Yasmine Tadross

I am just a fetish, When a white boy tried to play with my trauma in order to have sex with me He told me that I was beautiful for my light brown skin as he never wanted to give me pleasure  because like capitalism, he commodified my brown body for an orgasm and left me vulnerable on the white, cracked sidewalk    I am just a fetish, when straight cisgender white and women of color only care about my lipstick How I look on stage, but not when I talk they wonder how I look, but not how I am going to get home tonight  When I tell them that people say I am ugly, disgusting, and a fa***t they just say that I am beautiful and move on to the next thing as if I am worthy of my own violence I am just a fetish, When people compare my womanhood to Caitlyn Jenner  Even though she is like the countless other white women  who told my mother to only speak English I am just a fetish, When I am up on stage  Heart o...

I feel like you all don't actually see me I live in a stream of double consciousness in which I take charge on one end but I become obedient when I am with you all I am full of rage, impatient, and invisible The latter occurs even when I am fully myself I understand that emotion is not actually expressed within our dynamic We swipe everything under the rug and hope that it will cover the baggage and the trauma When the pile gets to full, we just find a bigger rug to hold everything in Sorrow is a western thing Because westerners have extracted our resources I am raised in a Coptic Christian Egyptian Household, Where I am told to embrace being male, heterosexual, whitewashed and having my face stuffed with food Go to church every Sunday and talk to a priest who has hypnotized my parents to thinking that they are the reason I am an Afro- Egyptian Brown Queer Hairy Transgender woman I don't want to go to church to disappoint you, but because I am traumatized by...

To all the straight cis guys who liked me, congratulations, you are not actually straight!!! There is a possibility that you may have an interest in women who don't have vaginas Gold Star for you! But here is a catch, I was chatting with this guy 25 young, brown, perfectly trimmed beard and eyebrows; works at a tech firm and lives in Brooklyn sounds a little like gentrification right? But I like the hipster type, the thick frame glasses, and your fair trade coffee, it just turns me on but we were talking and he discusses how rim jobs and body embracing turns him on he asked me if I could send him photos of me more dressed up because the more feminine I am, the better he wanted my midnight blue lipstick kisses all over him I thought well, I could avoid the kissing part and just write "I am not a fetish all over your forehead" Honey, note this, these clothes and makeup is just a facade When I take them all off and you see the disconnected hairy brown body, ...

When my body is reduced to body parts, When gender is to the surface, People go straight to you body part, because that is the only thing that is validating, As I came out of the whom, I was birth-assigned male only to come to terms with the fact that I am a woman, The discrimination is prevalent, But the one thing that gets to me Is when a mother covers the eyes of your young daughter in order to protect her from me When I go to the bathroom, woman's eyes turns into shock horror because I somehow invaded their space you see, once your body is marked at birth, one can't get outside of it Each day it gets harder to fight because I don't know a day where I am truly whole This brown skin and this aching disconnected self I will fight for myself and for my Queer and trans siblings of color In my own way because rallies are too numbing for me We will strut one step at a time and let DT45 know that we are still here Your group of people can not...

I live in a world where the representation is greater than the reality, My body is limited to my lipstick and a pill that one injects every day When neither is on me my body can't obtain the experience My identity goes beyond a pussy hat I have African Roots with the Arabic tongue I hear the drums rain And my grandmother's spicy foul medemas is in my blood With our daily bread When one can't find community, They spend money that they don't have because the only thing capitalism is good for is feeding off the lonely I was born in a post 9/11 nonnormative female body Where my lifespan does not go beyond the age of 24 Our image is only seen as five slashes and a gunshot to the head and bliss is just an illusion My liberation does involve going to a big city Where white gay men think your obsessed with RuPaul's Drag Race and your identity revolves around spending money on Maybelline cosmetics When one can't find community, You just grab the bits...

You look in the mirror, One is not lovable That notion is only catered to some people  and lives are put at stake just to claim that label As I see the reflection, Brown skin, Slightly wide-eyed and the matte Blue lipstick The more I put on, the more I seem white   No one can pin point what you are Because the brown skin does not correlate with the aesthetic  As I move through the world like tetras, bending every facet of myself to fit in The ones who accept me see me as desirable only when I look like everyone on RuPaul’s Drag Race Dear Straight people, That is not how trans people look like  People like me struggle to get out of bed, if people like me to have one So buckle up on this cluster fuck ride that is myself Through the hyper femininity and the barebones To embracing my Nubian ancestors  as we set conquest on reclaiming our brownness  as Colonization took it ...

This is the first time I have seen myself, Behind the blemishes and eyeshadow You See the confused person The flaws are in plain site The makeup is armor and the fears is your sword lay down one's weapon, what is left is something unknown I can see the kreeses in the eyes Each and every day without that armor, you are not valid for the person you imagined Everything is hyper, One is not validated until they look fabulous but, nothing more Exotic or rushing for a fraternity Wondering where is my validity When will the spirits of my QTPOC siblings reign and our colors will wash out this sphere That commodifies our facets, but not have a voice Damned If I do damn if I don't So I will present however I please A work in progress, I love the makeup, but much different Regardless I am Trans, Brown, Egyptian, and Queer Meet me here regardless of how I look