A Mirror Worth Your Life
Hope G.
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I wrote “A Mirror Worth Your Life” to express how I feel when people don’t give me the respect I deserve by misgendering and deadnaming me. The poem opens with a description of the disconnect between my physical and mental forms, which is exacerbated by gendered stereotypes and expectations that dictate how people refer to me. The following stanzas alternate between experiences I’ve had with transphobia and my reactions to them. As a trans person, I dread looking in the mirror because it forces me to see myself the way others do, but as I grow, I’ve realized that only I get to decide what my gender means to me.
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Creativity is the ability to think outside of the box. It can be anything related to using art to express or show things in a new light. Creativity is like a universal language that allows people from different backgrounds to come together in community.