"shapes my body cuts into the surface of the water" by Scout (twitter). To summarize Scout says, "I wrote some pulpy poems on swimming, summer, fruit, existing-while-trans, and beautiful moments that spring out from the despair and break through the isolation.". And indeed these are pulpy. This collection is hers and for her, but engages a common theme pulled up by many trans women, transfeminine, or nonbinarily-adjacent writers; the thought of swimming as yourself. America specifically has an obsession with the production and marketing of a swimsuit. There's a lot of modelling, fashion industry, travel industry, and marketing industry history that can be observed specifically in studying swimsuit design and marketing over the years. Especially after the (cishet) "sexual revolution" some decades ago, it became a popular western trend to use cis women's bodies to sexually sell the fantasy of the bikini, and the experience of a swimsuit. Of course, this was framed as a move of bodily autonomy, a woman's choice to wear what she wants, and that she wasn't being sexualized for an advertisement to make money for terrible men . . . she was Happy and Representing Normal Women who Just Want to Have Fun. [What the fuck is a "normal woman"? What the fuck is a "woman"? What the fuck is "normal"? I don't know, but the deep cultural coding these messages have tried to program us with are extremely things to be tossed out the window]
This created a very cissexist and alienating culture around swimwear that doesn't benefit anyone except the people who make money off of people's insecurities about their bodies. It's a collaboration between hundreds of industries from diet, to food, to athletics, to gyms, and so on. Of course, factoring in the way the world sees trans bodies you can easily intimate that most people assume once their transition passes a certain point physically . . . they'll never swim again. While poverty, race, and other barriers are also related systemic factors that prevent trans people of even considering going to the beach, the fact of the matter is there has been some really deep and amazing writing specifically from transfeminine perspectives about exactly this topic. It may seem minute or hyper-specific to you, but nearly every other trans person who has ever been intimately a part of my personal life has expressed fears about even hypothetically swimming. Summer can be a fear for trans people too, as more of our bodies have to be on display to the heat, and we can't hide under layers. Scout says "fuck that!" and then she went and wrote a beautiful chapbook just about (trying) to let her body exist with no consequences. (It should be permanently consequence-free for everyone)
Writing by trans women and those affected by transmisogyny is essential in recognizing and respecting what you're not seeing if you're someone who isn't intentionally affected. I don't experience transmisogyny, and unfortunately much of my experiences in "popular" nonbinary spaces is that when you point out to other people why trans feminine people aren't around, or that their mentalities are just as harmful as cis mentalities they really freak out even if you deliver such criticism more gently than you should. It's a real problem, and serially unaddressed. As Scout put it, "If I dont go to the anarchaqueerfeminist / meeting tonight, / there won't be a single trans woman there. / This poem tells you all you need to know." and she is absolutely right. In the face of this unique sort of experience, she has crafted something short and simple and honest and true to her own experiences. It isn't ashamed, or trying to pretend these dynamics and insecurities and deep hatred of transfemininity by everyone don't exist. Scout and I share very similar dreams from different directions. A world where all trans bodies are loved, fucked (if that's what one wants), respected, and free to just fucking swim ... and where trans women are no longer treated like shit in everything except their own words.
"There's a science fiction in the space between / You and me / A fabrication of a grand scheme / Where I am the scary monster / and so are you."
[CW // food, illness, light body horror, metaphorical genitals]