Innocence

Dear parents,

I am not a parent of a trans-identified child/adult. However, I am a mother of three small children.

Please accept an offering of a poem. I don’t have first-hand familiarity with today’s ”trans world” or what many of you have gone through.

This poem is about innocence. I am sure that this-joy giving force is still there in you and your children/adults….. even if it is being covered, buried or even tortured by all sorts of nonsense and horrendous things. I hope you can still feel it. The killers of joy can never succeed.

INNOCENCE

There is such a power as innocence
Though potential
Bubbling with joy

Protecting aura
Like the white of an egg
Forgiving

Cushioning growth
Bright light
Devouring devils
who crumple
in their mocking shadows

The child standing
in his own light
unaware of his
Powerful emanation

To a thief everyone is a thief
The thief would not believe anyone
Is innocent
Not even a child

In compulsive jealousy
He will deny and destroy
Stamp out, silence
That power within

He desecrated and sold
How can others contain
that source of joy he destroys
In himself

But children are abundant
Open
Brimming full
Of a power
foundational to the whole universe

Without which
All values that would be called good
Collapse
like a house of cards

Into an abyss
Destroying
The very foundation
On which they stand

But innocence cannot be destroyed
It is the potential power
that rises from the ashes

And shows us what was right
And what was wrong

Innocence
You are wisdom
You are discrimination
Universal

You are the child that grows within
The only bridge
To the self

Free as the wind
Unbound by the body
Or compartments of the mind

Authentic and true
At the purest source of joy
I surrender only to you

Oh innocence

********************

The inconvenient truth about trans that I feel compelled to express is that I would probably have been considered a ’trans kid’ myself from the ages of about three to eleven, based on “modern standards”. See my picture below with my persistent presentation and desire to be a boy for a more than seven years, even wearing a boy’s swimming costume! But I never heard the word “trans” and I grew out of it. Going through puberty did not kill me. I won’t write more about myself here. I am unexceptional. But I see that the bubble of innocence was protected enough for me to grow and NO adult ever ”affirmed” my childhood fantasy even when I would push boundaries. I can’t imagine the confusion of reality if they had or the state of my ego!

So, I am probably one of thousands of tomboys, (pre-internet/activism) whose desire to be a boy was particularly strong and who’s presentation was convincing. To others who are in this world today, I would have been considered a real ‘trans kid’ worthy of ‘life saving gender affirming care’.

I am eternally grateful to have been able to just be a tomboy.

Given the level of confusion today, I feel a certain level of responsibility to come forward and say that I seem to be one of the ones from a fairly recent time who grew out of it!

Thank you for accepting this very simple expression!

Wishing you all love, courage, resilience and a certain kind of peace, that no war on truth can ever fully relinquish.

Claire Light (me aged around 5)