‘Transgender Madness: For All the Children Beyond Repair’ by Karen Darantière

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Transgender Madness: For All the
Children Being Harmed Beyond Repair

inspired by When Harry Became Sally
by Ryan T. Anderson

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I. At age 5: the tomboy

I cared not for the Barbie dolls in pink;
I chased the balls, with boisterous boys I ran;
My teacher said to me, You know, I think…
Your soul is trapped, but change you can:
A simple her to his, a she to he!
A change of language makes your essence alter,
Henceforth to set your shackled true self free;
Have no fear, my child, you cannot falter!

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II. At age 10: en route to barrenness

I felt some stirrings, vague presentiments
Of waters troubled deep within my flesh.
Quickly I confided in my parents,
Who sought sage experts for perspectives fresh:
Just as we build some dams to ebb the flow,
So can we alter nature’s course in you,
They claimed: Pubescent signs we now must slow.
They nipped the blossom in its bud anew.

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III. At age 15: wreaking hormonal havoc

Thus day by day my childhood slipped away,
And further down the sterile path went I;
You’d blocked my puberty without dismay,
Now from hormonal treatment did not shy,
Testosterone injections dared inflict.
What future fate does this for me portend?
My heart’s despair could you then not predict,
Nor not foresee some truly tragic end?

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IV. At age 18: time for transformation

The time has come your gender to affirm,
Now for the doctor’s art to be deployed,
A surgeon’s knife your new self to confirm.
What use a worthless womb forever void,
Destined to bear no infant sweet and mild?
What use these barren breasts, no milk to hold,
Meant not to nurture life, nor nourish child?
Now let’s remove these organs; they’ve grown cold!

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V. At 30, a wounded child still

Do you remember me, the wounded child?
Now look into my eyes my soul to see…
The pain you caused to me, so meek, so mild,
While blindly trying hard to set me free.
This child I am, now harmed beyond repair;
A broken, barren being: this I am;
And yet I once had been a child so fair,
But you made me a sacrificial lamb.

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VI. At 35, a would-be mother

What false divinities do you adore?
Before whose alters do you sacrifice?
So many children’s lives forever more
Destroyed, betrayed due to your horrid vice!
I am the living barren dead. So hard
It is for me to live this fruitless life;
A mutilated, sterile body marred,
A wombless would-be mother, childless wife.

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VII. At 40, shuffling off this mortal coil

No longer wife, abandoned and alone,
Nor mother could I truly hope to be.
Why prolong the pain? Why forever moan?
My aching heart can bear no more: to flee…
This weary life is all I long to do.
So shall I shuffle off this mortal coil?
… This suffering soul self-slaughter didn’t eschew,
Before the deadly deed did not recoil;
A disembodied soul from this earth flew…

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VIII. A Prayer

Oh Mother Mary, hear our fervent prayer:
These children cry for help to heaven high;
Sweet Virgin, cloak them in your mantle fair,
And be their true hope, heaven’s sweet ally;
In your maternal love envelope them,
And show them your compassion, deep and true;
As nigh the cradle once in Bethlehem,
Watch them from golden dawn to midnight blue.

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Karen Darantière is an American living in France who teaches English language and literature at a French high school in Paris.