Trans Equity Summit

This weekend our own Lonnie Shaw will be a featured presenter at the Minneapolis Trans Equity Summit. As I’ve written before, neurodivergent individuals are far more likely to be gender nonconforming than their neurotypical counterparts. In Lonnie’s bio he describes himself as a transgender activist and in his poems he portrays a transgender life in all its hazard, joy, and resilience. Here is a poem from his forthcoming chapbook, Ode to Every Black Boy.

I remember sitting with Lonnie in his classroom at the South Education Center as he dictated this poem. Everyone in the room felt transported to that group home, felt the precarity of those high heels, those cages, those big crushing bodies. Lonnie’s embodied storytelling is what makes him such a compelling activist in the trans community and beyond. Although I feel pain and outrage when I think of Lonnie being forced to sing those lines so many years ago, I feel tremendous gratitude at the fact that he has survived to tell the story. And there’s something prophetic in it now, all these years later: “Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?” I can’t tell you how many people have been touched by Lonnie’s words, how many lives altered by their courage and strength.

In the above picture you can see Lonnie on the far left, reading his poems to school district leadership. You can support Lonnie by purchasing his most recent chapbook, Trayvon Martin, and I’ll be sure to let you know when Ode to Every Black Boy is available for pre-order.

In Other Words,

Chris