I’m thrilled to share the cover of my debut chapbook, Explaining a Dress: Transfeminine Erasure and Vindication, which will be released on November 4th, and is available for preorder now💫  

In 2020, I was deeply inspired when I came across Queering the Map—a community-generated, digital map platform where LGBTQIA+ people across the world can drop a pin and archive their own queer history attached to a physical place. Learning about trans people throughout history and across cultures had been key to embracing my own transgender identity. I had recently moved back to my conservative hometown and came out publicly as transgender in the midst of Covid-19 isolation. Queering the Map led me to wonder about the trans people who came before me who may even have lived nearby.

I dove into digitally-archived, US newspapers, clipping articles on newspapers.org. I purposefully searched for trans stories that predated the word “transgender” itself, which first appeared in print in 1965. The language of gender identity has evolved, which is often weaponized as if the experience of being trans is as new as some of the language. One goal of this project was to disprove that through historical documentation. Between 2021 and 2024, I wrote around 60 erasure poems, honoring trans stories from the 1860s to 1960s.

I cannot presume to know the inner world of those in the stories of my poems. However, I focused on their words and/or consistent actions whenever possible. At the very least, I was able to treat these gender-nonconforming individuals with much greater care, kindness, and respect than the original journalists. I felt as though I was able to reclaim the power of my trans ancestors by blacking out (or twisting) the media’s cruelty, mockery, disgust, and entertainment.  I wrote this collection to honor the gender-expansive people who came before me and dishonor the media/police/lawmakers etc. who continue to harass us for existing. 

I knew I wanted to create a chapbook from the collection, and at first I tried to tell the stories of trans women and men. In the full collection, many themes arose, but I struggled to tell a compelling narrative with fewer poems. I focused on building the structure of the full-length collection, which flowed together much more easily—go figure. From there, the 15 erasures that make up Explaining a Dress suddenly stood out to me like heartbeats that carried the larger collection forward. It was a DUH-lightbulb moment—the purpose of creating a chapbook was to center my trans sisters who generally receive the brunt of vitriolic transphobia, particularly black and brown trans women. I created Explaining a Dress as a vengeful love letter to the transfeminine experience. While transmasculine stories are equally important, and I look forward to telling many, including my own…*cue Martina* This one’s for the Girls💫

I’m so grateful to Frontier Poetry, and their Guest Judge, Nancy Miller Gomez, for believing in my work and bringing it into the world with Red Mare Press. We will be having a virtual launch reading on Wednesday, November 5th, 2025 at 5 Pacific / 7 Central / 8 Eastern—you can register for the event here! We will be joined by Nancy Miller Gomez, as well as the talented poets Evelyn Berry, Robin Gow, and Adhi Kona. Come celebrate trans voices of past and present✨ We will never be silenced. 🏳️‍⚧️

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