There’s No Trace of the Word “Transgender” in Adrienne Rich’s Biography
The term transsexual does not
appear—anywhere at all.
& this is how a history is written
out of itself. Blood bleached
from a cloth till no mark remains
but the chemical burn. Antonym
of a shadow. Lying is done
with words, & also with silence.
The book does not concern itself
with blood. Is best known for new
revelations about her sexual past.
It’s so easy for us to forget, history
& biography share no common root.
God knows, this is neither poem
nor myth nor biography, but
fact, with its gift for burning:
She helped to pen a book which
buried us; which named our gender
a Transsexual Empire—ever-expanding
border of “male” dominion. A metaphor
failing itself into a blade. They tried
to name us by a blade as well,
you know? Sappho by Surgery.
Scalpel-born dykes. They say
our bodies are violent by virtue
of breath. That to make our skin
livable is to render women down
to objects, to commit a kind of
theft. A misappropriation. They say
to claim our womanhood is nothing
less than an act of rape. Metaphor,
again, scraping its edges sharp.
Tasting blood. In the end the author
thanks her for her “Creative criticism,
& constant encouragement.” Her words
were purposeful. The words are maps.
I won’t forget the damage that was done.
The meds denied, surgery withheld,
the girls who suffered. But she’s dead
& unapologetic. Her violence buried
along with her. Our wounds rubbed
nameless as the stone of a grave.
& here I am—in the meaningless
wake of it—the thing she denied:
The girl & not the story of the girl
the thing herself & not the myth.
Source: Poetry (November 2022)