PHALLUS I CUT

- KALKI SUBRAMANIYAM
No transcendental yoga
I performed
To transform myself into a woman.
I cut my phallus, Soiled in blood and transcending death,
I became a woman.
O you do not have ovary woman you are not said you.
Well, Lo behold, as you have severed your manhood.
You are now a desolate tree with decayed barks.
The earth that bears you
shall live one day
as though you have not planted thy branches below, said you.
Well, I donot want that ovary to carry your excretions
of caste and religious fanaticism
the gestation of those seeds to grow into a tyrannous tree.
Many a woman as she carried
the seeds of your discriminations
made her ovary your lavatory
luckily, I am not a woman by birth
And that you refuse to accept me as one
is in fact my real emancipation.
I donot recity the gyno-grammar you have crafted.
Call me an error of nature
Call me what you will
I know it myself for sure
Who I at any given hour
Renouncing religion casting away caste
United as rejected can you
Like this life we live?
Renouncing religion
Casting away caste
Can you become a mother
without carrying a womb?
Can you become a daughter
Without sucking at mother’s breasts?
I can
cut the phallus of your chauvinism
and then you will know who you are
and then and only then you tell me that
I am not a woman.
 SUMMARY

Kalki Subramaniyam is a social activist for transgender. She has received awards and
accolades from US Government and she is a famous painter. Her paintings voice the legal rights
of transgender. She has a NGO named ‘Sagodhari foundation’ for the upliftment of transgender.
Phallus I Cut is a poem in which kalki has conveyed the physical, social, emotional pain of
transforming oneself from one gender to other gender. Her desire to transform her gender entailed
unbearable pain and torment and she transcended death to become a woman. She also comments
about the verbal throws people around and the psyche of the society for her will to renounce
manhood. Kalki painfully conveys that the world looks her as a desolate tree with decayed barks
and though woman yet without a ovary.

In response to the reactions from the society regarding transgendering, kalki vehemently
attacks by saying that she did not wish to have an ovary that carries the excretions of caste and
religious fanatics. She dint wish to have a gestation of such seeds to turn into an unfair, cruel tree.
Those bitter seeds of caste and religion can only give rise to trees bearing bitter fruits of
predilections due to caste and religion. Woman who carried the seeds of such discrimination is
equated to woman by birth whose ovary was considered to be the lavatory. Kalki feels happy that
she is not a woman by birth, hence not accepted by the society as woman. The non-acceptance is
considered to be the real emancipation on the harsh world.

Since kalki did not recite the same old gyno – grammar of the other- crafted by the physical
world, she says she knows who she is in any given hour despite being called the error of nature.
She interrogates the world that can anyone love the life led by the transgender renouncing religion
and denouncing caste discrimination. She also challenges the world that none can be born a woman
without a womb and none can become a daughter without sucking at mother’s breasts but
transgender can turn a woman without the two. She concludes her poem by telling that if only the
phallus of chauvinism is cut, realization of one’s self and the realization that she is not a woman
can creep in.

This poem expounds the inner feeling of the worst wound developed due to discrimination
on the basis of caste and religion and preferably for transforming oneself into a different gender.
Transgendering is one’s desire and it’s not a matter of discrimination.

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