Lee Mokobe: A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender

264,060 views ・ 2015-06-12

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
The first time I uttered a prayer was in a glass-stained cathedral.
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I was kneeling long after the congregation was on its feet,
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dip both hands into holy water,
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trace the trinity across my chest,
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my tiny body drooping like a question mark
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all over the wooden pew.
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I asked Jesus to fix me,
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and when he did not answer
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I befriended silence in the hopes that my sin would burn
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and salve my mouth
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would dissolve like sugar on tongue,
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but shame lingered as an aftertaste.
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And in an attempt to reintroduce me to sanctity,
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my mother told me of the miracle I was,
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said I could grow up to be anything I want.
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I decided to
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be a boy.
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It was cute.
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I had snapback, toothless grin,
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used skinned knees as street cred,
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played hide and seek with what was left of my goal.
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I was it.
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The winner to a game the other kids couldn't play,
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I was the mystery of an anatomy,
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a question asked but not answered,
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tightroping between awkward boy and apologetic girl,
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and when I turned 12, the boy phase wasn't deemed cute anymore.
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It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts,
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who reminded me that my kind of attitude would never bring a husband home,
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that I exist for heterosexual marriage and child-bearing.
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And I swallowed their insults along with their slurs.
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Naturally, I did not come out of the closet.
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The kids at my school opened it without my permission.
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Called me by a name I did not recognize,
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said "lesbian,"
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but I was more boy than girl, more Ken than Barbie.
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It had nothing to do with hating my body,
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I just love it enough to let it go,
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I treat it like a house,
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and when your house is falling apart,
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you do not evacuate,
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you make it comfortable enough to house all your insides,
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you make it pretty enough to invite guests over,
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you make the floorboards strong enough to stand on.
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My mother fears I have named myself after fading things.
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As she counts the echoes left behind by Mya Hall,
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Leelah Alcorn, Blake Brockington.
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She fears that I'll die without a whisper,
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that I'll turn into "what a shame" conversations at the bus stop.
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She claims I have turned myself into a mausoleum,
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that I am a walking casket,
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news headlines have turned my identity into a spectacle,
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Bruce Jenner on everyone's lips while the brutality of living in this body
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becomes an asterisk at the bottom of equality pages.
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No one ever thinks of us as human
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because we are more ghost than flesh,
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because people fear that my gender expression is a trick,
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that it exists to be perverse,
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that it ensnares them without their consent,
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that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands
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and once they have fed off my queer,
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they'll regurgitate all the parts they did not like.
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They'll put me back into the closet, hang me with all the other skeletons.
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I will be the best attraction.
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Can you see how easy it is to talk people into coffins,
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to misspell their names on gravestones.
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And people still wonder why there are boys rotting,
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they go away in high school hallways
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they are afraid of becoming another hashtag in a second
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afraid of classroom discussions becoming like judgment day
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and now oncoming traffic is embracing more transgender children than parents.
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I wonder how long it will be
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before the trans suicide notes start to feel redundant,
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before we realize that our bodies become lessons about sin
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way before we learn how to love them.
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Like God didn't save all this breath and mercy,
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like my blood is not the wine that washed over Jesus' feet.
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My prayers are now getting stuck in my throat.
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Maybe I am finally fixed,
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maybe I just don't care,
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maybe God finally listened to my prayers.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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