Celestial Bodies - Flipbook - Page 5
INTRODUCTION
“Inherent in this gatekeeping process is the notion that an
individual person does not possess the requisite knowledge to
self-designate their gender; rather, it assumes that social workers
are the experts who are able to discern, to know, the trans Other.”
The Trans Person is Not the Problem (Shelton et al., 2019, p, 103)
Monochromatic clinical rubrics and standardized medical forms do not have the ability
to capture (nor appropriately “treat”) trans issues that are woven together from
threads of many different colors and texture. So, if not a definitive, black-and-white
solution, what might physical transformation actually be from a trans point of view?
I’d like to posit that body modifications, surgical or otherwise, are not
something that we do to fix our transness, but rather to better express the
beautiful parts of ourselves that do not align with the boundaries of our bodies.
Our dysphoria is real, but it doesn’t make us broken,
it compels us to explore, to search for more,
and to co-create our identities.
II. Manifesto for My Fabricated Body
Make me two feet tall with fourteen arms, no legs,
and a prehensile tail. Make me large and soft and
rolling: a photovoltaic mucus that envelops all it
touches. Make me edible but make me poisonous.
Give me one of every face that has ever been
called ugly. Give me one of every skin that has
ever been called excessive. Give me a way of
moving that no space can admit or accommodate,
and then reshape the entire world to hold me.
Give me a sex that has never been seen before and
a soft outline exactly the size and shape of my
loves, and when they lay their entire selves
within it, that is how we are going to fuck, since
you keep asking, and everybody wants to know.
Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel
( Julian K. Jarboe, 2020, pp. 53-54)
