My brother works with a man named
Cliff. Cliff is going through a gender transformation, so soon he will be known
as Carolyn.
Every year, the department my
brother works in has a talent show, or a day when the workers who are musicians
break out their instruments and play some music. It’s a chance to let their
hair down and celebrate rather than work.
Cliff took the opportunity to read
a couple of his poems. The first poem was entitled, “On Transformation." It
was a detailed account of how a man turns into a woman- the process of
transformation, the creams, the pills, the makeup, the surgeries.
The other poem Cliff read was
called "On The Womanhood Express." It was another intimate description of his
gender transformation, but this time written from the psyche of a woman as
opposed to a man. I’m thinking it gave liberation a new meaning.
Nobody
could say anything disparaging while Cliff was reading for fear of losing their
jobs. So instead, my brother and his friend turned towards each other and
opened their mouths as wide as they could and brought their open hand to their
cheeks and opened their eyes wide in a show of playful fright, an expression of
the feelings they had inside. My brother was angry at Cliff for not giving him more time to get to know Carolyn.
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