This #TransTuesday, Equality Texas highlights a poem written by Landon Richie, a 14-year old transgender boy from Houston. Please read and share with the hashtag #TransTuesday.

Transcendence
My tears; oh how they not so subtly stream down the delicate, yet mysteriously coarse feature of my face. My mother’s immediate relieving embrace, my father’s willingness to understand this desolate path. This was merely the embark of authenticity embraced.

For what felt like the absence of time itself, I found myself fettered to this unfamiliarity, the quiet whispers of denial. The consequences, the threat of compromising my existence, the infinite “what if”s silenced me within the persisting torment between my mind and body. My screams, muffled behind the perception of happiness, went unnoticed.

We have all been instructed to conform. This expectation of the “powerful boy,” the “elegant girl,” suffocate those confined to the boxes, restrictive of expression and submissive to this unforgiving society.

However, my box lays worlds away. Shattered, splintered, and gasping for its final breaths.