Trans poetry

Last updated

Trans poetry is a type of transgender literature which explores the individuality, gender identity, and accounts of life experiences by transgender poets. Some aspects of trans poetry fall under the umbrella of protest literature and speak to the hegemonic worldview, presenting the agenda of injustice subjected by the oppressed. Other examples of trans poetry analyze the adversities endured by binary trans-women and men.[ citation needed ] The categories listed explore the contributions of notable trans-poets such as Lee Mokobe, author of "What it Feels Like to be a Transgender", Ely Shipley, author of "Boy with Flowers" and Shilok Mukkati, author of "Kinnaras of the Dark World".

Contents

History

One of the earliest instances of transgender poetry is a piece from the French poet Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, "Prayer for Transformation". "Prayer for Transformation" is a selection from the poem "Even Bohan", with various editions of this poem emerging as early as the 15th century. [1] Kalonymus articulates their experiences and hardships of achieving societal approval for wanting to transition into a woman through their literary works. Historians believe this to be the earliest recorded poem that deals with gender dysphoria. [2] Compared to works of Kalonymus, a collection of modernized historical literary works of transgender poetry can be found in an anthology compiled by Rupert Raj, an awarded trans activist and transgender man. This anthology covers poetic pieces from 1967-1991 spanning over 160 transgender poets that’s split and categorized into three books. [3]

Notable events

Notable trans poets

Lee Mokobe is a published poet, Human Rights Activist, TEDx speaker, and founder of Vocal Revolutionaries from Cape Town, South Africa. Mokobe’s work traverses across LGBTQ+ issues, gender discrimination, and African History. His most notable poem is What It’s Like Being Transgender in which he expresses his difficulty as a trans individual.[ citation needed ]

Ely Shipley is an author, poet, and professor from Washington, USA. Shipley’s works include “Boy with Flowers” which discusses childhood hardships and “Some Animal”. He has been nominated and won various awards for his literary works.[ citation needed ]

Shilok Mukkati is an intersectional feminist who has a background in dance, theater, public speaking, and poetry. Mukkati's work aims to convey meaningful messages with the LGBTQ+ community that intersect with her own experiences and feelings. Her work ranges from queer literature [6] and art to activism in India. Kinnaras of the Dark World is one of Mukkati’s most notable queer works in the form of short films.

Characteristics

Trans poetry sharpens the lines that are blurred between the ambiguities of gender identity by using poetic diction to break up the unchanging lingual habits, which allows its readers to resist heteronormative conventions. [7] Trans poetry allows the writer to reflect on one’s identity through a psychological and physiological points of view. Poetry’s ability to stretch the boundaries of language and thought has been a recurring theme since the mid-19th century by renowned poets such as Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

Ely Shipley follows suit with this tradition through his illustrative desires that are demonstrated through his works to authenticate the concept of gender identity and reassignment into societal norms. This is particularly evident in Shipley’s poem "Boy with Flowers", where his syntax intentionally articulates the textualization of gender. [8]

This genre of literary work encourages both cisgender and transgender readers to surpass the narratives supporting ideologies that suggest “normative” perspectives about gender that are degrading and exclusive. Lee Mokobe's "What it Feels like to be Transgender" highlights the inertial threat of Western religion against trans-identity, a commonly reoccurring theme among the queer community. Such narratives can serve as an affirmation to many of those conflicted in the same manner.

Typical themes

Through trans poetry, individuals illustrate their experiences of maltreatment through personal occurrences and contradictions of common societal beliefs.[ citation needed ] This genre of poetry often aims to target obstacles regarding trans-identity through the roles of religion, society, and politics.[ citation needed ] About Lee Mokobe's poem, the reader is directed to the subject of religion, feelings of negligence through God, and childhood experiences living with forced heteronormative beliefs. This genre of poetry explores sensitive topics of hypothetical invisibility, difficulties maintaining mental wellness, displayed as entertainment for others, and the death of other transgender individuals.

Experiences of gender dysphoria and struggles of accepting their identities are also shared through trans poetry. In divergence from the negative elements of trans poetry, this genre also illustrates instances of acceptance and reflection of one’s self-identity. [9] The objective of these literary works is to offer support and comfort, both for the author and the reader. The achievement of including these elements in their poems captivates the reader through shared experiences, establishing relatability, inclusivity, and protection for all readers.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder (GID) in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.

The word cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.

Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary and that sexual and marital relations are most fitting between people of opposite sex.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transgender topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transfeminism</span> Branch of feminism

Transfeminism, or trans feminism, is a branch of feminism focused on transgender women and informed by transgender studies. Transfeminism focuses on the effects of transmisogyny and patriarchy on trans women. It is related to the broader field of queer theory. The term was popularized by Emi Koyama in The Transfeminist Manifesto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBTQ themes in horror fiction</span>

LGBTQ themes in horror fiction refers to sexuality in horror fiction that can often focus on LGBTQ+ characters and themes within various forms of media. It may deal with characters who are coded as or who are openly LGBTQ+, or it may deal with themes or plots that are specific to gender and sexual minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender sexuality</span> Sexuality of transgender people

Sexuality in transgender individuals encompasses all the issues of sexuality of other groups, including establishing a sexual identity, learning to deal with one's sexual needs, and finding a partner, but may be complicated by issues of gender dysphoria, side effects of surgery, physiological and emotional effects of hormone replacement therapy, psychological aspects of expressing sexuality after medical transition, or social aspects of expressing their gender.

Kalonymus ben Kalonymus ben Meir, also romanized as Qalonymos ben Qalonymos or Calonym ben Calonym, also known as Maestro Calo was a Jewish philosopher and translator and hakham of Provence.

Trish Salah is an Arab Canadian poet, activist, and academic. She is the author of the poetry collections, Wanting in Arabic, published in 2002 by TSAR Publications and Lyric Sexology Vol. 1, published by Roof Books in 2014. An expanded Canadian edition of Lyric Sexology, Vol. 1 was published by Metonymy Press in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transsexual</span> People experiencing a gender identity inconsistent with their assigned sex

A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.

Queer pornography depicts performers with various gender identities and sexual orientations interacting and exploring genres of desire and pleasure in unique ways. These conveyed interactions distinctively seek to challenge the conventional modes of portraying and experiencing sexually explicit content. Scholar Ingrid Ryberg additionally includes two main objectives of queer pornography in her definition as "interrogating and troubling gender and sexual categories and aiming at sexual arousal."

Nazariya: A QueerFeminist Resource Group is a non-profit queer feminist resource group based out of Delhi NCR, India. The group was formed in October 2014, and has since established a South Asian presence. The organization undertakes workshops/seminars, helpline- and case-based counselling, and advocacy to affirm the rights of persons identifying as lesbian and bisexual women, and transgender persons assigned female at birth. Nazariya QFRG also works to inform queer discourse in institutions, and build linkages between queer issues, violence and livelihoods. They focus on the intersectionality between queer, women’s and progressive left movements in India.

Joy Ladin is an American poet and the former David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University. She was the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of LGBTQ topics</span>

The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:

In feminist theory, heteropatriarchy or cisheteropatriarchy, is a socio-political system where (primarily) cisgender and heterosexual males have authority over other cisgender males, females, and people with other sexual orientations and gender identities. It is a term that emphasizes that discrimination against women and LGBT people is derived from the same sexist social principle.

Gwen Benaway is a Canadian poet and activist. As of October 2019, she was a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

Queer erasure refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove LGBT groups or people from record, or downplay their significance, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. This erasure can be found in a number of written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts.

Homonormativity is the adoption of heteronormative ideals and constructs onto LGBT culture and identity. It is predicated on the assumption that the norms and values of heterosexuality should be replicated and performed among homosexual people. Those who assert this theory claim homonormativity selectively privileges cisgender homosexuality as worthy of social acceptance.

Eli Clare is an American writer, activist, educator, and speaker. His work focuses on queer, transgender, and disability issues. Clare was one of the first scholars to popularize the bodymind concept.

Cisnormativity or cissexual assumption is the assumption that everyone is, or ought to be, cisgender. The term can further refer to a wider range of presumptions about gender assignment, such as the presumption of a gender binary, or expectations of conformity to gender roles even when transgender identities are otherwise acknowledged. Cisnormativity is a form of cisgenderism, an ideology which promotes various normative ideas about gender, to the invalidation of individuals' own gender identities, analogous to heterosexism or ableism.

References

  1. ↑ Dunkelgrün, Theodor (2013). "Dating the Even Bohan of Qalonymos ben Qalonymos of Arles: A Microhistory of Scholarship". European Journal of Jewish Studies. 7: 48. doi:10.1163/1872471X-12341245.
  2. ↑ "GirlSpeak: Trans across Time". girlmuseum.org. Girl Museum. 27 June 2023.
  3. ↑ Raj, Rupert (July 1, 2018). Of Souls & Roles, Of Sex & Gender (PDF). pp. 3, 397–417. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
  4. ↑ Segal, Corinne (27 July 2015). "Poet creates first class for transgender poetry". pbs.org. Public Broadcasting Service.
  5. ↑ Agarwal, Upasana (22 July 2018). "Community, tradition and struggle: Inside India's first government-funded transgender poetry meet". scroll.in. Scroll.
  6. ↑ "molestation – 101ComingOutStories". 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
  7. ↑ Merrydew, Aimee (2020-01-02). "Reflecting (On) the Body: Trans Self-Representation and Resistance in the Poetry of Ely Shipley". Comparative American Studies. 17 (1): 58–72. doi:10.1080/14775700.2020.1720410. ISSN   1477-5700. S2CID   213167555.
  8. ↑ Merrydew, Aimee (2020-01-02). "Reflecting (On) the Body: Trans Self-Representation and Resistance in the Poetry of Ely Shipley". Comparative American Studies. 17 (1): 58–72. doi:10.1080/14775700.2020.1720410. ISSN   1477-5700. S2CID   213167555.
  9. ↑ Catania, Amy. "Solano Community College Library: Visual, Performing, and Literary/Language Arts: The Arts". libguides.solano.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.