Catalina de Erauso/Pre-Medicalization Requirements/If I Had A Time Machine
The more I think about it
The more I start to realize
That while yes, many trans men and
Trans masculine people bind their breasts
To hide them, but also they do this
For function. A friend of mine
Sent me a book about
Catalina de Erauso
This motherfucker–
Will make you wonder about a lot of things
Sometimes you’re like
“Men don’t have breasts”
And other times you’re like
“How tf am I gonna fit my titty
In a metal breast plate for fighting–
How am I going to avoid
Being stabbed in the tit
By some random asshat’s sword”
Binding. Again–
Catalina de Erauso
Did not have a GC2B Binder
Motherfucker strapped ’em down
However possible
Was it to pass?
Maybe, was it also
Strictly business, strictly survival, strictly
Functional? I’d say so!
Teleport yourself now
To 10, 15, 30 years ago–
You had to petition yourself
To become transgender.
You couldn’t just
Sign up for HRT with a cute blouse on
And paint on your nails– you had to fucking
Sacrifice and suffer and
Perform the narrative
So that people believed you were trans.
You had to be willing
To live in a way
That no other person would
In order to prove that your need to medically transition
Was valid enough.
Teleport to today–
Where you can have top surgery
Without even being on HRT!
This is like, the biggest kind of progress
Ya’ll don’t even see.
The transphobes be too busy complaining, and
I’m over here
Marveling at all of it–
Of course
I get to sit here
On my fat 2021 almost 2022 ass
And say things like
“Binders are bullshit–
Throw ’em in the trash”–
Of course I say these things
NOWADAYS
You can get top surgery
AND hormone therapy
Without performing any suffering, without
Compromising any of your body’s integrity–
You can just fucking exist
Like a fucking cis woman
Right up until you change your name
And do all the surgeries–
Why own a binder– why do
Any of the nonsense, if you
Don’t have to bother, and why
Especially, if it makes no difference
In the way you feel about your own body,
Your own truth, your own perspective.
I can’t help but wonder
If Catalina de Erauso
Would be fucking stoked—
Ammmpppeedddddd
That motherfucker
At the very least
Would be going through what
Noelle Stevenson is now, I mean-
Noelle, if you’re out there
Catalina de Erauso is a pretty fucking baller comparison,
You’re welcome, but also
Are any of us
Anything alike
When we’re all completely different, in different times
Different spaces, different cities and states–
Totally different circumstances.
If I had a time machine
I would go back
And meet Catalina de Erauso, and show that motherfucker
Pictures of my top surgeon’s gallery, well–
Wait, hold on
I don’t think I would
The motherfucker would be like
“take my sword” cuz straight up
If I were in those shoes that’s what I would do–
I would show him/her
My own, after I recover, hopefully
We don’t have to talk about
The how, but we will talk about
The will, and the way the future unfolds
For people who carry the burden
Of another soul’s misery