“The OPEN sign flickers. Replace OPEN with acquiescence. Replace OPEN with displace. Replace OPEN with a fist in the mouth. Replace the fist with a lake. The lake chokes on its pronoun.” Photo by MIKI Yoshihito, via Flickr.
In Antigone by Sophocles, the protagonist attempts to secure proper burial for her brother, Polynices. While reading, I meditated on the applicability of the drama as it applies to the transgender community. Discrimination takes a violent toll in the form of cis supremacy. Antigone’s objective, for me, is evocative of the LGBTQI+ family and alternative forms of self-organizing as a means of survival within pervasive heteronormativity. I reread this myth when the Human Rights Campaign released the 2017 archive of trans lives lost due to systemic violence.
