I have walked through fire,
Lived a life forged in truth,
yet they call it a lie,
a phase, a mistake,
as if I have not already bled
to stand in my own skin.
They write laws like locks,
turn my name into a whisper,
my body into debate.
They reach for my existence
as if it is theirs to erase.
But I am here.
So hear me … clearly:
I am not new.
I have walked among the doubters
The politician types who don’t even know how to properly gender me.
I am history … but breathing,
not a trend, not a threat,
not a thing to be unwritten.
And yet, fear still lingers in me
like a cold hand at my throat—
the bathroom, the doctor’s office, the ballot box, the headlines.
A storm of voices screaming,
“You do not belong, Cami!”
But I rise.
Like oceans reclaiming the shore,
like roots breaking through stone, I rise.
You cannot E.O. me into silence.
You cannot pray me into being a ghost.
I will not vanish.
I will not bend into the shape of your fear.
I am here—
whole,
true,
unshaken, but slightly stirred!
Cami Richardson, a transgender woman
Kamas