Teneile Warren

_ _ _ _____ ____ ___ ____ womb An archaeological site _ genocide. fallopian tubes, you might find ancestors raped into____ ____. Colonies erected I imagine each ovary ___ a slave revolt _____ Viability. Epidermis. Kidnapped Probability. Dermis. Bred Profitability. Hypodermis. Sold bodies___ they ___ produce. As pig As cow As broods to sow __ decide who ___ worth, was quality and who was quantity. bellies of the enslaved yoked.

TK Pritchard tells us about the importance of trans stories in fiction, by sharing their real life story of self discovery “Mama, do you have a uterus?” our toddler asks my partner as we read What Makes a Baby — a non-gendered and age appropriate story about how babies are made. My partner answers yes. Then she turns her attention to me and asks if I also have a uterus. Ten years ago, this question would have brought me to my knees.

Becoming a parent was the final key in fully accepting who I have always been — non-binary In 2020, three days into lockdown, I became a parent. It happened with all the expected exhaustion and excitement. There is another cliché that you don’t read about or hear about. It is the nightmares of your child dying through some awful failure of your parenting: tumbling down the stairs after I trip, giving in to the desire to sleep or a car accident as a result of that same sleep exhaustion.