OUR SCENE | HEALTH & WELLNESS
Photo by Min Enterprises Photography
Taking It Back
RECLAIM Takes Possession of Queer and Trans Youth Oppression BY TERRANCE GRIEP As she trudges from the station to the bus, the slate-colored sky clears its throat, begins whispering to her in a cold, polka-dot voice. She rubs her nose, then catches herself: she promised she wasn’t going to cry. No problem, there’s nothing to cry about—the crushing, tear-inducing void is gone now, her home, her school, her crummy, part-time job, gone…and good riddance to all of it. She knows she’s a she, regardless of which public bathroom she’s been forced to use. Now that it’s almost over, the taunts are what stick with her the most, worse than the shoving and the falling and the landing and the kicks and the grown-up shoulder shrugs. Her mother tried to understand; her father did not. And what happened next made the taunting feel like a walk in the park. She knew what she had to do. As the bus doors hiss closed behind her, it’s the rain that she wipes from her cheeks, only the rain, because she made a promise, and she’s keeping it. Her life is hers; today she reclaims it. She takes her seat, and the bus begins its journey. If only there had been another way, she thinks, and sleeps…
22
LAVENDER JANUARY 13-26, 2022
Photo courtesy of RECLAIM
