Overread at Table 2: After Reading "Tomboy" by Claudia Masin

After Reading "Tomboy" by Claudia Masin

What are these shackles that we have placed upon our children?
When my son was eight, he thought he was made of
wood.
His best friend was a stick named "Steve" and
he wanted to be like his best friend, to be a tree.
And no, we did not tell him that he was made of
wood, and we did not tell him that he was a tree.
Because he was a he and he was not a tree,
and this may seem silly, you see, in this pretend modern
world where our skin is static an dour tone shames us
into shades of classes floating a sliding scale among
Colonizer, Oppressor, and Victim;

but our sex, regardless of organs, our sex is seemingly
fluid like the ocean, our sex can change like the rising tide
the ins and outs of the waves against the malleable sands
of ever changing beaches, and I am left with the singular knowledge
and remembrance of Scout from that
black and white movie "To Kill a Mockingbird,"
were it to be released in
2019, Scout would be considered non-conforming transgender,

but back in that throwback ancient stone-age era of 1962,
she was nothing more than a girl who liked to climb trees.




MR
2019-0928