There are trans people here in the past, the present, and the future. H. Melt’s writing centers the deep care, love, and joy within trans communities. This poetry collection describes moments of resistance in queer and trans history as catalysts for movements today. It honors trans ancestors and contemporary activists, artists, and writers fighting for trans liberation. There Are Trans People Here is a testament to the healing power of community and the beauty of trans people, history, and culture.
Contents
There Are Trans People Here
On My Way to Liberation
All The Missing Sweetness
Dysphoria is Not My Name
Trans Care
To Sylvie, To Frank
At The Chicago Marathon
Intensive Care
Giovanni’s Room
If You Are Over Cis People
Faggot With Flowers
To All Those Listening
At The Dream Job
Ode to Terfs
Meeting Chelsea Manning
Trans Lit
City of Trans Liberation
On Trans Street
Trans House
Take Me to The Trans Spa
Camp Trans
Trans Museum
Everyday is a Trans Day
Trans Day of Revenge
I Don’t Want a Trans President
Trans People Against Bans, Walls & Borders
& Again & Again
The Most Dangerous Jew in Germany
Trans Temple
Prayer for My Trans Siblings
The Riots Must Continue
Afterword
Study Guide
Notes
Acknowledgements
Gratitude
“H. Melt’s matter-of-fact, precise, cartographic poems perform necessary care work for the trans people and places they attend to and yearn toward. Deeply grounded in the plain, bountiful fact of trans worlds - and insisting on our worlds to come - this book offers all who need it a map to a world ‘forever in bloom.’” - Cameron Awkward-Rich, author of Dispatch
“There Are Trans People Here is an ode to trans joy, resilience, and communal care. A trans-utopian manifesto for a world that ‘let[s] us be beautiful / on our own terms.’ Melt’s verse is bold, stark, and uncompromising. Threading elements of familial narrative, memoir, and queer history, they trace through-lines from our past to a brighter, queerer future.” - torrin a. greathouse, author of Wound From The Mouth Of A Wound
“These poems meld individual resilience with collective resistance to illuminate the everyday beauty of trans lives in refusing the lure of conditional inclusion to instead challenge dominant institutions of oppression, demand structural change, and remake the world.” - Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of The Freezer Door
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