Dear cisgender people

Dear cisgender people

variation and tribute to the spoken word text « Dear straight people » by Denice Frohman, Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion 2013, poet, educator, lyricist. Make sure you check Denice’s video, a must see!

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Dear people,
who remain in the gender
that was assigned to you at birth,
do you think we are Transgender people
and you are only people?
Good news!
You too have a name.
If you stay in the gender distributed to you at birth
you are Cisgender.
Or just « Cis ».

Dear Cis People
your genitals do really really not interest me.
Rather, tell me about your other sex and genders:
the social, psychological, chromosomal, hormonal …
It’s not the size that counts, but the number.

Dear Cis Shrink,
yes, I am sick –
of having to prove
that regarding my gender identity
I am not mentally ill.

Dear Cis People
please stop asking me if I had surgery.
Imagine someone you don’t know at all
ask you after five minutes the size of you dick or the cup of your bra.
Even the dentist while he’s treating my back molar tooth:
« This is exciting! You’re my first transsexual patient!
Did you have surgery? »

Dear Dentist
As much as I would love to give you an answer to this meaningful question regarding the treatment of my tooth decay, do you still haven’t figure out that no one can speak with two hands in their mouth?

Dear Cis People
God – the Catholic one – has no gender.
But if he had one he would be transgender.
Think of the Trinity: Three persons in one being?

Dear Cis People
asking me:
« Are you trans or gay? »
doesn’t make any sense. It’s like the question:
« Do you rather travel by train or to Barcelona? »

Dear Cisgender straight People,
are you afraid of being beaten up when you leave the house?
Are you afraid of being beaten up when you enter a public toilet?
Are you afraid of being beaten up in the swimming pool? At the bus stop? While you are ordering a cheeseburger?

Dear Cis People
sometimes you really make me sick.

Dear Transgender Kids
I know how it feels to have to « just briefly » prove the unprovable.
There are things that are just the way they are, and just the way they are they should be allowed to be, without explanation, like in math class:
How come that 1 + 1 = 2?

Dear Transgender Youth,
I know how it feels to feel lonely. And to be so afraid of never being loved so that I do not allow myself to love, let alone to be happy.

Dear Cis People
I also want to travel to Barcelona … by plane. But I do not feel like explaining at the check-in that yes, I am the Mister on the ticket, even though my passport says I’m a woman.

Dear Transgender activists with a secure residence status who, because of this airport and travel issue, invented the wonderful slogan:

« Oh la la, oh lé lé, les trans’ sont des sans papiers!
Without passing in passport transgender are like illegalised refugees!  »

Personally I am not threatened by deportation.
And so what do you think are illegalised people who are trans?
Illegalised illegalised ? Like square illegalised?

Dear Cis People
not all trans folk are hookers.
And many wouldn’t maybe do sex-work if it wasn’t so fucking difficult for non-cis people to find other work.

Dear Cis Allies,
Good to see you.

Dear Cis Hate criminals,
if I get mentally ill, just when I think of CeCe McDonald, and Brandon Teena, Dasha Shtern, Jaime Antonio López, Maura Ribeira, Natalia Sotero, Sonia Masi, Fernanda, Tiffany, Mylène, Nalan …

Dear Cis People,
take your time to understand you, but please understand
you don’t need to be ashamed to feel attracted to trans*people, as long as you still see us as human beings.

Dear trans*siblings,
we can be loved, and we can love, yes, we are allowed to love and to be loved.

Dear each and every one,
Let’s just pretend for one moment that women no longer have to be that way and men that way.
Let’s imagine that no one is compelled anymore to fulfill a contract that I personally do not remember having ever signed.
Let me believe that you understand we could all benefit from this.
Let us be able to prove all together that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = all of us
and with all of us together it should be possible to turn this world into a place that isn’t tolerating diversity but celebrating it
a world having this greatness
because it is about all of us
and about our lives.