Trans

Queer Youth Are Five Times More Likely to Die by Suicide

A poem by Andrea Gibson

"Queer Youth Are Five Times More Likely to Die by Suicide

...

Means: 

You lived five times harder than you should have had to 

To still have a body when you graduated high school. 

…

Means: 

When your mother asked what was wrong, 

You were five times more likely to believe you’d lose 

Her if you spoke the truth. 

Means: 

You were told five times more often 

You’d go to hell when you died. 

…

Means: 

You were five times more inclined 

To triple-padlock your diary. 

Means:

You were five times more likely

To stop writing your story down."

Write a poem or essay that raises awareness for a cause you support: Trans rights. 

Trapped.

Suffocating

Living

Breathing

Dying. 

A pebble in the shoe. 

I don't know what to do.

Hiding behind a mask. 

My hands are tied behind my back. 

Dysphoria. 

Discomfort in the body. 

Disassociation during sex. 

If you don’t know, now you know. 

You can’t unsee what you just saw. 

Liberation. 

Truth. 

Beauty. 

Re-birth. 

Empathy might be impossible. 

The say, If you’re not trans, you just can’t know what it’s like. 

Or, can you? 

Has anyone made assumptions about your identity without asking you? 

Has anyone put you into a box? 

Has someone ever mistaken you for a different ethnicity? 

Has someone ever made assumptions about you based on what they could see?

Do you have an invisible disability?

Do you have an invisible truth? 

Coming out 

Caterpillar to butterfly

Baby to adolescent to adult. 

Teenager to grown up. 

Expansion. 

New me. 

Old me. 

Trauma. 

You lose friends.

You lose family. 

You lose community.

You lose social support. 

You experience rejection. 

You feel confused. 

You feel out of your body. 

You’re scared. 

You’re at risk. 

You’re a target. 

Every pronoun.

Every name. 

Every event. 

Every interaction. 

Is laced with fear and rejection. 

Trauma.

Sometimes it feels like de-transition is the only option. 

To just turn back the clock. 

To pretend that it never happened. 

To go back to the way things were. 

Nostalgia at its most toxic. 

Memory at its most warped. 

Wishing, hoping, wanting, desiring. 

Feeling like everything is just too hard. 

The only other option is suicide. 

To end it all in one stroke. 

Why not?

Life is meaningless anyway. 

Life is pointless anyway. 

Nothing means anything. 

There is no point. 

This moment? It means nothing. 

You’re going to die anyway. 

Why does it matter if it’s now or later? 

You are being invited to participate. 

It’s your choice to say yes or no. 

You are consenting to it. 

Trans kids. Trans people. 

Maybe we’re all crazy. 

Maybe we’re all brainwashed. 

Maybe we’re all just trying to get attention. 

Maybe we’re all just trying to be cool. 

Who cares what the reason is? 

Why does it matter? 

Maybe we are all just trying to be cool. Then, let us try to be cool. Accept and love us for that. We’re not hurting anyone. 

Nobody is asking you to understand. 

We are just asking to exist. 

Please don’t murder us. 

Just allow us to live.