contemplating
calling out
misgendering

of myself
of my fellow enbies

it can be easier
to correct
an obvious gendered flub–
a she for a he
and a he for a she–
the identity and clues and presentation
are often there;
it should be
obvious.

but with those of us
in-between/
outside-of/
on a whole other
gender-level

clothing/
body hair/
size/
shape/
color/
means little to nothing:
we are sans gender
(or all genders together)
and all we are asking
is that you see us as a person
first
before gender.

and it doesn’t matter how
queer-friendly
or queer
a person is…

i’ve seen binary trans folks
throw ‘she’s around
in place of ‘they’s
‘he’s
for ‘xe’s
and it hurts
like a knife
to the soul

and i know social conditioning
is a struggle to escape,
and i know language barriers
can make it impossibly hard,
but if, in a queer space,
as you set yourself up
as a queer teacher
and imply the safety
for all
but still buy into a binary
[even if it’s solely through language]
you are proving
yourself
wrong.

***the emotion of this poem
is over a year old,
the initial person who prompted
this poem
has done a great job
of reeling in their language
and looking at the person
first.
but i wanted to write
and re-write
for catharsis purposes,
and i wanted to post
not only for a call-in/call-out,
in case you are a person
who sees gender
first,
but also to say
that everyone makes mistakes
even queer folks in queer spaces
and it can always be forgiven,
but know that we always notice
even if we say nothing
we always
always
notice***