One Step Forward, Two Back

I refuse to go

Quietly

To the slaughterhouse

Like meek cattle.

Accepting

Your murderous demands

Upon my community

In days gone past

Under the Nazi

And Stalin.

Too often

In even "advance" countries

Like the United States

Or Canada.

Our lives are

At risk.

In becoming

Latest kind of strange fruit

To hang

From a tree branch.

As our stories are

Shared among us

Of narrow escapes

From certain harm

And death.

Where

Senior citizens are

So scared

They're hiding themselves

Deep within

The closet

Again.

Fear

Of being mistreated

By the "straight" staff

At the nursing homes.

Never mind

The stigmatizing experiences

We endure

With the medical community

And their open transphobia.

Oh yeah

Baby

We have come far

Not!

Author's Note

Refuse, to buy into the party line, we have come, a long distance, in a short period of time, as more and more repulsive laws, are being passed, by repressive regime, around the world. Not to mention, the bitter fight that's ongoing, in the United States, over same sex marriages. In some states, after SRS, a person gender on their birth documents doesn't change, rather remains the same, until death.