My Gender Is Not My Identity

I hate the phrase

“Gender Identity”

I always feel pressured

To tell everyone

My gender identity, and my

Pronouns and

How they can help me

Be trans, or something

But to be

Perfectly honest with all of you

My gender

Is not

My identity

My gender–

Is an identifier.

Nothing more,

Nothing less.

It isn’t how I

Feel inside, it’s

Who I am.

When you refer to me as

The wrong gender, it doesn’t

Offend me, it’s just

Wrong!

Last time I checked

When someone says something incorrect

You correct them–

Why is it so upsetting

For people to have to correct themselves

About something they think

Is my “identity”?

It isn’t my identity!

It’s my name, it’s my pronouns

It’s the message I send with my body and my clothing

Identifiers are not

The meaning of life, and the

Whole story from start to finish–

They are just a means of

Distinguishing Jack from Jim,

Tom from Tammy, and

Susan from Sontag or

Whatever you fucking need to say

In order to see me

For who I really am.

I am not trans, I am not

Obsessed with gender, I am

A human being who

Refuses to pick sides, and for some reason

That makes me a

Revolutionary.