My Name is They
what’s gender anyway?
When we talk
We all speak in gender
Fluent from the tongue
Are the soft pinks of She’s
And the militant blues of His
Pronouns never had a choice
My voice is a sir
Bigger than my courage will ever give me credit for
But I can’t afford to shut up
I can’t afford to ignore this binary society
I can’t afford to
Un-see your evil
Un-hear your evil
I don’t un-speak my truth to keep secret your evil
My voice is a sir
This means that
I salute my vagina
While compression binding my breasts
And at best
My second-hand jeans might just cover up my childbearing hips
This is the gender identity I live in
And I, too, never had a choice
My voice is a sir
In that old fashioned
Men still have manners
Kind of way
In that hold doors open and send flowers
Kind of way
In that make breakfast for your lady the next day
Kind of way
In that cuddle all night on top of the covers
because that’s what real lovers do
Kind of way
Yeah, my voice is a sir
I am the best of both
And the worst of neither
I am pink oil changing arms
With blue laundry folding hands
I am somewhere in between society’s need to call me a color
Paint my gender by your numbers
But start by calling me ‘they’
And if you don’t know where that is
I’ll give you a hint
It’s a mix of grey
And I don’t care what society has to say
My voice is a sir
And it packs
A larger than average sized hard on
For gender variant acceptance
Boi does not mean dyke
Just like
Sir does not mean dick
We pick these words up from our lifetime of training
And it takes a strong person to admit when they’re wrong
When we talk
We all speak in gender
And fluent from the tongue
Is a lifetime of wrong
Is a lifetime of needing to check the easier box
Is a lifetime of having nowhere to belong
And never having a choice
So, I’ll call my voice a sir
Until we forget what that word means
Until we stop wrapping our babies in pink and blue apologies
Until we stop believing in needing to technicolor each other one or the other
Until our gender tongues finally become bilingual
Call my voice a sir
And call my gender by its real name
‘they’
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