Woman

I'm told the life
I've breathed through
makes me no different to
a woman with no womb and
a penis.
The screams and blood and endless vomit
as my body
retched itself into womanhood -
is just one version of events
nothing special, nothing categorisable -
indivisible from balls dropping and
broken voices.

I'm told the sex, of my sex
which splits me in two
puts my head down the loo for three months
holds me hostage for nine
drinks my very blood
possibly kills me
renders me a milk churn
latches to my breast for a year or more and
holds us bound, forever, to another -
makes no difference to what we are.

I'm told this body, which brings forth
All Life -
makes us no more woman
than Sheila, formally known as Bob.

I'm told this later change
this neutering of my soul, this dying
of my seed
in volcano flashes and pitted aches
so deep as to bury me alive
gives us no special right to the term woman -
no heritage.
It's no special loss.

I'm told I'm no more a woman
than Bob, now he's Sheila.
And with that -

after 5 minutes an established fact -
I'm told as a girl 
just as I realise being a woman
is not the easiest ride in the world
that I don't have to be a woman at all.
That ripping out and cutting off
potential
makes like it was never there;
makes me Bob -
before Bob, without adding anything,
became Sheila.

And I added nothing either.

And yet I've made the case for Sheila
who -

given hormones and a cocktail

of dangerous drugs
(or possibly even caveman Bob
whose woman died, yet again, in childbirth) -
can "breast" /slash/ "chest" feed
if drugs or life and death dictate,

just as well... just about
so "hah!" "gotcha!" "caught you out!"
Bob's a Sheila, this week,

of that there's no doubt.

Although the womb
which held the child throughout,
was not of Bob-Sheila.

And I'm told
none of that matters either -
biological arguments are
beside the point -
so what's lactating got to do with it?
My mind feels out of joint.
Reduce us to biology and

"you're completely insane!"
yet Bob is truly Sheila
due to quirks of his brain?

What are the rules of this game?

For Shame! - I'm told chromosomes
do not make sex
there are too many anomalies
sex is complex
some people are ambiguous...
is that contiguous
with those that aren't
changing sex?

Or with any of us being
any less blessed
with whatever nature made flesh?

Do you need a rest yet?

It can get more dull, queer
and convoluted
if you don't mind your language
being hung, drawn and polluted.

.....So I fall back into
This held space
My hand a cradle for your neck
Your mouth where you and I connect
This sacred place
Where I breathe your breath

We are two from one

I am woman.

Alexandra McCauley

1st April 2024

Published in Scotland in response to Police Scotland's Don't Feed Hate campaign and the launch of the Scottish Government's Hate Crime Act