Up and down
Up and down
No, wait!
Step down from the seesaw
Pull out your phone
Take a pic of that seesaw
And share it on WhatsApp
But wait, before you send!
Do you see the 'edit' option?
Click the 'pen'
You get a range of colours
Arranged in a meshed, flowy manner
It's called a 'spectrum'
All your life you were taught
Gender was polar
North or south
Venus or Mars
XX or XY
Oh no, you knew, you say?
You knew about 'XXY'?
You saw the Hijras in train, you say?
You even gossiped how they were such a nuisance
Or, you gave them five rupees for the 'blessings?'
Did you pause to think about them?
As an actual living person
Did you attempt to strike a conversation with them
A 'normal' conversation
About your irritating spouse and your insufferable boss?
Impossible, isn't it?!
The Hijra in your train was a fringe co-traveller
To be noticed and then forgotten
Go back to your school
Did you ever wonder how many of your school mates
In the morning assembly
Did not fit into the 'girls' and 'boys' lines?
Were some of them suffocating their own truth?
Or did some not even make it to your school?
Separated from their families and 'normal' world
Forced to live in their own community?
When you raise your voice against rape
Did you know there are other genders routinely raped?
Did you know transgenders are often denied medical treatment
Their complaints not registered by police?
And did you know about people like Dr. Trinetra Haldar
Prof. Manabi Bandyopadhyay?
Judge Joyita Mondal
Sub-inspector K Prithika Yashini?
All of them broke the shackles
Of the polar scale
And stamped their existence on the world
You say you read about them
But did you pause to think of the plights
We caused them?
Despite knowing there are many boxes
We insist on living on as if there were only two?
Just 'knowing' won't help
Break down those apostrophes around your eyebrows
Shake off the linear seesaw worldview
Go reach out to a transgender
Strike a real conversation
Befriend them
That, my friend,
Will be a step towards liberation
Not for them
But for you!
- Chandni Girija
April 02, 2021
Day 02 of 30 | 30 Poems in 30 Days | National Poetry Writing Month #napowrimo #napowrimottt2021 #transpride
In honour of International Transgender Day of Visibility celebrated on March 31. Dedicated to all transgender people, living their lives openly and bravely and those, still closeted, in fear, biding their time.
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