thepoetmiranda Live: "Don't Remember Me for My Resilience" at Transgender Day of Remembrance

I had a conversation with my friend Brad a few weeks ago around the time I found out that I would be on the roster to perform at the Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil here in Denver. I told him that trans people have two holidays: Transgender Day of Remembrance (Nov. 20), when we mourn our dead and beg people to stop murdering us; and Transgender Day of Visibility (Mar. 31), when we beg people to see us as human.

Brad has been a good friend of mine for almost 20 years, and he’s a bold ally for the trans community and for other marginalized people. Still, I think I shocked him by how I laid out the two observances in such stark terms. The sociopolitical situation trans people face is that stark, though.

The GOP filed more than 1,000 bills targeting the rights of transgender Americans for the 2025 legislative sessions. The President has signed more than a dozen Executive Orders specifically targeting us. You can see the text of those bills and EOs on the Trans Legislation Tracker. They’ve kicked honorable service members out of the military just for being trans (and denied them their earned veteran benefits). They are threatening to invalidate our legal identification documents.

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The President, his administration, GOP politicians, and right wing think tanks (e.g., Heritage Foundation) incessantly bear false witness against us in the public square, and the legacy media takes their word at face value.

Rep. Mace (R-South Carolina) has made calling us slurs in the halls of government her entire personality. She and Rep. Jackson (R-Texas) called for us—all ~3 million transgender Americans—to be forcibly institutionalized—after the entire right wing media ecosystem blamed us for acts of violence we didn’t commit. We’re one of the GOP’s and the Church’s top scapegoats.

Look at the language they use. It isn’t “I disagree with your decisions;” it’s “trans people are a cancer” or “trans people are demonic.” Allies, I need you to understand that their intentions are genocidal.

There are allies standing up for us, and I was pleasantly surprised that House Democrats finally said something about GOP members dehumanizing us. Statistically, the public is on our side, even though most of y’all don’t know or understand us, but we need more than Congressional letters and passive support. We need you to step up and speak up—unequivocally and unwaveringly.

I wrote this poem in January 2025 after one of the first actions by the Trump regime was to order deleting all references to transgender people from government records. It calls back to 1933, when we were one of the Nazi’s first targets, when books about us were among the first burned.

The video of my reading is below, followed by the poem text.

For our transgender ancestors

Or strength. Definitely not for bravery.

These days, I tell my friends I love them more often—
just in case.

The time for my poems to obfuscate–
to obscure plain meaning–is over.

(first they came, first they came)
That poem is all over my social media feeds.

It doesn’t feed me.
So few have anything to say
about edicts erasing trans existence.

They say I worry too much
for an unperson.

I keep thinking about the poems I haven’t written.
I’ve spent six months trying to write an elegy
for an egg I knew–they say he killed himself
because his girlfriend caught him in her panties.

[Craft note: should I strikethrough he/him above?]

Last they came–this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to erase us.
Last they came, we didn’t even make it into the G-d damn poem.

I drive my wife to the mountains every time she asks.
I want her to remember
how silly her wife looks in snowshoes.

Back to that egg: her favorite song was “The Beautiful People.”

I said I wouldn’t obscure plain meaning.
Let me define Egg:
a trans person who hasn’t hatched into themself, yet.

When I was a little girl, I checked out books
about magic from the school library.
I crafted myself a cloak of invisibility.

Don’t let the book burners anywhere near your local library.

Don’t remember me for who you thought I was.
Remember me for who I am.

My wife and I thought we did the right thing.
We bought an American Dream–
FHA mortgage, magnolia tree, and chipped maroon paint.

I tried to draw a Venn diagram–
politicians who demand 10 Commandments plaques posted in schools
and politicians who bear false witness against my queer siblings–
round-and-round a circle drawn in chalk.

I remember the soft glow of the gas heater
in the hallway of my childhood home.
Haven’t you ever wanted to be
as constant as a pilot light?

I don’t know how many more metaphors
I get to write for you.

Don’t remember tears streaming down my face.
Remember when I started smiling for photographs..

First they came. Last they came.
Don’t remember that poem without me.