I wasn’t sure about posting this. I was afraid of being too dramatic, or of making people uncomfortable. Upon reflection, I decided that even though Pride is mostly safe for me as a white, cisgender person, the same is not true for my trans siblings, especially my trans siblings of color. It breaks my heart to know that statistics say we’ll wake up on Sunday morning to read the news of another trans woman of color being attacked or killed.

That isn’t dramatic, it isn’t an understatement, and it should make us all uncomfortable.

Pride
Written by Helen Rose
6-20-19

If I am killed
At Pride in the Bible Belt:

Do not let my mother
Appear on TV screens
To say how much she loved me –

She never did.
She never knew how.

Do not put me in the ground –
Do not send me on my way
With anything
That could serve another.

Give my big gay heart
To a Bible thumper

Let my organs save the life
Of someone
Who would only call me
Other.

Tell my son
He looks beautiful
In his favorite dress –

And I feel most beautiful
When he calls me “mommy”
And throws his arms
Around my neck.

Tell the church of the open arms
It is the only home
I have ever known –
The only place
I have ever fully breathed.

Tell the one I love
That I am still proud
And it was an honor
To be a part of their world.

And tell the man –
The white, straight, “Christian” man,
Who killed me
That my Godde
Is his God too –

And Godde loves fags
And sinners
And him –

Always.