasculine people entirely from conversations about trans people who are forced into sex work to survive or afford gender affirming procedures is not helpful to the transfeminine people who are also forced into survival sex work, but it is so often painted as such. This is especially poignant to me as someone who was given the guidance of older transfeminine sex workers early in my sex work career, as I saw the safety we can create for each other when we work together in these precarious environments.

We are stronger together, but we can't be together if the general implication is that transfeminine people are on their own when it comes to being forced into survival sex work. This myopic view of "we have to focus on THE most vulnerable group, everyone else after that" contributes to the system that has bound thousands of transmasculine people to subsistence or survival sex work, with no recourse and little to no resources, while the general understanding says that people like them are included within groups of people who are drowning in resource and privilege (see: transmasculine people, nonbinary ‘afabs’, ‘cissexual she/theys’, ‘theyfabs’). The idea that transmasculine people relegated to sex work exist in a directly privileged position in comparison to transfeminine people relegated to sex work is a fallacy, and it is one that makes it more dangerous for every single one of us to do what we need to survive. If you only knew how many sex workers you see online are transmasculine people doing drag to pay the bills, drowning in dysphoria, at risk of losing it all if they pursue the embodiment that would fulfil them. I don’t understand positioning this as a marker of privilege rather than a form of violating erasure and invisibility.

WE ALL WIN THE OPPRESSION OLYMPICS

This brings me to the concept that all transfeminine people inherently exist within more intersections of oppression and thus face more discrimination is an idea that ironically almost ignores intersectionality entirely, as it avoids addressing it in any material way. This line of thinking is something that I feel has directly resulted in the rampant mistreatment of Black transmasculine people I have witnessed by nonblack and particularly white transfeminine people who see themselves as inherently more oppressed, inherently more discriminated against and thus oppressed by Black transmasculine people and within their rights to treat them as an oppressor class. This is not how intersectionality (a term I must remind everyone was coined by a Black woman specifically to address how Blackness intersects with her other marginalized identities) functions.

It’s important to note that this shallow understanding and weaponization of intersectionality against transmasculine people like such is perpetuated by all groups of people –  not just white transfeminine people. Dr. Devon Price, a widely published, educated white transmasculine person once said: "trans men are deferred to, listened to, not treated as predators on the level trans women are, are invited into a variety of gendered spaces and seen as safe to be there, are more favorably and sympathetically depicted in media and experience many many other advantages and we do not need to pass as cis for any of these things to happen."

The issue with these statements is that none of them are accurate if you apply even the most basic level of intersectionality. None of these things are true when it comes to Black and Indigenous trans men, particularly if those Black and Indigenous trans men are also disabled and low income. People love to say ‘you are representing it as if all transmasculine people are Black and poor and disabled and all trans women are white and abled and rich’ – when the reality is that this conversation only comes after a long pattern of people representing transmasculinity as primarily white, able bodied, mirrors of white cishet masculinity, and the subsequent need to highlight everyone this erases and denies. This is an overt attachment to theorizing about and comparing transmasc and transfem experiences while lacking a true understanding of intersectionality while also centering on an extremely white ideal of transness and identity.

The desire to find transmasculine people to validate this idea that they carry inherent privilege no matter where or how they exist has been validated extensively by primarily, white academics, who are not known to be notoriously plugged into spaces that are offering wide levels of diversity. This sort of hyper representation and transmasculine acceptance is primarily present in spaces where you consider white, passing, educated transmasculine people are the majority, and that is very very few spaces. There is nobody else overrepresented in social or activist spaces except for that demographic. Black transmasculine people are overwhelmingly either stealth, living as Black men (*sarcasm voice* a position in society that we all know is notorious for being full of privileges, especially when you exist within other marginalizations as a Black man! ), poor survival sex workers barely scraping by, perhaps surviving decently by virtue of suppression of identity to stay within the confines that cishetero white supremacist society has laid out for them to be deemed worthy of life, or someone living on the margins between passing and not passing, in a purgatory of being perceived as both Black man and Black woman.

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Black people are treated like the predators of all nonblack people, everywhere, due to global white supremacy. This does not stop when we are trans. Indigenous people are treated as "savages''. This does not disappear when the axis of transness is introduced. Black people, Black men in particular being seen as bullish brutes does not disappear when these men are trans. It all multiplies.

Bobby Noble said in his 2004 paper, "Sons of the movement":

"What this criticism (trans men are hyper represented bc of male privilege / passing privilege) actually reveals when it seeks and thinks it finds privilege occurring to gender is, first, its own inability to think intersectionally and second, its complete erasure of whiteness as a mark of privilege"

So - what i'm saying here is that 98% of the time when folks are saying that transmascs are inherently privileged and they point to these organizations or academics or even actors on tv to prove it –  this is actually a criticism that should be aimed at white supremacy as failing to do this continually treats the white transmasculine experience as the default, thus perpetuating the erasure of Black, Indigenous and other racialized transmasculine people and their experiences, treating them as unimportant, trivial and insignificant. This is a massive consequence of upholding antitransmasculinity and positioning it as in service of feminism, and women (trans + cis), positioning it as the theory of privileged white trans men, when in reality, Black and Indigenous transmasculine individuals are the people who are primarily having their lives made worse by this insistence, adding more pressure onto the pile.

YOU COULD BE ME AND I COULD BE YOU

So often the depictions of transmasculine people and the perception of transfeminine people in media are compared to one another and used as a way to prove privilege of transmasculine people, but this premise is fundamentally flawed as it lacks application of intersectionality or the ability to stop viewing the experiences of white trans people as the default (an act of white supremacist conditioning), as well as perpetuating the really frustrating concept that transmasculinity and transfeminity always exist in opposition to one another. It is a common statement that "trans women get called predators in the media, while trans men are called confused girls who need to be protected", that the protection these "little girls' ' need is explicitly from transfems, that transmasculine people are treated as fragile and innocent, incapable of causing harm. It feels very clear to me that these lines of logic fall apart entirely if you apply even the most miniscule level of intersectionality.

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Transfems and transmascs get both of these treatments, depending on a variance of factors and intersections that they might or might not exist within. If you pay attention to a wider set of people and conversations, you'll notice a lot of things. For instance, Black transfems and women are often treated like confused, groomed victims of a sinister plot (this is often tied to antisemetic conspiracy theory about Black Male Annihilation) to destroy Black manhood and masculinity as a whole, mostly to deconstruct the Black nuclear family structure and keep Black people opressed. Black transmascs and men are often treated like violent predators who don a masculine identity or exterior solely as a means to gain proximity to patriarchal privilege, specifically to harm and sodomize white women, and also to destroy the Black nuclear family structure, taking over the role of Black men. It's both, and it always has been. You have to pay attention to more than what you are made to see, because these things are deliberately erased and made invisible so that the violence can continue to be done. It is not helpful to say that transfems only get the scary predator version nor that transmacs only get the helpless victim version, as it is not true and it buries those of us dealing with transphobic oppression outside of the essentialist ways people have been taught to see its functioning.

There is a way that people talk about transmasculine people who speak on antitransmasc violence and erasure, as if they are simply complaining about being left out whereas other people are terrified for their lives due to danger. I think it's easy to forget, when you are in danger, that none of us can do this alone, and isolation and invisibility does in fact kill all kinds of trans people. There is this odd perception that transmasculine people who express things like this are jealous of the violence being done to transfeminine people, instead of genuinely desperate to have the violence already being committed against them recognized as something happening at all. A consistent sentiment is echoed of "you're just mad some trans woman was mean to you online" (because of course, it has to be a trans woman, because the lack of sympathy comes from the idea that any expression of transmasc pain is in juxtaposition to transfeminine pain) –  and this is a brutal, sad sentiment to see so consistently. An oversimplification of what being ostracized and isolated does to people who are already such a small, targeted minority of marginalized people. There is a reason so many transmasculine people are speaking up about this, and it is not because they are not at risk in other ways, or because someone being mean to them online is the worst thing they have ever dealt with – it is literally because the isolation and invisibility and erasure has only compounded that risk and added even more. This is another place where true solidarity needs to be desired for it to make any sense. If you see transmasculine people as not being a part of the same fight as you are, it is hard to see them asking for a hand as anything but a detractor from the help you need to escape and evade the violence that is after you, and I am sorry. I am sorry for all of us, that there are not enough kind hands to go around, so much so that our own hands reaching out to one another look like sabotage. So little places for reprieve that ambivalence to the suffering of others looks like resistance to the things crushing us all.

IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE

Another pillar of transmasculine erasure is the pervasive myth that transmasculine people inherently pass better, and that taking testosterone gives people enough markers of masculinity to pass as a cis man fairly quickly. This belief is blatantly false, and closely rooted in the myth(s) propagated by TERFS that testosterone causes "irreversible damage" to young girls, a concept being used to elevate the myth of "rapid onset gender dysphoria" and to deny trans/masculine people gender affirming care. To believe the myth that ‘trans men pass easier’ is to believe that testosterone is a hormone stronger than others, is to substantiate the scheduled classification of this hormone treatment that has saved the lives of so many trans people. Testosterone is a hormone at the same level of strength as any other. It is not the strong hormone, nor is estrogen the weak one. Somehow this idea that transmasculine people pass better by default exists in tandem with the idea that transmasculine people generally don't try hard enough to pass, and thus, are actually just ‘cis women doing neoliberal transgenderism’. Many of the people that are called trenders, cis women who want a share in some oppression, theyfabs, cissexuals, whatever –  are people who have been on t for a long time. Bodies are different, and they react to hormones differently. They say it's easy to pass as a man, but also long hair is too feminine, and so is curly hair and you also have to retrain your hips to walk the right way and also you can't really groom yourself anymore unless you pass in every other way or else it's your fault that people don't read you as a man. It's all bullshit. T doesn't make transmasculine pass more easily than any other hormone makes anyone else pass more easily. When you spread the myth that T is a hormone that causes changes so quickly and permanently, you validate the transphobes and TERFs spreading the myth of rapid onset gender dysphoria and irreversible damage. The idea that passing is inherently a privilege for trans men, because cis men are privileged, is also a lie that avoids addressing intersectionality. Take an example in fiction, an example that is the reality for many. In Stone Butch Blues, the one Black transmasculine character present, goes on T and it is immediately harder for him to be read as gender ambiguous butch lesbian, and this does not serve them. The more he passes, the harder it gets, and his story ends with him committing suicide, because it didn't get better. His passing did not bring privilege, it brought hyper-visibility as a queer Black man, it brought him interpersonal and state sanctioned violence. You cannot avoid addressing intersections, and the act of denying these intersections when discussing things like transmasculine privilege is an act of harm that falls upon trans people who are suffering to deconstruct.

We, as trans people, are all Schrodinger's gender. We are both seen and not seen as whatever assigned gender at birth is being projected onto us, when it serves the person in front of us. Transmasculine people are seen as women when it's convenient and men when it serves others. Transfeminine people are seen as women when it's convenient and men when it serves others. Non-binary people are seen as trans when it's convenient and "cis-adjacent" when it serves others. Intersex trans people are seen as a strange deviant third sex when convenient and as quirky brainwashed disordered cis people when it serves others. There is no box they won't put us in to achieve their goals, because it is about their goals. The goal is to be right, regardless of how contradictory the path is that led them there. It doesn't matter what any of us really are, or think we are, or know ourselves as. They will see and categorize us as whatever they want, that reinforces whatever narrative they're trying to spin about us at that time. There is no such thing as transphobia, misgendering, degendering, ungendering that only one ‘type’ of trans person suffers from. We are all Schrodinger's transgender to a society that wishes we were not here at all.

CONCLUSION

Levying criticism within the marginalized groups we exist within is a double-edged sword, one I am well aware of. I do what I do to increase understanding, to offer perspective so that we can find ways to connect through our similarities and build stronger solidarity through understanding our differences. I fear that the basis of so much intra-marginalized group criticism is for others to feel validated in their worsening attitudes toward other marginalized people  –  that will never be what I'm about. I do not turn to my keyboard and write these things to be validated in the awful things that I see being something that speaks for us as a group, something that informs my attitudes toward other trans people. I turn to my keyboard to combat misinformation rooted in consistently peddled fallacy. I turn to my keyboard to write these things to let other people know that there's another way to see things. There's another way.

I'm going to wrap up with this: I want more trans people to exist. I want more transmasculine people to exist. I want more transfeminine people to exist. That wont happen if we don't express the pain we feel and the ways we perpetuate one another's suffering. Erasure is oppression. It's not a privilege that transmasculine people are unable to accurately count their dead because of a long running historical project to erase and invisibilized transmasculinity. There is always a way to express the pain we feel that doesn't represent the mistreatment that we inflict upon one another as indicative of our entire group, nor should we allow these experiences to inform how we perceive and communicate with and engage with one another. There are not enough of us to justify targeting one another in this way, a true example of people eating their own and gaining no sustenance from it. There is no invisibility without deliberate erasure. There is no invisibility when targeted groups stand together.

I'm sorry that things are like this. We have the power to stand up and fight back against erasure. Push back when people say trans men are inherently privileged. Push back when they say that transmasculine people are never seen as predators, violators, infiltrators. It’s the only way to uncover the deliberately hidden damage and violence being perpetuated. My freedom depends on yours. Your freedom depends on mine. Our freedom depends on one another.

There have been little bright spots in the downfall of twitter to cling to in its rapid descent into completely unusable territory, and one of them is the return of award winning poet, Richard Siken. His return comes from the cessation of the Richard Siken Bot (recently returned in human form with daily quotes instead of hourly) coming to its close as twitter bot functioning has been severely limited. Richard Siken remarked that most of the quotes the bot would cycle are nearly 20 years old at this point, and this coupled with it’s cessation of hourly quotes has urged him to not only share new writing with us, but also run what is functionally the best poetry and life advice column that i’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. I tweeted a few weeks ago, “I now exclusively tweet to impress Richard Siken”, as he became more and more active, continually dropping morsels of advice and guidance that shook me to my core. 6:18am on random mornings in August and I read something on twitter from a poet I have adored for a decade that he drafted up in no time, to a twitter user with a username something like braisednoodle556. It’s a gift.

I started thinking that this advice, these words should be immortalized elsewhere since the state of twitter (or should I be calling it “x”) is so precarious these days. I also firmly believe people who aren’t on that website and don’t want to be, should have access to seeing and experiencing all of the wonderful things that Richard has to say to his readers. I thought about this for about a week, asked a few friends, queried in my discord about it — and I finally took the plunge and formally asked Richard Siken if I could compile all of this, and he said it would be a great idea. So here we are. A compilation of Richard Siken’s impromptu advice column started up on twitter. The things Richard has said about himself, his life, his process, his writing — have opened us up to parts of his mind that make the writing we’ve connected with hit even harder, and have personally encouraged me to dig much deeper, in spite of the ways it can ache. I won’t be rehashing the questions he’s graciously answered that go something like “have you seen this show? have you heard this poem? do you listen to this artist?” — he said it best himself why not: “There's a category of question -- Have you heard this? What do you think about this? -- that boils down to "Do you like what I like?" It's exhausting.”

In the month of Richard Siken being active on twitter he has been raked over the coals for being against taking stances on political matters he doesn’t have the knowledge to accurately evaluate, raked over the coals for enjoying fictional incest, raked over the coals for having the opinion that cannibalism should end at a metaphor — but he’s still there, graciously answering dozens of inquiries daily because he’s just that kind of guy. He’s honest, and he cares. 

On August 6th, 2023 Richard Siken tweeted a picture of a new show Heartstopper, showing that one of the characters is reading his book Crush at a party. In the tweet he calls the show “Heartstoppers”, which he has later apologized for, another display of sincerity I am not used to seeing in largely admired artists. 

A user quoted this tweet from him with the text:"I would die on the cross for you Richard” He responded: “No need to die or do anything for me. If the poems are reaching you, that’s enough.” 

Without further ado, here’s a compilation of pieces of advice and answers to some frequently asked questions from Richard Siken. 

Bolded text are the words of Richard Siken. U = User. I am omitting usernames for privacy. It’s also a stand in for “you”. All advice is separated by date. Content warnings for depression, existentialism, suicide, self=harm, homophobia, queerphobia and general misery. 

August 6th, 2023

U: “i love that richard siken is canonically in the heartstopper universe but if i saw anyone do that at a party irl i would feel morally obligated to go up to them and ask them if they were feeling alright”
RS: “Obviously they are not feeling all right. Move on to step two.”

U: “started august with crushwhere do I go from here”
RS: “Anything by Dennis Cooper or Frank Stanford”

August 7th, 2023 

U: “richard i need you to tell me that adolescence will stop ripping my heart out one day”
RS: “Yep, it stops. And you gain agency and control over your life. Still heartbreak, but without blame or hard feelings.”

U: “at what age does one start feeling like a real person?”
RS: “It's more like your concept of a real person changes and you feel more comfortable”

RS: “I didn't howl at the moon, I yelled at a lamp." --Richard Siken, The Horns (Unpublished)”
U: “my suffering isn’t beautiful”
RS: “But your survival is”

U(in response to Richard Sikens unpublished poem, The Horns): “Mr Siken would you kindly please stop breaking my heart? Thank you”
RS: “I don't mean to, I'm just talking about my day.”
U: “It’s okay, i love this heartbreak (and reading your amazing work) so i am sorry about the initial tweet”
RS: "We're just playing. Of course I try to break your heart. That's the job.” 

RS: “The question was "Would you ever make a film about your work." Well, yes. Here are two.”
https://vimeo.com/68025939
https://vimeo.com/119626417

RS: “Here’s the biggest question and the biggest problem: What are the consequences of sexualizing these relationships? The possibility of erotic desire may or may not be hinted at in the original work — but ignore that. The probability of romantic love could be low or high — — but ignore that. The suggestion that these partnerships are necessarily monogamous, supersede all other potential loves or lovers, and could be considered a type of marriage — ignore that. The question, the problem: How can I possibly convince anyone that I could like my best friend for non-sexual reasons? How do I make room for the possibility of deep care and tenderness between men who aren’t fucking if I sexualize every male/male relationship I encounter? Perhaps the subtleties come later. Perhaps we need to push all the way into highly erotic realms to allow ourselves the room to pull back into places of possible non-sexual tenderness.”

RS: “Fan Fiction is transgressive. It co-opts the creator's vision. It steps on it. It is fiction built on fiction. There can be no canon in it. I say do it, have at it. I have tried it and my Destiel is better writing than my Wincest. My Johnlock is better than both. But if you are fighting about it and name-calling, you are doing it wrong. You are draining the fun out of it, even hurting people. I will never be a fan of that. I don't take shit from bullies. No one should. Shame on you.” 

August 8th, 2023 

RS: “Read widely, write regularly, don’t be afraid when it goes bad for a while, stay curious and pay close attention to the world and how you feel about it.” 

U: “what's your favorite poem you've written?”
RS: “Litany In Which Certain Things are Crossed Out. It is the most fun to read at a reading because of the surprises”

U: “mr. siken which poem do you think had the Most drastic change from your first draft?”
RS: “Wishbone. It was pages long and full of venom. It was too much.”

RS: “Crush is one story told three times. Each section is a different version.” 

U: “mr siken, what is something you wish you could go back and tell your younger writer self? what is something you’ve learned that’s incredibly valuable?”
RS: “I would say be brave and go find your people” 

U: “Not a question, but the best thing I’ve ever read is “I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting.”
RS: “I was so so mad when I wrote that. I still get mad when I read it.” 

U: “I’m starting my first poetry class at my primarily stem college … feeling intimidated.. any advice prior to starting? I’ve only written in diaries, between math problems, and in my notes app”
RS: “I was told to write 100 poems and throw them away. I wasn’t allowed to keep a poem until poem 101. Don’t get stuck, don’t be afraid to try things and have them fail, don’t get too precious about the early work.”

U: “do you write what you know or what you desire [to know]?”
RS: “Both. And I invent what I wish were true. After my stroke I forgot everything so I had to write to figure out what I knew, if I knew anything.”

U: “If you were to articulate the evolution of your poetry, how would you describe the way it’s changed and/or grown? I’m constantly struggling w the idea of being “one note” and reusing phraseology but everything you write feels familiar AND new”
RS: “I knew I would write about the same things (love) so I made rules and restrictions about craft. Crush was 2nd person narrative, Foxes was 3rd person rhetorical, the new one is 1st person meditative.” 

U: “is there a reason that scheherazade is the first poem of crush? i think its the perfect opening but i cant place why”
RS: “It works as an intro because it is a short lyric separate from the rest of the story”

U: “i would love to know the behind the scenes of four proofs. absolutely one of my favorite poems ever its so interesting”
RS: “Simon Schama's Power of Art was a big influence. You can find it on YouTube. I wanted to write about painting so I felt I should make the paintings myself, but I just had to talk about real artists somewhere in the book.”

U: “what was the hardest poem to write?”
RS: “Unfinished Duet, in the middle of Crush, where I talk to myself. When I wrote that my hands were birds that fly away from me I startled myself and started to cry.”

U: “does the urge to go back and change words in a poem ever go away? and is it okay to always live with that urge?”
RS: “Sometimes I want to break into bookstores and people’s houses to change or fix something. I’ve learned to leave it be and use the impulse to make a new poem (that sometimes dialogues with it)”

U: “my favorite poems from crush are litany and straw house straw dog. i think both of these poems use imagery in ways that are unexpected and tie in personal mythologies. did you start either of these poems with one image in mind or did that come later?”
RS: “I actually start with sound, not image. I’ll catch myself thinking a phrase and wonder what I really mean”

August 9, 2023

U: “What is a poem that you started writing thinking it was about one thing and then found by the end it was about something completely different? Or what was a poem you were surprised to find yourself writing?”
RS: “Oh, my best poems are smarter than I am. They insist on going where they need to and I try to ease up on my original intent and get out of my own way.” 

U: “Do you often find that the poems that become more popular are the ones that aren’t your own favorite? I feel like a lot of artists (across all mediums) have felt this way”
RS: “Sometimes my favorite poems are in an emotional shorthand that is meant for me and not the reader. That's why they don't reach out as well.”

U: “And again a very personal question, and feel free to skip any that I’ve asked: Feeling “more” — is it a gift or curse that makes you the author you are, or was it explained in any way with trauma, a diagnosis like BPD, dysfunctional schemas or such? Thank you, Mr. Siken!”
RS: “I'm going to post a new poem part as an answer. Hold on. It'll be about my mother.”
RS (In a new post): “Her boyfriend at the time was a walk-in: a man so previously sad that his original self had left its body and something else had grabbed the wheel. This new thing was driving the car and sleeping with my mom. I have been sad but never have I left my body. My mother has been sadder, but it never made her a poet. I practice my sentences." --Richard Siken, Cult Leader (Unpublished)”

U: “Question! We know your work is primarily based on personal experiences, but after learning you’ve dabbled in writing fanfiction & seeing as your poetry has become a staple in fandom over the years, I was wondering; have you ever written poems inspired by fictional media?”
RS: “I'm no good at it. I write about what I feel, not so much about other people's stuff. I wish I could. I'd like a greater, more dynamic range.”

U: “your words haunt me”
RS: “They haunt me, too. They start as hauntings, I guess, and then I put words around them.”

U: “i wanna know what richard siken’s fav album is so bad like what do u listen to when u write”
RS: “Anything/everything by Phillip Glass. It has crazy repetitions and no words (so I can think about my own.)”

U: “do you think one can love again after losing someone you loved with your mind, body and soul? After losing someone whom you gave everything to?”
RS: “Yes, you can. And it feels like some kind of betrayal, but it isn't.”

U: “uff i really really love this. it's a bit unrelated but i'm wondering now...do any of your poems still plague you? like you'll be going about your day then suddenly remember it and feel like you just got hit by a truck? (this is the average experience of a siken stan)”
RS: “The new poems do. I have to relive the stroke, which is a lot to handle.”
U: “i'm sorry. how do you deal with that? do you write more poems or are there any books You seek out and find comfort in? how do you lessen the ache?”
RS: “It's not so much that you lessen the ache, it's more like your world keeps getting bigger and better around it.”

U: “is there any (published) poem you've written that you never re-read?”
RS: “Snow and Dirty Rain and The Worm King's Lullaby. Too sad, even for me.”

U: *Post now deleted*
RS: “I like voice-driven narratives, poems that risk and surprise, and the music of the English language. Look up Eavan Boland's Object Lessons if you want to read some truly great-sounding poetry. Great literature is about the reader, not the writer. don't think of it as being vulnerable, think of it as unraveling them.”

U: “hi mr siken love your work!! i'd love to know what the reasoning was behind the dialogue btwn the rabbits and btwn the birds being formatted as a script in war of the foxes! such a good decision was it there in the first draft or formatted like that later?”
RS: “It was the only way to do it. I wanted them as characters and I wanted them to speak as if it were a play.”

U: “yeah i know ur all excited about richard siken active on twitter era BUT are u as excited as me, who is literally terrified to interact with anyone i look up to for fear they may fall short of the pedestal i've put them on? :-)”
RS: “I will fall short. I'm just a little guy with soft hands.”

RS: “Somewhere someone asked me about the indentions in Crush. I can't find the post to reply, so here: Most poetry is left justified. You read a line, and you come all the way back to baseline, and you read another line, and you come all the way back to baseline. I felt like it was starting over every time. The movement of the eye to come back to the left margin felt like starting over. I wanted to think about it in a different way: I wanted to consider the left margin as ground, or baseline, with the weight of gravity,and the right margin as divinity. If I had some energy moving forward, I didn’t always want to come back all the way to left—to tonic, to starting over. So I would indent. All the indents are there to keep those lines floating in the air.”

U: “really fascinating way to consider momentum of a thought and phraseology - was there a specific rhyme/reason behind how much side you gave for the indentions?”
RS: “The further away from the left margin, the less it starts over. Physically even. How the eye tracks.”

U: “I actually have a… basic question. It might sound stupid. What, do you think, separates your prose from your poetry? Or prose from poetry in general? Certainly not lineation or spacing alone. The intensity? Your prose can get very intense as well. I just realized I don’t know.”
RS: “Prose is talking, poetry is singing. In prose, I have things to say. In poetry, I have feelings to express.”

U: “mr siken! how do you get over the hump of editing a poem that you just cant stand to look at anymore? is that the point where you toss it or you try to salvage it?”
RS: “It's an example of your vision outpacing your craft. It means you're on to something. Put it in a drawer. When you come back to it, whenever that is, try approaching it from a different angle.”

U: “hello hi I wanted to ask how do you go about writing poetry, like do you sit and be like yeah now I'm going to write, or does it hit you at 3 am out of nowhere and you're sitting there contemplating everything and then you write? Idk if I make sense”
RS: “I write in my notebook every day. I pick an idea and and image. Most of it is just fun but sometimes I realize I am thinking or feeling something real and I poke at it. The best thing I ever did was to write ten lines every day for a year. I learned what my concerns were.”

U: “have you ever tried to connect one poem to another? I may have found some similarities in a sort of storyline but it would be super interesting to see the same story told by different prospectives”
RS: “When you find a poem you keep returning to because you got it so right or so wrong, try writing a response poem to it. I do that a lot.”

U: “what is the one thing that makes you feel like you’ve succeeded the most in your writing .. like what makes you step back and feel like you accomplished what you wanted to?”
RS: “When I read an old poem and I can remember/revisit the original feeling, then I really know that I caught it.”

U: “mr siken, i rip this technique in my own poetry, directly and explicitly from you. if i ever were to, would it be inappropriate to publish it in this format?”
RS: “If you do it because you feel and mean it, then go ahead. If you are just trying to make it look a certain way then it will feel hollow. Inspiration vs. ornamentation.”

U: “How do you manage to write the kind of poems that cut through the bone of ribcage and right unto the heart no matter which fictional pairing you apply them to”
RS: “Pay close attention to the world. Don't turn away.”

U: “I have a question about your poems — WHY DO THEY GET ME EVERY TIME?!?! The first time I read your poetry, I read and re-read and re-read and re-read.”
RS: “Because we really all feel the same way but I didn't turn away and I practiced my line breaks and counted beats and stresses, made metaphors and threw them away until I made something worth keeping.”

U: “mr. siken, you’ve said you’re a little disconcerted/confused by but okay with your poems being used for f/m ships. what about the lesbians? - a writer 60k into a fic called keeping the bullet”
RS: “I made sure that Scheherazade (and some other poems) were genderless / gender neutral, so that everyone could read and relate to them. Gender is my least concern. I get more confused when people change the words to change the meaning. That seems weird to me.” 

August 10th, 2023 

RS: “I'm tired of making everybody sad. If you can't poke fun at yourself, you're missing out.”

U: “mister richard siken being active on twitter dot com as the ship is sinking feels a lot like the titanic but if rose and jack found two doors to starfish on”
RS: “There are doors enough for everyone”

U: “any advice for getting started writing a poetry book? i’ve written a lot of poetry but i’m not really sure how to make it all work together. i’m a lifelong aspiring poet your writing is a huge inspiration and means the world to me :)”
RS: “Build an arc. It can be a narrative arc, or an emotional arc, or a development of form or sound, or anything. Find a way of letting it develop and not just continue.”

U: “if you'll humor me — i need to ask you a few burning questions. what was your first published poem and where was it published? do you think its feasible to become a career poet in this day and age, and how? would you recommend any contests or grants for a new writer?”
RS: “Poems from Crush were published in the James White Review and Indiana Review early on. The best way is to submit to journals you think would be a good fit. After you've published a dozen or so poems, submit a chapbook to some contests. Then try the first book contests.” 

U: “Mr. Siken: How do you feel when people tell you your poetry has saved their lives? (I am people.)”
RS: “So many books by other authors saved my life. That's what literature does. I'm lucky to be able to participate.”

U: “You are such an important person to so many people who have not even been on the same continent as you. Your words lingered with us while we did the dishes or drove on the highway or cried. You take up permanent space in many minds. How does it feel? How do you handle it?”
RS: “I try to stay humble and remember that other authors did (and do) the same to me, both living and dead.”

U: “hi richard siken we know how you feel about hannigram but i need to know your thoughts on cannibalism & if you would eat the body of a lover as an act of romantic union & devotion”
RS: “I am against cannibalism and blood drinking. I am facinated by the metaphors of wanting to consume something. I know that wanting another that way is selfish and harmful and creates stalkers and abusers. I also know that you can't build a home inside of someone else.”

U: “Have you met any of these “heroes” of yours? If/when they’re awful people, does it steal from their art for you?”
RS: “All of them are just people: some with bad shoes, allergies, anxieties... but they have the hearts and minds that made the work, so you have to consider your expectations”

U: “What do I do when I want to write but the words just don't come?”
RS: “Then you sing until something comes to you. It doesn't even have to be real words.”

U: “should I buy a physical copy of Crush?”
RS: “I like having physical copies. You should do what works for you. Read widely and deeply, that's all any author wants: diversity and community.”

U: “Richard pls how 2 get over breakup help”
RS: “Be good to yourself every day. Think of it as a novel and a very very dark turn of events that needed to happen for the larger plot to work.”

August 11th, 2023 

U: “ i was wondering— how do you go and believe in love and the goodness of life and people when practically everything is going wrong?”
RS: “If you can love, surrounded by all of this, then you know that others can, too.”

U: "how do I stop making homes out of people? they leave and suddenly my heart lives in a house I don’t have the keys to, and I want my heart back. I miss them and it gets easier until the quiet moments where it’s all so hard again.”
RS: “Build a home in the space between you. Even if they leave, you still have a house to live in.”

U: “Richard siken is just validating my chronically online behavior. It's okay to be sad on twitter isn't it?”
RS: “It's okay to be sad anywhere, for a while, then you have to shake it off.”

U: “You tell lovely stories with your work that resonate with so many different people. How did you get into poetry rather than some other writing style?”
RS: “I tried all the forms and styles. I was good at poetry. I would rather be a novelist but I can't keep the plot going for long.”

U: “mr. siken what would you say is your favorite recurring theme in WOTF? (birds, everyone needs a place, animal humanization, paintings, etc.)”
RS: “The birds. In Crush, his hands keep turning into birds. In WOTF the birds land. As for the fishsticks: I could have said "Am I what I meant to be?" but that's boring. Having the fishsticks deal with the question was much more interesting to me.”

U: “how do you think you’d have gone about being a writer if you started your career today? interested to hear how you’ve seen the way we write and engage with writing change”
RS: “It isn't a career because it doesn't pay the bills. I've always had to work. I write what I want and publish where I can. It would be the same.”

U: “i've let go of my dreams as a creative because i felt that i couldn't survive through my dreams alone (i.e. financially) & i could never forgive myself for letting go of that. did you ever think of stopping / did you ever have a hard time balancing work & poetry?”
RS: “It's excruciating to navigate art and work, then there's also rest and friends. You just have to do what you can and accept some losses. I don't make money from poems and I don't teach. I've mostly done restaurant work or worked in group homes.”

U: “Do you have any advice for young/aspiring poets?”
RS: “Write often, read widely and deeply, find your people, don't be afraid to suck just keep doing it”

U: “hey mr siken my bestie has unfulfilled dreams because she won’t be allowed to study literature at uni do you have any words of encouragement for her (& me who will be studying writing)”
RS: “You don't need to major in lit. You can study anything, read lit on the side, and make lit friends. They don't learn in class, they learn from each other in coffeeshops and bars. I went to uni for Psychology and Anthropology.”

U: “got any pearls of wisdom for someone who’s struggling to write about something they usually love for an assignment because the words just aren’t coming out right on the page?”
RS: “Write something bad on purpose. Your inner writer will get so disgusted that it will step up”

U: “what do you think the line is between being hopeful and not wanting to accept the truth. is optimism just denial and persistence acting as friends”
RS: “People can change if they want to. If someone is refusing to change, then you have to take that seriously, maybe make a decision. If they aren't being clear that they want what you want AND if their behavior doesn't match, then it's been over for a while.” 

U: “very enthralled to know you studied anthropology, mr. siken! how much of an impact has that field had on your writing? has studying that affected the way you go through life, in some kind of way?”
RS: “Cultural Anthropology. I got better understanding different population, rules, expectations, and ways of speaking. It changed everything.”

U: “hi mr siken where are some of your favourite places you like to write or get inspiration from?”
RS: “I like to write in cars with other people driving. The constantly changing landscape inspires movement in my writing, even when I'm writing about something else.”

August 12th, 2023 

U: “ richard siken what do i do when i’m in a car with a beautiful boy”
RS: “ God help you. I really don't know. Still.” 

U: “i don’t want to have hope anymore, it’s exhausting. what do i do? :(“
RS: “Try not having hope for a week. Be prepared to accept whatever happens. Have no expectations. It will give you a really good sense of what's making you crazy and draining your energy. Then you change things. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, but it worked.” 

U: “richard siken what do you mean "in a dream i don't tell anyone, you put your head on my lap" i'm feeling SICKKKK in my stomach”
RS: “I don't tell anyone about this small, good moment that I wished for. Because I'm embarrassed by its tenderness and impossibility.”

U: “could you share some insight on this quote? It's my personal favorite, utterly devastates me every-time I read it.” 

RS: “It actually happened. It was a little dramatic, but I was crying on the floor and I was distracted by the paint being uneven and it was so absurd. I wondered how sad I really was. It was very fourth wall but in a self-aware way. I _was_ really sad, but I was also something else.”
U: “what was that something else?”
RS: “I was an intellect that could be dispassionate and logical, even in moments of desperation.”

U: “how do i stop falling in love with the idea of love?”
RS: “You don't. You just start falling in love with other things also and you get some relief and balance.” 

U: “what do you dream of becoming”
RS: “ I dream of being me, but with more healing and more relief.”

U: “question-answer format is something you employ in a lot of pieces; is there a reason for that? does it realize a true conversation or is it simply a way to better dissect the ideas of the poem?”
RS: “It's the Socratic method. It's how I make sense of the world.”
RS: “It isn't so much what you say but how you say. Van Gogh painted sunflowers. It was _how_ he did it that amazes. People write about trees. Just relax, try stuff, have some fun. When you have something to say, it will bubble up to the surface. Don't worry.”

U: “richard siken . does it ever get better .”
RS: “Yes, it does. And sooner than you think.”

U: “How does one even start the inspiration process ? I feel like I can just admire.”
RS: “Writer's write, that's it. Painter's paint. Get in there and make a mess and have some fun. Judge it later, like a year later.”

U: “Richard Siken, what can I do if what I'm feeling is so intense and complicated that it's hard for me to put it into words? It's like I can't translate my feelings rn”
RS: “I can rarely put it into words when I'm feeling it. I put into words afterwards. At best, I can take some notes.”

August 14th, 2023 

U: “Mr Siken, would you consider Crush, WoTF and IDKST a trilogy? Or do you think that they each deal with their own unique / individual topics without feeling I guess... aligned?- in your mind?”
RS: “Crush: 2nd person, film metaphor, narrative Render: 3rd person, paint metaphor, rhetorical Hover: 1st person, music metaphor, meditativeThere are other craft organizing principles.” 

U: “i mean this in the best way, mr siken— i wish to eat your poetry. i want to bite into it like an apple.”
RS: “For a while I wrote my dreams on sheets with sharpies and slept in them” 

RS: “It is good advice to avoid "very" and "something" unless you have a reason to use them. In WoTF, the investigation was into "things" so I had to use the word. In the new work, I had lost language, so climbing back into it was full of small, throw-away words on purpose.” 

U: “Hello mister richard siken might you have a solution for what do to when i am feeling profoundly sad ?”
RS: “Feel it absolutely completely for ten minutes, the shake is off as hard as you can. Run, dance, scream, and then be nice to yourself.”
U: “What about if you’re feeling profoundly sad within the company of other people?”
RS: “Imagine that everyone feels the same way. Then try to make one of them feel a little better.”

August 15th, 2023 

U: “I’ve never read or viewed crush as a “thing” that made me sad, it’s sadness felt like it complimented my own in some way and provided me with intense comfort. It came to feel like a friend who deeply understood, it looked at my own sadness and perceived it” RS: “A book is a strange thing. It's a "thing" -- it takes up space and casts a shadow -- but it's also not really a thing. I like the wiggly-ness of it. My painter friends get "your painting makes me feel sad" and I get "you make me feel sad." I understand, but still.” 

RS (in response to the image above): “I want it to be a thing I made, not a thing I did to someone. Books are just weird like that: so immediate that you forget it's just words in order on a page. Also, I know it isn't "just" that. It's a kind of magic, really.” 

U: “Apologies for a too-deep question: How do you reconcile wanting to help the world with the need to create dark, sad art? (As a songwriter) aren't I supposed to uplift with my words? But I want to be authentic, not faux positive.”
RS: “I didn't so much want to help the world, I wanted to express something true. I hoped it wouldn't be damaging. Turns out, it can't be damaging if it's honest. It's a relief to realize that.”

U: “Also considering Crush was published in 2005, I wonder if because of that time in society, if there were alot of mindsets and perspectives that werent as progressive surrounding queer love, poetry, and melancholy as they are today. I think people were afraid to feel”
RS: “I'm afraid things are swinging back to old ways of thinking. I'm gonna hold my ground and not forget. Though I'm so glad things changed so much.”

U: “Why did you have to admit to writing wincest” ( linking to the post about Richard Siken and his fanfic writing to explain what ‘wincest’ is for those who are out of the know)
RS: “I'm not afraid of being alive and I'm not afraid of trying things and I didn't live through the AIDS pandemic and a significant stroke to be afraid of literature. Literature that makes people uncomfortable is still literature. It's valid. I will not support censorship.”

U: “what do i do with the enormity of my desire when it's disgusting me?”
RS: “Acknowledge the feeling, then forgive yourself. It isn't actually disgusting, it's just overwhelming.”

U: “mr sir richard siken how do you get over a breakup without wanting to skin yrself alive” RS: “I don't know. I could say stuff but really I don't know. We're not allowed to hurt ourselves, but I don't know to get over it except to wait it out and let life get bigger as it gets smaller.”

U: “Mr Richard Siken, what is your favourite word? To write/to read/in general/etc. :)”
RS: “I like the hiss of ice and glass and mist and frost”

August 16th, 2023 

U: “mr richard siken what do i do when i’m always the one who loves more”
RS: “Congratulate yourself”

U(different user, same post): “But what do i do when i yearn for what i give in spades to be returned to me freely mr richard siken :(“
RS: “Yearning for what isn't being offered is a trap. Take a breath and look around and see what the world is offering. You get to choose from that. If you don't like the options, change your life or wait it out.”

U: “what’s your best advice for the kind of writers block where you just… feel like you forgot how to write altogether?”
RS: “Write something stupid, like an episode of a soap opera or a monologue by one of your pets. You have to blow the gunk out of the pipes. You've got to get loose and unserious -- get back to the fun part -- before you get back to the serious stuff.”

U: “ur the only one who understands me”
RS: “Lots of people understand you, you just haven't met them yet.”

U: “when you write, how do you build up a character in a way that feels authentic?”
RS: “I don't know. That's a fiction question. My fiction is clunky and inauthentic. I can't do character, plot, or dialogue well at all. I can do voice-driven narrative and monologue.”
U: “I see… I think I’m the same way!! i suppose we’re both more drawn to the more natural flow of emotion in poetry writing…”
RS: “You don't have to be good at everything. What they call "style" is just how we compensate for what we can't do.” 

U: “hi sir, how do you trust again when someone who has promised to never leave, leaves you? what do i do now”
RS: “There are some things you can't promise. You can't promise you'll never leave because things happen. You don't have to trust again until you're ready, until it feels right, but don't let people promise impossible things: I'll never leave, I'll never change, I'll never grow.”

U: “what inspired you to write the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it?”
RS: “I was trying to express that I'm not gentle because it's easy or because the world is gentle.”

U: “ I think I would die for Richard Siken actually”
RS: “Stay alive for him instead” 

U: “How do you know when something is good enough to share or publish? Is it just a feeling?” RS: “You don't have to decide if it's good enough, just submit. Editor's don't really judge if it's good enough either. They consider if it's a good fit for the issue of the magazine they're working on at the moment. Sometimes they say "please send again another time.”

U: “he's (Richard Siken) like my modern day Jesus christ”
RS: “No way. No similarities at all. I'm just a guy who has your back.”

U: “Mr Siken, how do i start writing? What should i write about? I have never wrote a single essay out of choice. But i really want to”
RS: “Start a journal. At the end of every day, write one thing worth remembering about it. Or write in the morning about yesterday.”
U: “It can be anything. Stupid, funny, Sad anything right?”
RS: “Anything, and it doesn't have to be serious, and you don't get to judge it, good or bad, for a year. You just have to relax and do it.”

U: “how do i make amends with my ex high school friend ? i missed her so bad but i dont think she wanted me in her life anymore :(“
RS: “I don't know the situation, but you can try to make amends as long as it doesn't cause more problems. Own up to what happened, fix it if you can, let her know how you feel, and respect her wishes.”

U: “Dear Mr.Siken, how to deal with the fact I may never be loved enough?”
RS: “It isn't a fact, it's a fear. Just relax, you'll be loved enough. It might not come from the place you expect it to but it will come.”

U: “what advice would you give young / aspiring poets mr siken ?”
RS: “Don't commit to a style too early. Try different forms and styles and tones.”

U: “how do I deal with being so scared about the pain of another? it kinda sucks loving people sometimes because it eats you up when they’re hurt”
RS: “You get better at keeping them safe and helping them heal. It sounds silly, but learn how to cook well, give massages, throw parties. If it's serious, chronic pain, learn first aid and read psychology books. Develop your skills.” 

August 17th, 2023 

U: “mr siken what do you think about loving too much? is it a curse or a blessing?”
RS: “If it's "too much" then it isn't love, it's desire. If it hurts then it isn't love, it's expectation. Or loss.”

U: “how do i cope with grief, of realising you’d come back from the dead for someone and yet they wouldn’t for you?”
RS: “I don't know. I'm going through it right now. Expecting something that isn't being offered is useless, but I'm still stuck.” 

U: “Mr. Siken, one question, what do you do with regrets? Do they ever haunt you, taunting you that you’re losing sleep at nights, or do you live with them?”
RS: “The standard advice is "forgive yourself and don't do it again" but I lose sleep and I get wound up. I usually run around to tire myself out or sing really loudly (if my housemate isn't home) or I make poems or paintings.” 

U: “sir, do you think losing our own selves is possible? are we just lost (which, hopefully, we can find a way back), or are we truly changing?”
RS: “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
U: “say, one might change in order to receive love, they adapt, they become someone they never are, all to get the love they are hoping to receive. but then come a question: am i actually losing myself in the process? or am i changing, for the better or for worse?”
RS: “If you are acting like someone you never are then you are pretending to be different. If you are no longer who you were, then you have changed. Are you pretending?”
U: “i guess thats the question only we can find out the answer ourselves. takes a lot of reflecting, though. thank you so much for the words, sir!”
RS: “No, it should be pretty simple: are you being authentic or not? Are you being fake to get love? The self isn't lost in any of these scenarios, the question is: are you living like yourself or are you hiding?”

U: “my head is a mess and my thoughts are dripping down my ears. how do i write? how do i write and make it good? how do i write to FEEL good?”
RS: “ Writing won't make you feel good. That's not its function or its job.”

U: “mr richard siken is it really love if you have to ask “ is this love’’”
RS: “I don't think it is, but often it could or will be, you just asked too early”

U: “mr. siken i feel sometimes like i can only write well when i’m in pain. do you have any wisdom?”
RS: “Probably you can write in all moods but you only like the stuff you write when you're in pain. Which is fine. It's okay if it's a choice and not a problem.”

U: “need richard siken to suggest a cure for a life i wish i wasn't born into. where does all the ache go?”
RS: “The more freedom you get, the more you get to chose what kind of life you get. You have to tough it out until you learn the skills and get the opportunities that will make you self-sufficient.” 

U: “Hi Richard, what is the worst thing you've done out of love?”
RS: “I don't regret anything I've done out or love. I regret plenty of things I've done out of need, fear, or desire.”

U: “what do I do when being kind feels like bile on my tongue”
RS: “Maybe you are being kind to people who don't deserve it from you. I'm not saying you should be mean to strangers, but you can limit what you give off yourself. Sometimes being kind just means leaving them alone.”

U: “how do I accept the fact they might not ever come back? I feel like the hope is holding me back.”
RS: “Whether they come back or not, you have to figure out what to do with your time while they're gone. Let's say they come back in a year. How will you have spent that year? What will you have to show from it or talk about?” 

U: “i've been struggling with a terrible and heavy apathy lately and it's affecting my writing. everything i feel feels so far away. i know apathy isn't everyone's struggle but any suggestions on how to push through it and find myself again?”
RS: “Something in your life is making you want to quit. Find it and change it.”

August 18th, 2023 

U: “hey mr siken how do i write down my pain and make it relatable but still uniquely mine?” RS: “Details, details, details. Everyone feels the same things, you're the only one looking at the world from your place in it. First you practice describing, then you practice making metaphors.”

U: “ mr siken how long on average does it take you to write and edit a poem?”
RS: “I polish and polish and I put them down and leave them sit before returning to them. They take a while because I let them sit.”

U: “mr richard siken do two broken people ever belong together”
RS: “Most people are broken. The goal is to heal together.”
U: “and what if they don't want to, or life doesn't want to, where does one put down all that pain and find the same old comfort of familiarity and understanding again”
RS: “You know the answer, you just want me to be the one to say it.” 

U: “hi. new to the grief of a very closed love one circle- which has led me to tweet you to ask if you have any words of wisdom or whatever”
RS: “Wisdom on grief. Hmm. I was fixated on the unfairness of it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Months in, I found myself realizing I hadn't thought about it for an hour or so. I congratulated myself for that and looked forward to the next small span of relief.”

U: “your poetry is lovely in the most terrifying way. I think if I ever fell in love and it felt like one of your poems I wouldn’t want my heart anymore. How do u take it?”
RS: “I don't have an experience of any other way. I have seen soft, tender, calm love. I could go for that, no problem”

U(different user, same thread): “I always found Crush quite self-destructive. Did I misunderstand the sentence — I understood it as “I’ve only seen soft, tender, calm love, and I don’t have an experience of any other way than that kind of love” and now I’m really confused“
RS: “In part one of Crush, the speaker wants to die for love. In part two, the speaker loses a lover and no longer wants to die. In part three, the speaker is shot and is dying and really doesn't want to. Also: I have seen soft love but never experienced it.”

August 19th, 2023

U: “ dear richard siken… how much of grief is about what you lose vs. the person who experiences the loss… and is it okay to want to hold onto it despite the worst being over (hopefully)… asking for a friend who is also myself”
RS: “I don't know the ratio, but it _is_ both. You can do whatever you want, you can hold onto anything you want. Only you can decide if you want to let it go, if it's time to let it go, if you need to let it go. I let go if it starts to hobble me.”

U: “how do I stop being afraid of death”
RS: “You don't, you just get better at using your time.”

U: “i never use this account but i just wanted to test something out. hey mr. Richard Siken — what do i do when i miss someone too much?”
RS: “There's nothing you can do except be good to yourself” 

U: “Dearest Richard Siken, how to love someone through grief?”
RS: “Do you mean love someone while you are grieving something else?”
U: “Love someone while they’re grieving while also grieving yourself.”
RS: “The love is still there but it seems so small in the face of the huge loss. You keep doing what you always do and you don't expect it to fix anything, because it won't, but it doesn't have to. Love doesn't have to fix things.”

U: “mr richard siken will this feeling of not knowing where life is taking you ever go away? im so scared to grow up”
RS: “Growing up just means you get more skills and independence. You get to decide how to spend your day and spend your money. It's pretty great, actually.”
U: “stepping out of my bubble needs courage which i don't have. but thanks for reminding me that it feels good to be independent”
RS: “You can keep your bubble as long as you want. It isn't tied to your home. I encourage you to enlarge your bubble when you can, when you feel safe and it feels good.”

U: “Mr Siken, what do you do with friends that you outgrow? Like literally nothing about their personality inspires you no more :/”
RS: “You keep loving them, even though you spend more and more of your time elsewhere.” 

U: “how do i not let my fear of looking dumb and embarrassment stop me from reaching out to people and ask for help ?”
RS: “Most of life is being dumb and making mistakes. You actually have to put your energy into helping others not feel bad when they fumble. When everyone ten people fumble ten times, that's 90 times you have to reassure other people.”

U: “what do you do when the going gets tough and you have no more fight left in you and even getting out of bed takes a mountain's equivalent of effort”
RS: “You protect yourself and heal. You don't always need to fight. Don't quit, just take a break from fighting.”

U: “are poets/writers bound to be lonely as their writings are regarded as art and art will always be subjective or will the enormity of their emotions ever be considered normal?”
RS: “Writers are lonely because they spend so much time alone, writing. Otherwise they have the same problems as everyone else. Everyone feels deeply, they just don't all talk about it.”

U: “richard siken how do you write in such an expressive way while still leaving room for interpretation”
RS: “Metaphor. It's that simple. Surprising images and unique metaphors.”

U: “How can I deal with knowing that I won’t ever be what the people around me think and say that I’ll be? I tell myself that I don’t care about what they want, but that’s not true. I care so much that it hurts and I’m not the kind of person that fights back because it scares me”
RS: “No one is ever what people expect them to be. After a while they ease up and realize who you are. It's just their hopes and dreams they're putting on you. We do the same to everyone else.”

U: “how do i deal with the realization that every single summer of my teenagehood has been plagued by a man ?”
RS: “You're lucky it's only in the summer”

U: “sir how did you get so good at putting all your intense feelings and situation into such beautiful words”
RS: “Daily practice, not being afraid to suck, getting good at throwing away the trashy stuff.” 

U: “My question is: does writing make you feel seen or known by people, or does the acknowledgement of self simply come from getting the words down on the page? Meaning is writing more of an emotional release or a reflection of who/how you are?”
RS: “None of that applies or makes sense to me. I like writing. There is no acknowledgement or reflection or release. That comes before the writing. The writing is hindsight, sentence construction, and editing.”

U: “does richard siken ever get exhausted replying to so many random tweets?”
RS: “I like the random ones and the fun ones and the clever ones. I get tired of the essay test questions and the repeat questions.”

U: “please could you give me a writing prompt?”
RS: “Write a response to the last thing you wrote, but from a different perspective and with a different tone.”

U: “mr richard siken whats the best writing advice you’ve gotten”
RS: "Your job isn't to judge your writing, your job is to write."

U: “how do i fix my writer's block?”
RS: “Express yourself in a different way until the words come back. You may need to replenish the well.”

U: “hi mr. Siken, would you have any advice for someone w/ a bunch of unfinished poems, who wants to turn them into a book, but can't finish them because more and more poem ideas/beginnings start popping up? is there any trick of the business to tame or better use this creative flow?”
RS: “You can't turn unfinished poems into a book. Keep writing. When you wind down from writing, start editing.”

U: “mr richard siken i have so many ideas swimming around in my brain yet i cannot will myself to sit down and physically write. i fear whatever i write will always fall short of what i hoped and intended it to be. any advice greatly appreciated”
RS: “Our work will always fall short because our vision outstrips our craft. We just have to keep doing it. I always get stuck in the space where it's better than I thought it would be but not as good as I wanted.”

U: “mr richard siken did u ever predict this success with this age group? everybody's loved ur work but you being active has def brought so many new ppl into it and gotten ppl like me even more invested. did u see this coming at all when u decided to replace the bot w the real thing?” RS: “I had no idea. I was just going to post a few quotes a day. I think there's a lack of my-age people who are available and listen. My answers aren't that profound, but who else is available? I try to answer what I can. Mostly I just say versions of "It gets better," which is true.”

U: “I hope you don’t mind me asking how do you finish writing a poem? I’ve been a writer for a long time, but I’m new into poetry and I find myself stopping after a couple words/a single stanza. How do I expand?”
RS: “When you get stuck, respond to the last line you wrote. If that doesn't work, pick a noun from the last line and say something new about it.”

U: “can I ask the ways you’ve navigated long gaps in writing, if you have? I have not even drafted a poem in 2.5 years (health and other reasons), and the longer things go, the more I fear that part of me’s gone. I hope this isn’t an inappropriately downer Q”
RS: “That part of you is still there, but you might approach it differently now, which is disconcerting and makes you feel lost. It isn't starting over, it's just writing something new in a new way. The old way might not apply anymore.” 

U (in response to the above tweet reply to a now suspended account): “The queer community is post-apocalyptic twice over. So much knowledge, community, and history that was starting to be pieced together, only to be destroyed. Then another build ending in another attempted genocide. And now....?”
RS: “And now we press on, like everyone always”

U: “richard siken how do you swallow hard truths”
RS: “You live in the strongest parts of yourself and you stay brave because there is no other choice.”

U: “apologies if you've been asked this before: do you have any tips on how to write during a block? the stuff i've been writing is forced and feels worse than anything i've ever written before.“
RS: “Work your weak hand: try another medium. Also, you can just write something unserious, to blow the carbon out of the pipes.”

U: “have you encountered/read Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke??”
RS: “A fundamental text. Everyone should read it. And the Duino Elegies.” 

U (in response to the above tweet): “how you know when to end your poems?”
RS: “If you've started to summarize or conclude, you've just passed the end and started an essay. Other times is isn't a hard end, it's just a decision to split the text into two (or more) poems.”
U (different user, in response to the above): “Im sorry i kinda didn't understand the "ended on a summation" part - can you explain it a little further ”
RS: “If you sum up or explain at the end, you've passed the poetry part and started to make it an essay.” 

U: “I have a question for Richard Siken: how do you deal with Feeling Too Much? Everything is always overwhelming all the time and it’s exhausting”
RS: “It sounds simplistic, but the thing that helps me the most is physical work or activity. I wear myself out and feel my body instead of getting stuck in my head.”

U: “richard siken, do u have any advice for when it seems your literary voice is just the voice of poets you love, is mine in there somewhere? will everything i create be an imitation of art i love?”
RS: “Only you are seeing the world from where you are. Concentrate on the details, make strange images and striking metaphors. The themes are all the same, always have been.”

U: “richard siken does the grief get easier? should i want it to?”
RS: “It gets easier, whether you want it to or not. It's not a betrayal to get over the pain.”

U: “do you know the world to be gentle?”
RS: “I know it's even more important to be gentle when the world is not. I don't always rise to the occasion like I should, though.”
U: “but mr richard siken what if it gets worse”
RS: “It gets a little worse here and there, but the overall curve is upwards.”

U: “mr richard siken how do we deal with being the backburner friend”
RS: “Make other friends on the side, then bring them up to the front.”

U: “do you ever feel like you're not enough of a writer? or that you can't call yourself a "Writer" for whatever reason? feeling like a fraud, i suppose. how would one cope with that feeling if writing is everything to them?”
RS: “I am a writer because a writer writes. I feel like an imposter because I spend so much time making my poems that a lot of the shine has worn off of them for me before anyone else actually sees them.”

U: “but spending that time doesn't really make you an imposter, right? i take a terribly long time with my own work too, and hardly ever share it. i feel like a ghost. does losing the shine make it feel not worth it? sorry i'm asking a lot of questions — thank you for responding.”
RS: “You're not allowed to judge your own work. You have to recuse yourself, you're too close to it.”

U: “mr richard siken how do you get motivation to write/write when you don’t have motivation?”
RS: “I don't. I don't push it. That's when I paint. I push the colors around without words.”

U: “mr richard siken am i really angry if anger exhausts me? shouldnt it feel natural to be angry when you are? and if it is exhausting should i even keep it”
RS: “Feelings are valid and you need to process them. Feelings do exhaust. There's only a problem if you get stuck or if you dwell on it without taking positive action for yourself.”

U: “ how do you keep yourself from cringing or just generally feeling embarrassed when you write your stuff cause whenever i write i feel like an edgy 15 year old trying too hard to seem cool anyways thanks”
RS: “Being an edgy 15-year old is valid. It's not like we get any smarter after 15 or feel any less deeply.” 

August 20th, 2023 

U: “mr. siken how do i get people to take my art seriously?”
RS: “You don't. You just keep making it and they eventually come around. And/or other people show up who love it. It used to be that few ever got famous while alive, so we're doing a little better.”

U: “how do i stop the cycle of ephemeral happiness and crushing despair”
RS: “You don't, especially if you are under 25. If it interrupts your daily life, you need to try things that smooth out the peaks and valleys. It sounds boring, but exercise, sleep, and nutrition are key.”

U: “how do you tell the difference between what is and isnt poetry? The longer ive been writing and reading poetry the less ive been able to find an answer”
RS: “It gets harder every year, especially for critics. A few years ago, Claudia Rankine won prizes for best poetry and best non-fiction for the same book. When Charles Simic won a prize for best poetry, and it was all prose poems, people lost their minds.”

U: “how do you deal with the overwhelming fear that everything you write is self centred because its about yourself? it's so hard to write without feeling a little disgusted by myself. Also how do u know ur finally a good writer.”
RS: “Write to evoke something in the reader, not to evoke something in yourself. Sometimes we get sloppy and write in a private shorthand that only we understand, which doesn't work for the reader.”

U: “how do you manage to keep a balance between then writing only what people want to hear and being honest ? Or rather what works for you”
RS: “What they want to hear and what you want to say will overlap enough that you shouldn't worry about it. They're going to have favorites and dislikes in your body of work anyway, so you can't trust the trends, even when you can find them.”

U: “richard siken can you recommend me some collections and/or textbooks to read for learning poetry techniques?”
RS: “Start with reading the poem-a-day at http://poets.org because those are the newest poems from the best poets. Look at the syllabi used at the local university. They have them in a section of the uni bookstore. Get used copies of whatever interests you.”

U: “do you have any advice/tips for first time writers looking to be published for the first time?”
RS: “Read lit journals online. Find a few that you love and read their submissions guidelines.”

U: “mr richard siken how do i get rid of internalized biphobia? i want to be ok with being queer but im struggling. it’s even hard to consume queer media because i want that but idk if i can ever have it.”
RS: “You meet more people like you and realize that you don't judge them, then you stop judging yourself.”

U: “how does one not let the weight of the world crush them? i have never felt more queer joy and love than i do now but there’s a constant fear that it will all be taken away, and i worry i am poisoning my own happiness”
RS: “There is always the fear that it will be taken away. You do it anyway.”

U: “tips on getting out of writer's block? i already let myself write "badly" & it doesn't seem to do much”
RS: “Cross-train. Try a different mode of expression for a while. If the words don't come, there might not be any at the moment. Anything that feeds your head will fill the well.”

U: “can you tell me it’ll all work out?”
RS: “It will. It does. You get more skills and more power and more control over your situation. You get to decide how to spend your day and your money and with whom.” 

U: “i’m feeling a bit like holden caulfield, i would appreciate ur words. the world seems like a terrible place rn”
RS: “The world is a terrible place right now. The world has been a terrible place before. If you felt good about the world right now, you wouldn't be paying attention. We change what we can and we hold our ground.”

U: “i just wanted to ask what's something that motivates you to work? i'm terrible at consistency”
RS: “I've only published about 120 pages in 40 years. I'm not the one to ask about consistency.” 

U: “is it always worth it to let the person you're writing poetry about read your poems? when is it the right decision to keep the poetry just yours?”
RS: “If you show the poetry about someone with them, you'll start to pander to them. Share the poems with others, but not with the subject. Unless they're love poems, which are about the act of seduction and not necessarily about the truth.”

U: “someone i dated for a short time had a feng shui reading abt us (part of their culture) and it said he’s bad for me, so we cant be together. his mom threatened to disown him & called me a degrading term when he tried to question it. he didnt say anything more.”
RS: “Sometimes people make up reasons to ditch you. Sometimes they have a deep, unshakable faith. You can't win, either way. I lost lovers because they decided it wasn't what Jesus wanted for them.”
U: “did it matter? did any of our time together genuinely matter if all it did was end?”
RS: “Everything ends. We die. The only things that matter are what we did with our time.”

U: “I do think that as people get older they get younger. also, you were out at a time that was bad for the community. any tips for those of us in countries where it's still bad? :(“
RS: “Find your people, don't buy the bullshit, be good to each other and hang together, even when you get mad. I came out a few months before AIDS hit hard. I've seen good times and bad. It will never be all good forever.”

U: “i would like to know how to get out of a one-sided decade long infatuation (which honestly is very "I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.") how do i stop?”
RS: “One way is to cut ties. Another is to shift your attention to other things and people without losing the friendship part. It might be the hardest thing you'll ever do but it will make you both feel better and still be able to see each other as friends.”

U: “what do i do with all this grief where do i put it down”
RS: “You can't just put it down, you have to process it. You have to feel it and then let it evaporate.”

U: “how do i not explode from being closeted”
RS: “You have to find some safe spaces, even if they're small. A person or two, a coffee shop or a bar, even a pen pal helps. Then, when you can, you make the spaces a little bigger.”

U : “tutorial on how to write like richard siken quick”
RS: “Imagine you only have 20 minutes to write the last thing you'll ever write.”

U: “how you know when to end your poems?”
RS: “If you've started to summarize or conclude, you've just passed the end and started an essay. Other times is isn't a hard end, it's just a decision to split the text into two (or more) poems.”

U: “do you listen to music when you write you poems, and if you do, what genres do you listen to?”
RS: “I listen to music without words, so nothing interferes with my words”

U: “how do u deal with the mortifying ordeal of being known?”
RS: “You have to not take it seriously. Out in the world, no one knows or cares who I am. Not at the grocery story, not at the gas station, so it isn't really a problem.”

U: “what do I do about the horrifying feeling that my youth is slipping away and the coming of age-movie-style early experience of fucking around and finding myself and being a feral artist with a group of friends is a distant dream and I will end up a corporate cog”
RS: “I took risks, leaned heavily into whatever extra time I had, sacrificed money in exchange for time, went to coffee shops and readings, and failed a lot.”

U(asked on august 8th, 2023): “i’m curious if there were any internal rules for the 2nd person narrative in crush—some of the poems (like seaside improvisation) have an “i” speaker. how does i vs. you work throughout?”
RS: “The second person makes the reader complicit. It was a way of undermining hate but putting the reader in my shoes.”
U: “are the moments of “i” supposed to be about letting the reader off the hook, then?”
RS: “Yes, letting the reader catch their breath. Also the second-person can get exhausting after a while.”

U: “what should i do if i find myself writing the same things in every poem i ever write, just in different versions and different words? is it okay if all my poems tell the same old story just in different ways?”
RS: “Yes. The details of the versions and worlds is what keeps it fresh.” 

U: “do you have any advices on how to cope with the sisyphean nature of life?”
RS: “Some games are rigged. Doesn't mean the impossible gets in the way of everything. Some things are easy.”

U: “i’m in the process of writing a short story, but i keep crying whenever i try to continue it since the contents of it are pretty personal and saddening. what can i do about that? i really want to finish it, i feel like my sadness is getting in the way </3”
RS: “The feelings and catharsis are more important than the writing. You don't have to rush it.”

U: “have you ever felt like you were changing through the project you were working on, and therefore feeling like you had lost the immediacy of it? i’ve been kinda struggling with that lately”
RS: “Yes. And there's nothing wrong with shelving a project and starting a new one.”

U: “hey Richard will I ever truly feel and receive the love I give? I am so tired of always being the person who is making others smile for once I want someone to try hard to make me smile” RS: “Relax and let them come to you. You have to leave some room so they can participate at their own pace.”

U: “how to write hopeful poems? Everytime I start hopefully my brain pulls me under.”
RS: “You can't write hopeful poems or not-hopeful poems, you can only write poems from where you are. Otherwise it rings false.”

U: “Do you think I can write my way out of where I am? Sometimes it helps but most often thinking of all the metaphors acts as an amplifier. Is it normal? Have you felt like a clear sky after pouring your feelings into a poem?”
RS: “Writing isn't there to save you. You need a better plan for getting out of it.”

U: “what do you ask of yourself/a poem during the revision process?”
RS: “I memorize poems. If I can't remember a line or a transition, I cut it. I cut something if I've said it before. I cut things that I don't really mean, where I was just showing off.”

U: “Richard siken is it love or is it obsession when you can't get over the person even after almost 2 years (one sided btw)”
RS: “Obsession. Love wishes them well and moves on.” RS: “Maybe not "obsession," maybe just desire.”

U: “im a soontobe creative writing major and im thinking of dropping my may term class for poetry, would it be a good idea to jump into it my freshman year or wait it out until i have more life experience to write poetry?”
RS: “You need to read read read, learn the craft and history, learn the theory before you write in school. Outside of school, do what you want. In school, it's set up to teach you things in a specific order that builds. It isn't about experience, it's about a learning foundation.”

U: “any words for a 19 y/o who thinks they’ll die single, not bc they’re unloveable but bc they think there’s just not a match out there…?”
RS: “ You don't have enough data to predict the future yet. Get more data.”

U: “richard siken, how do i stop feeling guilty and ashamed for disappointing my loved ones even though i'm not doing anything wrong (i'm just trying to grow and leave home)...”
RS: “Shame isn't productive. It doesn't fix anything. If people are disappointed, it's a problem they're having with their own expectations.” 

U: “do you have any suggestions on how to move past the thought that “im not doing as well as i should be doing and everyone my age is more successful than me”? i feel like im falling behind and dont know how to stop thinking that.”
RS: “Everyone alway thinks that. We move forward at different speeds, so everyone has evidence of a time when they were "in last place." It's an illusion. I didn't publish much before I was 30. I never got a PhD. To some, I'm a failure.”

U: “what do i do if i can only ever write about the same things, and it's kind of getting obsessive in my longing? though it helps me process, it also makes me dwell on stuff for months/years and maybe it's making me worse.”
RS: “Change the craft aspects. If you're writing in the lyric mode, switch to the narrative mode or the narrative mode. Change the perspective, say it in persona, change the mood and tone, the location, invent new metaphors and vary your line length.”

August 21st, 2023

U: “How can one move on from unrequited love? We don't really expect anything from them, and we wish them the best of everything. Despite reaching that level of acceptance in life, how can one move on personally??”
RS: “Unrequited love is the nice way of saying you're expecting something that's not being offered. It isn't fair. You have to stop.”
U: “But how can you just stop loving someone??? Does it have to conditional?? What if it's not??”
RS: “If it isn't mutual, it isn't love. It's desire.”

U: “how do i fill up the lack unhappiness in myself without abusing the love of those around me” RS: “There's a hole and the love keeps leaking out. It will never be enough until you find and fix the hole.” 

U: “i looked through your old interviews and saw you kept a journal. i'm looking to start one and was wondering if you have any tips? did you have a routine?”
RS: “Keep it loose. Don't make it pretty. It's a net to catch things. You catch a lot of trash. Include to do lists, grocery lists, things you would normally use scratch paper for, write as you're falling asleep or waking up.”

U: “how do you shake the feeling of being a hollow of a person? I’m getting all the help and support that I need. But I just feel hopeless (I’m happy sometimes, but it doesn’t last very long). If it matters, I’m only 20 and my older friends (25+) say it’s normal.”
RS: “It's existential dread. It's common. It's fundamental to the human experience and a mainstay of philosophy. Jean-Paul Sartre described it as nausea. My friend Sonja says when you feel hollow you should eat something with holes in it, like Swiss cheese or donuts.”

U: “I think it's kind of wild but also entertaining to see a bunch of ppl go "Richard Siken can I have advice on this thing?" like I would be exhausted lmfao”
RS: “It is a bit exhausting but some people go all dat without a kind word. I did for years. I figure it doesn't hurt to try and answer as long as it isn't real therapeutic or medical advice.”

U: “have you ever felt completely alienated from a poem after completing it - like a total loss of emotional connection and an inability to fathom who you were when you wrote it? if so, do you try to redo it or move on?”
RS: “If you lost your connection, the poem did its job and you processes the feeling/thinking really fast. Thank the poem and move on.”

U: “how do you get over not feeling embarrassed when you read back things you’ve written? i make myself cringe too much at some of my writing”
RS: “You're only embarrassed because you grew so much since you wrote it. Congratulate yourself.”

U: “what do i do when the joy has run out but i’m still doing the things i thought i loved?”
RS: “It's time to find new things then. Don't live out of habit, live out of choice.”

U: “my high school's poetry club are massive fans and mostly LGBTQIA+ do u have any pearls of wisdom for us i could share”
RS: “Read what you love but also read what you hate, because it will make you realize you have things to say and that your voice is necessary.”

U: “does every interpretation matter or only the artist's intention?”
RS: “Interpretations based on clues or evidence are more satisfying to me. If the poem is set in the woods and it is about green things, and interpretation that insists on red is tiring. The artist's intent is to make an experience. They build a landscape. They don't need you to come to specific conclusions, but they do want you to consider what it is and in what way the experience was crafted for you.

U: “when will I forget?”
RS: “I hope you don't forget, I hope you remember with understanding and no hard feelings.”

U: “why is growing up such a sad affair? How do I cope with change? :(“
RS: “We have to change really fast and experience things for the first time, that's why it's overwhelming and often miserable. Also we have little power over out lives and our choices. If you wrote it out on paper as a plan, it would be the stupidest plan.”

U: “Do you have any words of affirmation that you like to think about when life isn't going the best?”
RS: “I imagine that this is the awful part of the story that's necessary to get all the characters in their places for the larger plot to work.” 

U: “what to do if you’re convinced that your first love was so raw and pure and special that you feel like no one is ever going to know and love you as well as they did again?”
RS: “The first anything is huge. Even if no one will ever surpass it, you still have to move forward. Crush was the first and best book I'll ever write. I have to keep writing books, though, in spite of that.”

U: “do you mind if a person is inspired by your writing style and tries to emulate it so they can get back into writing (with no intention of profit”
RS: “You can't escape influence, so you have to push through it. Imitate until you bore yourself with it. Imitate but try to make the last part all yours. Imitate to practice your craft techniques. Imitate to keep writing, even when you have nothing to say.”

U: “i wanted to ask if you think it’s possible to be ultimately satisfied with the work we’ve written or it’s just more natural to keep going back to it over time? some things i posted last year make me feel like i’m giving people the wrong part of me..”
RS: “Give people the widest range of yourself. The old stuff belongs to an earlier you. The unsatisfactory parts just show that you have more to do. You can rewrite but sometimes it's okay to leave it be and make new work.”

U: “what do you do when your writing doesn't feel like yours anymore and how do you make it yours again?”
RS: “It depends on why it doesn't feel like yours anymore. Could be you've changed as a person but your style hasn't changed. Maybe you stopped being honest. Maybe you're imitating someone else. Make it fun again, then worry about making it yours.”

U: “if i surounded myself with beautiful things.. do i become beautiful in return too?”
RS: “You're already beautiful, that's how you know what beautiful things are.”

U: “how can i ask anyone to love me when all i do is beg to be left alone?”
RS: “You find the balance after a while. You're supposed to have a chunk of every day doing your thing or being left alone. You just have to make sure you're available enough and interested in them enough the rest of the time.”

U: “mr richard siken how do I break free of this body only u can help me now”
RS: “The problem of the body is fundamental to the human experience. It doesn't look how we want it to and doesn't work as we want it to. Break the problem down to its smallest parts: "How to I get through my day with a right arm that doesn't work?" That's a question you can answer.”

August 22nd, 2023 

U: “how to get over the fear of making bad art? (not a writer, but i feel like i’m not supposed to be doing it every time i give drawing a try and it turns out not up to standard)”
RS: “Not everything is going to be good. Figure that you'll only want to keep 5-10% of what you make, maybe less. It means you have to produce a lot of work.”

U: “can I ask, what draws you to the recurring imagery of light in your writing?”
RS: “I live in the Sonoran Desert. The light is blinding, everywhere, all day. The heat can kill you. It's just part of the landscape I live in. A lot of the "darkness" in my work is just night, shade, and relief.”

U: “mr siken how do you allow time to heal wounds?”
RS: “Time doesn't care about you, about us. It heals wounds because that's its nature. You can't stop it.”

U: “how does one stop feeling embarrassed about just existing.does it ever go away? the stupid feeling of inadequacy.sometimes it disgusts me to think that I can’t stop needing people to see me. im tired of not being great enough 4 them”
RS: “If you're embarrassed about existing then everyone should be. You're not here to prove anything or be any particular thing or to make anyone else happy. You're here for the experience. Have the best experience you can.”

U: “mr richard siken how do i stop living in the past? swimming in nostalgia and sentiment these days”
RS: “Once a day, look around at your environment and respond to it. That's the present. You have to start connecting to it.”

U: “How do I deal with not loving someone anymore?” RS: “No one, not even you, can make you feel something you don't feel. There's no one to blame. There's no blame.”

U: “someone said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of emotions and that implies that you’re not in your senses when you write. i’d be delighted to know if that’s what it’s like for you, and if so, how do you analyse your poetry afterwards?”
RS: “Let me see if I can list some definitions I believe: Poetry is the residue of a life lived. Poetry is the tools of conversation used for not-conversation Poetry is language that does more than one thing at once. Those are a few that come off the top of my head. I guess I see poetry as a crafted thing, revised with a goal to evoke. The impulse and the first draft might be the overflow, but it has to be more than that. Poetry is made of words, not emotions. Inspired by emotions sure, but lots of people feel more deeply than I do.”

U: “what is the point of a line break”
RS: “This is my favorite question of all time. I love answering it. The thing that poetry has that no other form has is the the friction between the sentence and the line. The sentence is a unit of meaning. When you break it, you make multiple units of meaning that exist simultaneously, which makes meaning shimmery and multivalent. It forces lateral thinking, it forces emotional thinking. It it surprising and delightful. There are a variety of ways to break a line. Some break where they breathe, some break for rhythm, some break to change the meaning of a word or phrase -- to surprise -- some break with enjambment to gain velocity, some like to click a sentence shut. Period. Full Stop. Line break. Stanza break.”
RS: “Everyone
gets
lighter
everyone
gets lighter
everyone gets
lighter
everyone gets lighter,
everyone is light.”
U: “This is why it’s so hard for me to read a poem on the first read. Idk if i should stop for the breaks or just read it straight thru”
RS: “Consider the line break as a hitch in the breath. The period is a whole note rest. The comma is a half-note rest. The line break is a quarter-note rest. Try reading it out loud like that. It's meant to be a kind of music.”

U: “how does one get over an overwhelming pain that keeps coming back? this emotional pain is sometimes overwhelming and there are times that I can feel it physically.”
RS: “You concentrate on the minutes where it isn't overwhelming and you look forward to increasing the number of minutes you get like that in a day.”

U: “do you title your poems before, during or after writing? do you connect the title and the themes of the poem? ”
RS: “Titles are an opportunity to frame the poem in a certain way, to hint at a way of reading, to add tension between the meaning of the poem and the poem itself, to connect poems across a book or a series of books, to set up a relationship with the work of others, to surprise, to..”

U: “what do you do when you care so much it hurts you?”
RS: “You decide the pain is worth it or you leave”

U: “how do you decide which poems to share with others, whether it be with loved ones or in a published work?”
RS: “If it's going to get you killed, you keep it in a drawer. If it's going to hurt someone, you don't show it to them. If we're just talking about embarrassment, don't worry. People are embarrassed already. They'll appreciate the company.”

U: “how do I discern my writing, what defines a poem vs just rambled thoughts on paper. I have such a hard time calling some of the things I’ve written poetry”
RS: “A poem is made of heightened and framed language. Poetry is shaped with the goal of evoking. Poetry is intended for the reader, not the writer. Poetry has a shape, a strong voice, unique images, and uses figurative language in a surprising, hopefully innovative way.”

U: “u keep talking about writing for people instead of yourself, but if it doesn't feel passionate to u then how do you know that others will want to read and imagine it? do you think u have to feel more about writing than what you write about in order to be good?”
RS: “When I write for myself, I fall into writing in a private shorthand that only I can understand. The reader doesn't get it, can't get it. I only mean that you have to avoid this and make sure you are crafting an experience and guiding the reader through it.”

U: “sorry to disturb but how do you deal with the urge to disappear and never coming back to this lifetime ?”
RS: “All feelings are valid, but not all behavior. You're allowed to feel like disappearing but you're not allowed to disappear. Feeling moves through you and evaporates. Let the feeling move through you and leave you.”

August 23rd, 2023

U: “how do I know that the metaphor I use is the right one?”
RS: “The question is: is the metaphor a useful, unique, and powerful one. There is no "right." Some you just like better for no understandable reason.”
U: “what should I do if love is not enough? if my pain and anger precedes love?”
RS: “You pain and anger are contaminating everything. Love is not enough, friendship is not enough, art is not enough, what the day holds is not enough. You haven't been able to let go of the pain and anger by yourself. Now you need a real-world coach and a support system.”

U: “right now i find almost the entirety of my self worth in making things- i know that i as a person am good because other people like the things i make. this seems fragile to me and i was wondering if u had any advice on the matter.”
RS: “You're not on the planet to prove your worth. Give it up. You can't actually do it, not matter what, and no one cares because they're busy proving their own worth. If you're unworthy, then we all are.”

August 25th, 2023

U: “what do i do when i am always the one who loves but is never loved?”
RS: “If they don't love you back, then you're expecting something that isn't being offered. That's desire. In this case, it isn't mutual. That isn't love, that's hunger.”

U: “I recently upended my life with the expectation that someone who claimed to love me as much as I loved them would stand by me throughout. They didn't. Now I'm left standing in the ruins. How do you start anew when you're left with nearly nothing?”
RS: “You just do, and if you have to, you cry all the way through it. My best friend of 20 years dumped me the day I had my stroke and left me alone and helpless. He was scared. He was a coward. I'm still angry about it every day. It doesn't stop me though. I get stuff done.” 

August 26th, 2023 

U: “I think a bear might be an animal”RS: “A bear is an animal in the wild. A bear is a weapon if he works for you.”
RS (in response to a user pointing out the bits of poems plastered on the wall in a photo posted by Richard): “Poems getting revised”
U: “i bet they don’t even need it & are already perfect”
RS: “Oh no, they needed serious revision. Most poems do. The inspiration only takes you so far, then you have to craft it to effect the reader.”

U: “how do I reconnect to my work written before a physically and mentally traumatic incident? The person writing those stories feels like a complete stranger, and the characters are now intangible, but I would like to pick the stories back up again.”
RS: “You have to put them in a drawer for a year or two at least”
U: “It's been nearly four years unfortunately. Should I just bury the stories and move on?”
RS: “Yes, or rewrite them from memory from your new angle of approach.” 

U: “im going to university next year and i don't know how to start over. how do u build a new life whn u already love th one u live?”
RS: “You're not starting over or losing your first life, you're adding a second life. You're building one of many new outposts you'll have as you conquer more and more of the world.” 

U: “What do you do when you’re simultaneously happy with how you’re living but also afraid you’re not as good as other people?”
RS: “We don't get to decide who is more or less worthy. What criteria would we use anyway?” 

RS(in response to the above post): “Yes. And footprints. They want me to give them everything but they don't need everything. No one does.”

U: “I return to this segment for a lot of reasons but one of them is space. The distance between any two men (me and a lover, myself and my reflection, etc) is god and the devil all at once. A space that has to be crossed but is an impossible distance. Jeff & Jeff & Jeff & Jeff.”
RS: “Most often God is represented by one person. I suggest that God could be represented by the interaction between two people. And the Devil. And everything: the interaction.”

August 27th, 2023 

U: “how do I poet, too? Have been writing poetry to get thru life since I was a kid, and would really like to be able to make a little bit of income off my suffering. Is self publishing the best route? How big should a collection of poems be?”
RS: “See if you end up liking books from the same press or if you like multiple presses. That will give you a sense of who is publishing what you like. Most people need to get a dozen or so poems published in magazines before a press will consider a manuscript. Read lit mags.”

U: “mr. siken can you talk to us a little about this poem? who is jeff, to you? do you choose the stitches or the devouring mouth? any insight would be lovely <3”
RS: “_You_ are Jeff. The reader is. It's a puppet show. It's hypothetical. Which do _you_ choose? I'm not in the poem as a character, I'm the narrator.”

August 28th, 2023 

U: “it’s always ‘what do i do with the enormity of my desire mr. richard siken’ and never anything interesting, like ‘what do you smell like mr siken?’ or ‘what would you want your last meal be?’”
RS: “I smell like the forest at night: moss, rain, wood smoke, pine sap, and dirt. By the time I get to my last meal, I don't think it will matter to me very much. I am very interested in my next meal. I kind of want a chile relleno burrito before the sun comes up.”

U: “how do we leave the pain behind?”
RS: “The memory of pain keeps you attentive when you're around the stove. You don't have to be afraid of the stove, you just have to pay attention. If you burn yourself, you wrap it and let it heal. Keep it clean and dry. You don't have to do anything else. It heals on its own.”

U: “Dear Mr. Richard Siken, When I was a small child, my parents made a grand gesture out of my birthday. Now that I’m estranged—for my own safety—I get wistful this time of year. I miss feeling special. How do I convince myself to stop fixating on my longing for a father figure?”
RS: “Everyone longs for a father figure. Even those with fathers. Even fathers. That's why we invented God.” 

August 29th, 2023

U: “how does mr richard siken deal w writer’s block like im going INSANE here already”RS: “Either you're forcing it or you're trying to write something you're "supposed to" write. What are you writing and how long have you been blocked?”U: “honestly ive been trying to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to writing.. instead of solely focusing on one concept which is 'writing about my own misery’ i’m aiming to venture into different things than that” RS: “It isn't so much writer's block as it is the newness of the project. You'll be clumsy while writing in a new way but you're judging it too early and too harshly. Just let it suck for a while as you try/practice writing the new way. I hope this helps.”

U: “is there an order in which you'd prefer people to read your books?” RS: “There are only two. One is about war, the other is about love. It just depends on your mood or interest.”

August 30th, 2023

U: “how does one prepare for an abandonment that they know is coming” RS: “How do you know it's coming? It is a friend, lover, or family member? Will is be loss to death, distance, or change of feeling?” U: “a beloved friend. there have simply been warning signs. i feel that they will leave my life soon, and i’m trying to brace myself but i find it difficult.” RS: “Are you growing apart or are hard feelings developing?” U: “i can’t tell.” RS: “Honesty is best, but you can't expect everyone to be able to answer. You can say something like "I feel like there's a distance growing between us. If it's something that you'd like to talk about, I'd be okay with that." Then you leave it be. Then it's up to them. Then you'll know. If they have to grow, you have to let them. If they're angry and they're wrong (and/or they don't want to fix it) then you have to let them be angry. You can't force people to be reasonable. It's crazy-making, though. I hate when people won't tell me the truth or talk about it.” U: “i hate it too. i wish talking it out was enough more often” RS: “We are high verbal and understand serenity. Some are clumsy but have the best intentions. Some are moody and unconcerned. We love them anyway. Sometimes they disappoint, sometimes they leave. We have to let them. They're working out their own stuff their way.”

RS: “A lot of people are surprised that I'm answering questions. They wonder why. I came out a few months before AIDS hit hard. The generation above me was decimated. The potential role models and guides I might have had were wiped out. We're still recovering from that.I'm only getting the attention I'm getting because I survived. The attention was supposed to be spread out across a vibrant community. I try to be as attentive and careful as I can, because we're still recovering from the loss of the people who would have protected us. Sometimes I get sloppy or frustrated or glib, but I try to be available and tender.” 

U: “how does one learn to love themselves and heal from abandonment and trust issues?” RS: “Practice. I know you want a different answer but it's the answer I know. Love yourself for ten minutes a day to start. Whatever you would do for a love one, do for yourself. Increase it to 15 minutes a day after a few months. Also...Once a day, look around and see if you're safe. If you are, enjoy being safe for ten minutes, without the need for someone else to defend or protect you. You can't be "abandoned" if you can take care of yourself.”

U: “Mr Siken, how would you feel if someone used on of your poems as a suicide note? I think I read somewhere that someone did, just wanted to know how you feel about something like that.” RS: “She did. Her boyfriend, who found her, emailed me. If I had never written that poem, she would have used a different poem. She was working out her stuff her way. It wasn't about me. I hope the poem gave her some joy or relief while she was alive.”

August 31st, 2023 

U: “how do i grieve the better life i couldve had?” RS: “You don't know that it would have been a better life. You can imagine the first month of that possible life but who knows what might have happened. You might have been saved from true horror. We don't get do-overs and we don't get to choose.” U(different user in response): “What if its obvious that the life that was taken was better for us than the life that we have been condemned to due to circumstances? How do we deal with the regret then” RS: “ Every day, for every one of us, circumstances develop that keep us from a potentially better life. Regret seems to imply that you had a choice. Did you? Did you make your best guess or did you choose poorly on purpose? We all have good reasons to be bitter. It's a trap.”

U: “Do you have any advice for a new writer who worries their prose/poetry gets too wordy or melodramatic?”
RS: “When you revise, cut all the words that don't matter. Cut all the exaggeration and only say the actually true parts. The actual drama of the actual true parts is pretty powerful.”
U: “how can you tell the difference between writing to heal and writing to create? when does a sore memory become tender enough to talk about?”
RS: “Writing to create is the intent to shape an experience for the reader, using craft techniques and figurative language from your toolbox. Writing to heal is a personal investigation, often written in a coded, private language that the reader is excluded from.”

U: “has it always been this hard to let go of things”
RS: “Yes. The language of love is made of grunts and moans. The language of loss is the dictionary. If it's in the room, you don't need a name for it, you just point.”
U: “Mr. Siken you write like how emotions feel. “the swan dive, the little death, a bird flying into a kitchen window, open or shut, this or nothing, it strips the bolts” gah!!! Do you have a name for this meter/rhythm you use? Is it Dactyl?”
RS: “I don't have a name for the rhythm. I use repetition and variation of rhythms. "the swan, the little, a bird... open or, this or." I forget the names. The first set is unstressed-stressed, the second set is reversed.”

September 1st, 2023 

U: “could you offer some advice on dealing with rejection as a writer”
RS: “Back when we would get quarter page rejection slips in the mail, I was told to fabricate a spindle that was my exact height and I was not allowed to quit before the spindle was full. You can figure you'll get 49 rejections for every 50 submissions at first. After you get a dozen or so publications in lit journals, the rejection ratio goes down to 24 out of 25. I still get rejections. There are some magazines I just can't get into. Not every writer is a good fit for every magazine.”

Richard Siken is an award winning poet and a man with small hands who will fall short. He is the kind of artist  who reminds me why I am an artist when I sink into despair about what the point of all this is anyways. In his poem “Landscape With a Blur of Conquerors” within his book War Of The Foxes there is a line that reads: “To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be” and in the time he’s spent answering questions about love, about life, about the beautiful poetry he creates, sincerely connecting with the people who have admired and supported him and his work — I believe he’s found a way to both make something beautiful, and make it enough. 

Links to relevant articles as well as some interviews done with Richard Siken:

Spotify playlist by Richard Siken
The Poet Laureate of Fan Fiction - The Awl
Richard Sikenhas always been a fanfic enthusiast - Polygon
The Doubling of Self: An Interview with Richard Siken - Tin House
Fight Club: Richard Siken - BOMB Magazine
The Need for Making -Poetry Foundation

I like Kevin Bacon, and after this I kind of questioned if he might be lowkey homo/trans/queerphobic in some way, because he shilled for this so hard and the content is so awful and dull. Please, don’t feed me gruel and tell me its caviar. They/them, looking beyond it’s cheesy title is still sanitized and shallow, and I do not feel thankful for the scraps that they laid before me attempting to convince me it contained true sustenance. 

Half-truths are not truths, and I will not placate them as such as it does a disservice to all of us, especially right now. This movie is not the inclusive haven that it was hailed to be, many of the people shown in the trailer were background characters with no significant personality and no lines, often referred to in caricaturing ways (the fat girl gets a compliment on her pie, cool). There is a disoreinting, upsetting and pointless scene in which one of the girls is showering and she gets walked in on, the reaction the girl who walked in has immediately tells me she saw something she didn’t expect to see — and we cut to the girl who just had her privacy invaded being marched over to the boys cabin. It’s deeply transmisogynistic, and it wasn’t real commentary but instead a crass and thoughtless depiction that served little to no purpose. I still don’t know if it’s supposed to be heartening that Jordan, the nonbinary camper who was tossed around both gender segregated cabins, is kind to her and protects her from the other boys in the cabin who call her a “fucking freak show”, but it feels very bare minimum, very half said. 

Alexandra, the Black transfeminine character who was walked in on, has her estradiol taken away and has to pour out her gory truth to the white lady keeper of the important items in order to convince her to let her have her own medication. This is supposed to be a tender moment, but I see it for what it is. The softening due to having a vulnerable person disembowel themselves in front of you so that you can connect to the humanity of the person in front of you is not a beautiful act. I don’t find it honorable, or heartwarming. The consumption of our pain for basic human sympathy. It makes me feel sick. One of the biggest dynamic flaws in THEY/THEM is that they think they’re creating caricatures but they are not. These are just normal ass people. They’re not scary movie villians. They’re the soccer moms who make dope brownies for bake sales. They’re the nice lady who runs the farmers market. The insults said during the conversion sequences are not exaggerated when you’re someone who has lived life as a trans person, particularly a racialized trans person. It instills a sense of dull anger in me to watch what I’m sure the creators believe is something that would horrifying me to my core to hear, things suitable for a conversion camp horror film — when in reality, i’m just listening to the same shit I see on twitter everyday in my free time.

This is a movie for people who do not want kink at pride, and think cops belong there because they keep us safe. I have no idea what the point of this film truly was, ultimately. It feels like they only made it a horror because they felt that’s what would appeal to people, but they half-stepped on just about everything, and the lack of clarity or focus in the film shows. I really hate superficial inclusivity. Nothing violent happens until the third act, and the build up toward it isn’t satisfying, as it drags on and bogs itself down, sprinkling in social commentary that doesn’t land. 

This movie feels like an inevitable consequence of instagram infographic culture and the draw of the mass consumption that’s available to us via the internet. A consequence of queer pride as consumption. The one saving grace of this is the fact that those young adults acted their asses off given the steaming pile of a script offered to them. I hope to see many of them in future works that honor their talent. I am infuriated at the fact that they allow Alexandra to be outed, deadnamed and misgendered the entire film, and they do not deadname or misgender the titular (white) trans nonbinary character, Jordan. It is blatantly transmisogynistic and it makes me angry because I know this was not intentional, pinpoint choices to show a nuanced portrait of the ways that transmisogyny can often be so subtle and pervasive, and I refuse to give them that benefit of doubt. This was not a commentary on how white transmisogyny-exempt nonbinary people are often given prefferential treatment and acceptance over transmisogyny affected people of color, in spite of that being exactly what happend. I don’t belive for a second they knew what they were doing in a thoughtful way. This was careless. Alexandra gets a ton of screentime, so it doesn’t make sense to say “oh Jordan is the primary protagonist, that’s why they were gendered correctly”. It’s a very clear cut example of transmisogyny and really upsetting to watch for a lot of reasons, but it’s not horrifying, it is not titilating, I don’t feel dread — I feel deeply, deeply annoyed and hurt at the lack of care that went into something that could have been pivotal for the genre in a time of massive social upheaval — a horror film that is explicitly queer and trans, with an explicitly queer and trans cast. 

THEY/THEM never for a moment allows me to feel a genuine confrontation with the horror that is conversion camps and how violent transphobia and white cisheteropatriarchy is, but it springs happily toward the bland messaging of “love yourself, you can be whoever” like yeah, we’re fucking trying but the world wants us dead, and is is trying to suffocate us. 

I mentioned it previously, But I’m a Cheerleader(1999) is a film that addresses many of the subjects they/themattempted to in much more horrifying and entertaining and less offensive ways. There are things to be said about But I’m a Cheerleader, mostly that they display some of the same things that they/them does, in treating a trans character of color as disposable, their problems as secondary. They/them is an affront to me on a much higher level, however, because unlike But I’m a Cheerleader — the characters on our screen are meant to be explicitly trans, and the care still isn’t there. 

It feels like a show, and in the worst way possible. THEY/THEM is a room meant to look horrifying and dingy but it still smells like bleach on every surface, and I don’t buy it as representation or a positive for myself or people like me. I’m happy for the queer and trans actors that earned visibility and resources for their work on this film, and proud of them for it — I believe they all, and we all deserve better than this.

1/2 star out of 5

Everyone who decides to read this has been given a gift. I finished reading many months ago, but it’s important to me that I represent the intensity of the feelings it left me with accurately, so here I am now, with the thoughts and feelings still just as fresh as the moment my eyes rested on the last page. The Fifth Wound is a text that perfectly articulates why I will always love to hurt, and why at the end of it all, I know we are here to hurt each other, in all the worst and most divine ways. An infinite undiscovered iceberg of the self we must chip at, incessantly, painfully. The gift of such sensations. Aurora Mattia’s words made me remember the rare moments in my life where I felt like a woman and I loved it. Her tales made me ache to find the place in my atmosphere where I might access those memories without dissociating the me that exists now from the woman I loved being then. I think of how much fear it fires in me, and how much the desire overwhelms it, still. I am always thinking gender thoughts, introspecting while I move throughout the world but what excites and overwhelms me about what Aurora presents, is how pure the desire feels. As a very openly and vocal transmasculine person, it often feels taboo, dirty, and inaccessible for me to associate feelings of joy and desire with femininity and womanhood, but those feelings are all taken and rinsed in waters so honest through the words she brought to me (and all of us), that I don’t feel too afraid anymore. I feel overwhelming desire to reconnect to the things I have been told I should be afraid of.

Aurora begins by beckoning the reader to promise not to fall in love with her. It might sound bold and presumptuous at first, but what follows is prose that separates blood from bone in such intimately visceral ways, that you, like me, might become convinced that the writer knows you much more intimately than they could possibly truly know. An energy that permeates throughout the novel and never ends, something so intense and light, all at once. The Fifth Wound feels like a cree to look beyond her siren song. Be patient with her prose, it demands it. It also demands persistence and urgency, with run on sentences and long footnotes full of passion, access to beyond what that intensity might mean, stories that layer over one another in flawless transition. Aurora paints images of memories past in vivid detail that make me burn to see it all through her eyes, and to comb through the recesses of my mind to find the colors I may have forgotten.

reviews by salem void

I want to say so often that this book is fundamental trans, gender, transgender, transsexual text – but that feels like a very flat summation of what The Fifth Wound does, and can do for a reader. It’s a weaving of myth, fantasy and reality that is nothing short of otherworldly, while maintaining a palpable mortality. Transition, love and sex, trans love and sex as genuine mythos, as written scripture, as history written by our hearts with our blood and breath and bodies. Her stories are never just one story, and I never felt a passive observer in them. I became the devil on her shoulder, the pen on the pages, a subway seat, the notes app in her iphone, the angel Ezekiel himself. Her words force me to contend with the idea that the things that happen to us, the cosmic and undefinable, all mean something, and that it all matters. To wonder why my love courses through me in the ways it does, why I compare it in my own mythos to sludge and plague. Pain and pleasures, folding into myths and mysteries.

The way that Aurora speaks of beauty penetrates the deepest parts of my fear centers as she interrogates what it means to be beautiful, what we gain and what we lose when we become beautiful. There is so much pain, and a just, vile amount of self awareness. There is so much willingness to admit the things others know about themselves but opt to lock away like ancient secrets. It is such fearless writing. From the moment Aurora begins to lead me into her tale of being visited by Saint Catherine of Sienna, I began to glow, and the intensity of that light did not cease, but shifted in color from soft pinks and purples to deep reds and blues.

She says, “whatever my genitals are, they were once a wound.” and that sentence alone is some of the most beautiful prose I have ever consumed in my life. It’s the truth for me, as an intersex person who was surgically “corrected”, whatever I have now, it was once a wound. That has healed, and split, and filled and split again. Violence is a language that Aurora understands fluently, and that speech intwines with the languages of prayer and memory to weave something truly magical. The waves of love, pleasure, of scent and sight, of fear and rejection, wash over me so aggressively that it makes me lovesick for the version of me that felt my love like hunger. She says that writing this book was a way to survive, and you can feel that in every page. She reminds me that attempting to outrun the pain will prolong it. She reminds me that I see us all as constellations in a vast galactic system, tangles together, planets and comets and moons, space dust in between. That love is often patience, that solitude is not a punishment for all. I relate heavily to Ezekiel in the sense that I am simply not very present day to day on an extremely consistent basis socially, or interpersonally. Aurora says “Paradise is nowhere” but to me, paradise is that mystery, the unknown, and the freedom to find what lies in between. I have hurt people with my desire for absolute freedom, for patience when my words are few and my presence is rare. I don’t feel proud of it. I feel angry that so much life and freedom was taken from me that I feel the fear down to my marrow of stagnancy, that I have accepted my own mortality so deeply that I want it to be a feature of me that is loved and admired, that I am only ever showing up in times where there is truly nothing else I would rather do, that all my thoughts and truth is in that moment, that I am ever present, that I am there there there. Im a fairy, like Aurora and Ezekiel. Paradise is nowhere, I exist in the wind, I love you from here, from there, from everywhere. Aurora frequently vanishes from heaving a presence online, without a word, without a trace, without a hint of when she might be back – The Fifth Wound is a visceral, intimate, reflective display of the parts of the mirage we don’t get to see, and an honoring of the parts that we do, a beckoning to let it go without claw marks.

I am here, and I am gone. Love me and let me fly, watch the wounds split and fill and heal and split again. I have given up so many things in the pursuit of a satisfied mystery. To know it all, and to have it all, is to leave nothing left to learn. Aurora Mattia is an absolute fairy in every essence of the word. She created a portrait of the world with her words, and her wounds, that will stick with me forever. This is a book that reminded me, as fantastic writing usually does, that there are always new ways to put words together. There is always a new way to tell a tale, to weave a story, to construct a fantasy, to detail the viscera. I am grateful for The Fifth Wound and for the existence of people with such clarity of complexity like Aurora Mattia, Silicone Angel.

5/5 stars.

Purchase The Fifth Wound || Nightboat Books

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In quite a few conversations, both direct and indirect (thanks to the beautiful nature of the subtweet) I’ve been accused of doing something called “degendering”, but of myself. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a specific tactic used against someone to obscure their gender in order to remove any connotation or connection that can be created by someone else through their gendering, or to dehumanize or debase someone generally by taking away their agency of gender. I’ve been accused of degendering myself in very specific ways in order to appeal to a wider audience as an “afab trans person” ( I have literally never called myself that) to evade being seen as someone who can perpetrate harm. I took this at value, for what was being told to me, as I do with all criticism of my communication and behavior and I analyzed it. Though I have had a long struggle my entire life with feeling like a very bad and scary person, It’s funny that being treated like a bad and scary person led to a fear of being a bad and scary person which leads me to now taking every accusation of wrongdoing very seriously because I am so afraid to be a hurtful person. I’ve realized lately that people don’t generally feel the same way. I’ve realized that I definitely take accusations of wrongdoing or misconduct much more seriously than the average twitter user, in spite of being used to false and egregious allegations. I’m fine with that. I want to be better. I don’t want to become blind to the fact that I am a person capable of as much harm as I am capable of good. I talk a lot about my masculinity and what it means to me and how I perform it. I talk a lot about the ways I’ve been treated throughout my life being born as an intersex kid with a terribly transphobic mother and little support structure. I talk a lot about the ways that I take these things and I turn them into good. I talk a lot about how my masculinity must keep its teeth. I do not want to be defanged, I do not desire it. But still - when I express vulnerabilities and sincerity specific to who I am as a man, I am accused of degendering myself and “retreating into the safety of my femininity when trying to be seen as a victim”.

This puts me off for a lot of reasons. I am going to use this time here, and the space in this essay to outline to you the specifics of my gender identity and then I’lll break down why the assertion that I have the ability to retreat into safety of any kind is absolutely preposterous.

I am a Black man. I am a man. I am not a woman. I am a Black woman.

I am transmasculine. I am a trans man. I am intersex. I am trans.

I am a guy. I am not a girl. I am a boy. I am not a woman. I am a Black woman.

I am not a woman. I am a Black woman. I am not a woman. I am a Black woman.

I am a Black man. I am a man. I am a Black woman. I am a man. I am a Black woman.

I think I said it enough times for that to be clear before I dive into specifics.

You see - living under white supremacist cishetero patriarchy means that I was born into an antiblack world that has forcibly gendered and degendered and ungendered me from the very beginning of my little infant life. As much as I hate what my mother put me through as an intersex born child, I also must acknowledge that part of why she did what she did is because she thought it would give me a better shot at surviving in a relentlessly antiblack system. Back to the point, I started my life with an event that would affect me for the entirety of it - aggressive gendering to the point of medical intervention. Living in an antiblack world and being able to become perceptive of this from a fairly young age is not a blessing of any sort. I almost wish I could be colorblind, so I didn’t have to notice all the small inconsistencies of the way people look at me and speak to me. But, I don’t live in that world and never have. My experience as a woman has been primarily informed by my positionality as a BLACK woman. Black trans women were the people in my earlier adolescent life that set me on the path of ethics and understanding of human connection that I still carry with me to this day.

I will never renounce Black womanhood. I will NEVER renounce my Black womanhood. Everything I am and everything I ever will be is inextricable from my positionality as a Black woman. Everything I am and ever will be is inextricable from the rage and the exhaustion from trans/misogynoir we have suffered. Everything I am and ever will be is inextricable from my love of Black women and Black femininity.

Every single time I've been accused of “retreating into the safety of my femininity/afabness(again, never claimed that)'' has been by a nonblack person. Trans and cis alike. I was recently told a few months ago that saying “I am largely perceived as a Black woman” in a conversation about my wealth or lack of patriarchal privilege is retreating into femininity, smol bean complex or whatever the fuck.

I’m writing this so you know that if you’re a nonblack queer and/or trans person who has ever said something like this to a Black queer/trans person - you’re dead wrong, and also have racism to unpack. White supremacy is ingrained into everything. Prejudices of white supremacy have been studied and confirmed in children as young as 3 years old. You are not immune to propaganda, you are not immune to believing that the way that you see and perceive and explain and define things is the most valuable and correct way, especially when it comes to assigning these things to people whose experiences you don’t have a genuine frame of reference for.

I am whatever gender anyone and everyone wants me to be at the time, according to what serves them. I am a man when I am angry, when I am advocating for myself, when I am asking to be centered, when I am criticizing someone's behavior, when I need help and support. I am a woman when I am angry, when I am sexual, when I am vulnerable, when I am emotional, when I openly hurt, when I break down. Whenever I am angry I can be either, I can be nothing at all. I am often ungendered and spoken to and about like I'm not a human at all. And yet nonblack people tell me that I am capable of retreating into the safety of my Black femininity? It doesn’t work like that. Things don’;t work like that. It’s not a thing that happens. Megan Thee Stallion is far more popular and entertaining than I and she isn’t capable of retreating into her Black femininity for safety - so what makes you think that I’m capable of doing such besides the concept that I am claiming womanhood as a whole and not keeping hold and honoring the Black womanhood that I always have, and always will? If Black women were capable of weaponizing our identities we would have taken over this world already.

We do not have to pick and choose. Not for you, or anyone. Black women, Black men, Black people of all marginalized genders are freed people. We are not under your control. We do not have to bend to the demand that we subscribe to the framework you create for us. We are freed people. I am a Black trans man. I am not a woman. I am a Black woman.

If you don’t understand it, it’s not for you. Coming for me and mine, demanding we rearrange and change our language and reframe it to your understanding of the world is antithetical to what we should all be after, which is movement away from white supremacist cishetero patriarchy, which is the reason so many nonblack people are hell bent on finding strict dichotomies and ways to compartmentalize others, and especially those they view as potential danger.  There is no way for Black women to retreat into safe womanhood. If you’re finding yourself feeling the urge to bring up Black TERFS and TIRFS, I want you to understand that they are not retreating into safe femininity they are retreating into the safety of making themselves agents of the patriarchy. They are not defending themselves and Black womanhood, they are defending the parody of freedom that the patriarchy has convinced them is true womanhood. The existence of Black TERFS doesn’t mean that Black womanhood is safe. It’s not. There isn’t a way for me to use “afab status” (never claimed this!) as a Black trans person to evade persecution in any general way. I have been taught by Black transfems in my earlier life that I can absolutely leverage this and wield myself as an agent of the patriarchy using my afab status to draw attention to me, and away from those who did not have that ability to wield it in such a way. That’s interpersonal and specific. You cannot flatten this. This is why it’s wrong to say that calling me “girl” as a white trans person is acceptable because its just “gay slang” - it's not. Its misappropriate rate AAE. I will accept a “girl” from my Black trans siblings and nobody else, because it's interpersonal and specific. I won’t flatten it.

I am a trans man. I am a man. I am a Black trans man. I am a Black man. I am not a woman. I am a Black woman. I am far from the only person who perceives the world and conceives of my own gender this way. There are thousands and thousands of Black fems who have had our experiences so deeply shaped by white supremacist cishetero patriarchy that Black womanhood is baked into us, and we don’t want to give it up - and we don’t have to. Not for you, not for anyone.

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