When It Rains

graphic by claire evans

Carter Kirby (he/they/theirs) is an 18-year-old up-in-coming poet from Cabot, Arkansas. He currently studies Theatre Arts at Arkansas State University Beebe, and writes of his experiences with queerdom in the conservative South whilst performing in stage productions, leading community organizations and bullying state politicians on Twitter (@punkishgrandpa) and Instagram (@yawpcore). His earlier works can be found in virtual publications like Drunk Monkeys and You Might Need To Hear This.

Here are some articles about the climate for trans people in Arkansas recently (for further reading/context, not necessary to read the piece):

NYT – In Arkansas, Trans Teens Await Uncertain Future

AR Times – Bathroom & Book Bans

40/29 – Drag Ban

Content Notice: Transphobia, Suicide, Violence.

One of the interesting things about living in Arkansas is that the weather never really comes halfway. When it’s hot, it’s scorching. When it’s cold, it’s blizzardous. 

When it rains, it pours.

Innocently, in middle school, I decided I wanted to be a teacher. This decision wasn’t ever divorced from my identity as a trans person (nothing is, nothing ever will be, I am a star and transness is my glow). I thought that I could be for trans kids that which I never had: living proof that we’re gonna make it. I even planned to stay here. I had one queer teacher in my life and he said, once, that kids need us here more than anywhere.

I will walk out of Arkansas leaving a trail red with the blood of dead trans kids. 

I think about them every time I fantasize about a cottage in New England. The reality is, there’s not much I can do. By the time I graduate college, it’ll be illegal for me to work at a public school in Arkansas, probably. My old high school already pulled a bunch of queer books from their shelves. Every day a bathroom ban in a different small town. Every few weeks its type “DEFEND” or “TRANSMAGIC” to 501-400-8060 to receive call to action alerts! Every hour I return to the hypothetical trans kid in Bryant who will never meet a grown up that looks like them. When I make it out alive, to Vermont, or Massachusetts, I will still be tethered to the Natural State by their noose.

The hardest part is loving Arkansas. It’s such a forgotten place. I love every mural in Little Rock. I love every expanse of wheat and cows. I love every little queer kid from my high school who pulled me aside and hugged me before I graduated. I wouldn’t ever leave my room if it weren’t for the false familiarity felt when I see a single other trans person at the mall and share a smile, hearts connecting briefly as we pass each other, souls entangled by a one long tough rope. All of it flooded by one big wave, one major campaign to turn us into punching bags. Five years of immeasurable turmoil heaped upon us all at once. I am no longer grieving trans joy, I am grieving trans life.

 When it rains, it pours.

I remember being lauded for false bravery in high school, when I created a version of myself and of my identity more marketable to the public. It was effective. It was Cainian. The title of one of the good ones hung over my head like a cloud. At whose expense was I making a difference? It doesn’t matter now. There’s no such thing as an acceptable transexual anymore. Big Brother says no more gender exploration, welcome to 1950, please equip your petticoat. I am Destroyer of Innocence Supreme. The Ultimate Confuser. The Monster Under Your Bed.

I’m trying very hard to live normally. We all are. We are all going to school, writing our silly little essays, earning our silly little degrees, all as thick drops of rain punch the windows and Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s new education plans thunder overhead. Is this what it’s like to live in history? I feel in my chest the turn of the tide but I’m sitting in the Abington Library and drinking iced coffee, tossed around by winds, picked up by tornados, just existing. Every second without a sign in my hand feels like an exercise in cognitive dissonance until I remember that here, now, existing as I am is a protest of its own.

I’m always wondering where the poems about trans joy are until I remember that the burden of proof is on me. Yet, every time I sit down with a piece of paper I unlock trans rage like a forest fire ignited by the lightning of some strange storm. I want to let it burn everything down. I want to destroy everything in order to save it. I want to start over. I want to create. I want, I want, I want that hypothetical trans kid that I’m walking out on to feel the same burning beneath their feet that I feel.