I first came across this poem during a summer course that I was taking while recovering

from top surgery. I used it in the context of a journaling assignment as we explored the

Transgender Archives at UVIC, and knew I would want to keep returning to it, as it struck me so

deeply and made me get lost in thought, hoping Patricia had found her way. The idea to use her

poem in this assignment had begun simmering early at the start of the course when initially

skimming the syllabus. As stress and work started to consume me again this term, and burnout

crept up, her line about sandpaper skin and moss would bounce around my head during my shifts

at a dull retail job. I craved those textures and celebrated them when I noticed those changes

within myself, x months on testosterone or y months post-op. And yet she yearned for everything

I moved to distance myself from. And so I returned to Patricia. I’ve yet to find anything about

her, with frantic Google searches of “Patricia M. W. poetry”.

(approximately half an hour, perhaps more has passed, I once again went down the rabbit

hole of trying to find her, this time by checking 3-4 years on either side of the 1993/94 issue I am

working from to see if she submitted anything else)

Although I’ve had no luck archivally, I remain ever ensnared by the textures and

timelessness of the descriptions and contradictions. I made the decision to colour code and use

visual textures in the form of playing with fonts. This has had a two-fold effect, both in allowing

me to interact more, and find a way to express what I feel about the poem without introducing

too many variables that would inevitably overwhelm me. Instead of having to think about the

space and textures and what would look best while still feeling Correct, I simply had to choose a

colour and/or highlight, and a font. From there, I was free to play with the space, albeit in a much

more limited way.

 The only line that seems to afford any insight into the chronology of the piece comes

right at the end, when Patricia writes, “There is a saying that every man was put on earth

condemned to die”. This is a reference to “Escape Clause”, an episode from The Twilight Zone

that aired in October 1959. The wording of it in the actual episode is as follows: “There's a

saying, ‘Every man is put on Earth condemned to die, time and method of execution unknown.’”

(Wikipedia, 2023). This slight difference has in my mind, the quality of something being

remembered through a great deal of time. In my imagined world, she saw this episode right as it

came out, maybe around age 18, as at that time approximately 90% of American households had

a TV (Library of Congress, n.d.). To reference a TV show, even by proxy, likely places her in a

middle-class White upbringing, as according to the US Census Bureau in 1960 88.6% of the

population was White - which closely correlates to the percentage of households with a

television. This would put her potential birth year as around 1941, with the poem being written

sometime in the 80’s-90’s.

This work does not fall into a clear category of being activist or feminist art, but rather art

that can be examined through a transfeminist lens. It is doubtful that this art was made as a direct

protest against a particular system, but is instead one person’s outpouring of rage and grief about

being entrenched in various harmful systems. As Emi Koyama writes in her Transfeminist

Manifesto, the “sum of our small rebellions combined will destabalize the normative gender

system as we know it” (Koyama, 2001, p. 6). Although this poem is not as explicitly feminist as

pieces such as Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue’s Killjoy’s Kastle, there is still great value in

analysing it. Koyama’s piece is especially relevant in untangling the body imagery that is

interwoven into the poem, both from the internal drive to feel at ease in the space of your own
body, as well as a second set of expectations from the outside, of wanting to be seen as who you

are by others. It is interesting to note that the perception of an outsider is key in Patricia’s poem,

with, “nobody touches my sandpaper skin with its moss growing to no end, who would want to”

(emphasis mine). This desire to be touched while simultaneously being perceived as undesirable

(or at least thinking you are) is spoken to in Koyama’s Transfeminist Manifesto, in which she

touches on body politics and why the desire for HRT and gender-affirming surgery remains

despite the risks and cost. It may remain unknown whether Patricia made it to a point where she

had to grapple (or not!) with the double-edged sword of transcare providing both overwhelming

relief and uncomfortable conformity to pass and no longer be visible.

The first stanza follows a pattern of contradictions that are highly reminiscent of the

contradictions that also exist around transnormativity and beauty standards. In this, the collective

and antagonist “they” are a force that preaches feminine normativity while simultaneously

denying that same femininity to anyone deemed outside of what typically falls within that

spectrum. Chris Pihlak’s 2022 paper How Transgressive a Transsexual, which discusses

transfeminine erotica, can be used to discuss the beauty standards that Patricia likely was

exposed to, as it can be presumed that someone sending their work to a transsexual publication is

likely also a subscriber to that, or potentially multiple, publications. Thinness, youth, and

cisnormativity were praised, as well as grooming in such a way that one is smooth and hairless.

The latter explains why “sandpaper skin” with “moss” (interpreted as being hair) is seen as the

catalyst for being undesirable - those traits were antithetical to the narrative that journals and

erotica put forth. In Pihlak’s research of 86 issues, she found only four photo essays that featured

non-normative bodies (Pihlak, 2022, p. 121). This speaks to how rigid the standards for erotica
were - after all, transfeminine erotica was already a divergence from the norm, so non-normative

erotica may have been too much.

Another of ‘their’ contradictions is especially relevant today: pushing others to ‘be

yourself’ and then rebuking anyone who does in a way that is not acceptable. This is mirrored, at

least in my mind, by the experience of trans youth today. Children are constantly being told to be

themselves, not conform to peer pressure and to express individuality in order to build their

personal identity. A quick Google search of “Individuality in Children” offers up countless

articles, some scholarly and some aimed at parents and educators, all stressing the importance of

allowing children to experience their individuality. One such article, from the Australian

Government Department of Education (n.d.), speaks to the connection between individuality, and

inclusion and exclusion, with children gaining benefits such as “regulating their emotional state”

(p. 3) and “having a positive view of themselves” (p. 4). And yet, when that individuality

manifests as a diversion from the gender assigned at birth, “jokes and threats and intimidations''

may arise. The timelessness of that line speaks to one of the consistent themes of the trans

experience, at least within the circles I occupy - being told to be yourself, and that individuality

being encouraged, but only so far as it conforms to societal norms and does not place any burden

on others to change their views or habits.

“Be yourself” can be a trap, one that encompasses both the trans and neurodivergent

experiences. Although there is very little to suggest themes of neurodivergence in this piece

(other than my own projections) that line, as well as the consistent emphasis on textures and

physical feelings resonates strongly with me. Sun on skin, softness and hardness, clouds, fresh
air, sandpaper, and moss are all mentioned, and all invoke a very specific sense. The trans

experience is so physical that it makes sense that these metaphors and descriptors fit so well. Sun

on skin evokes a longing, such as how one longs to be gendered correctly. This longing is later

shut down, when Patricia writes, “nobody sees through my bulletproof mask, no feelings are let

in, none go out”. This again can be linked to an idea of neurodivergence and masking, but also to

Hil Malatino’s work on numbness in Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad. In his work,

he talks at length about the disorientation and subsequent numbing of the self that comes from

existing as a trans person within a society so often hostile towards trans people. The chronology

of Patricia’s poem can then be broken down into two halves: disorientation and numbness. The

disorientation causes a spiral of emotion, with longing, envy, and self-hatred all having their say,

before the numbness can take effect again. Malatino’s argument that recession and numbness are

directly rooted in persistent disorientation (Malatino, 2022, p. 56) helps to inform the reasoning

behind why the piece was written in such an order, even if the author herself was not directly

aware of it.

Over the course of writing this I have somehow become more at peace with not knowing

who Patricia is now, or how she is. In my mind, she is still writing her poems, but now they are

love poems, or poems about joy and family and companionship, and her partner adores her and

her work. She is free to be herself, and the numbness has lifted and she can finally feel the sun

warming her skin. Her life is domestic bliss or wild adventure, whatever she most desires, or

whatever I most project onto her, but most importantly she is at peace and can roll in the blissful

happiness she wrote about so many years ago.

They tell me that the sun rises in the morning. But I do not believe them. For I have

never felt the sun’s warm rays resting gently on my bosom.

They say that softness comes from within, but when I’m softest my hardness pierces my

skin.

They tell me that a lady should be cuddled and held and made love to, but for me they say,

this is a sin.

They scream at the top of their lungs, be yourself, for to only you, can you be true. And then

they make jokes and threats and intimidations to the one true you.

To every cloud there is a silver lining, it has been said, but before my clouds end I will be dead.

All to wake a feminine creature, to roll in blissful happiness, to flash

a truthful smile, to walk a happy mile. To be whole and complete to

live the impossible dreamn, to breathe clean, fresh air, these I do

not dare.

Nobody touches my sandpaper skin with its moss growing to no end, who would want to.

No mirror reflects my grotesque shape, for I do not look.

Nobody sees through my bulletproof mask, no feelings are let in, none go out.

There is a saying that every man was put on earth condemned to die, I was put

on earth condemned to be a man.

There are worse things than death.

Patricia M. W.
References

American women: Resources from the Moving Image Collections. Research Guides at Library of

Congress. (n.d.).

https://guides.loc.gov/american-women-moving-image/television#:~:text=Library%20of

%20Congress%20Motion%20Picture,figure%20had%20reached%2090%20percent.

Australian Government Department of Education. (n.d.). Identity: A Child’s Place in the World.

Census Bureau. (2021, October 8). 1960 Census of the Population: Supplementary Reports:

Race of the Population of the United States, by States: 1960.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1961/dec/pc-s1-10.html#:~:text=The%20wh

ite%20population%20of%20the,and%2089.3%20percent%20in%201950.

Conformity Within Transfeminine Print Erotica. Graduate History Review 11, p. 107-145

Koyama, E. (2003). The Transfeminist Manifesto. In Dicker, R.; Piepmeier, A. (eds.). Catching a

Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century. Northwestern University Press. p.

244-259.

M. W., P. (1993-94). Poetry Corner. TV/TS Tapestry Journal. (66), p. 24. From Internet Archive.

Accessed October 15, 2023. https://archive.org/details/tvtstapestry6619unse/mode/1up

Malatino, H. (2022). Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad. University of Minnesota

Press.

Pihlak, C. (2022). How Transgressive a Transsexual: The Contradictions in Transgression and

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, October 22). Escape Clause. Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Clause