…let me thank you.
In the hell of your prejudice
I met demons
of my making, and of yours,
yet somehow I must own them all
do battle with your ignorance,
as well as my own.
The thousand props and crutches,
the illusions and outright lies
that keep the system going,
that kept me hobbling along
for forty years.
You gave me my courage,
forged it in those hellish flames,
fueled by all my lost years,
and begged me find my true self.
Now see what I have found:
constructed female,
imperfect woman,
but real enough
to know what I am,
to claim my daughter right.
This much, and no more –
the right to name myself.