Third place, 2002 Battle of the Bay poetry slam.

Also featured in Overcoming Homophobia Meeting for Youth (OHMY) 2004 Opening Ceremonies, an annual state-wide conference for high school and middle school youth who wish to create safer learning environments for students who are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Co-hosted by Gay-Straight Alliance Network and LYRIC, and held each February in San Francisco.

intersection (spoken word)

one in a thousand and five times a day
a baby is born in the u.s. of a
xy with ovaries, or estrogen-charged
with testes, or with a piece of flesh
between its legs too big to be a clit,
too small to be a dick.
and when the doctors don't know
what to make of "it,"
the proscribed procedure is
to take the proper measurements
with their incremental instruments,
cut here, slice there, then reassure
the parents that dressed in daily
dresses or dressed daily in pants,
there's a sixty percent chance
that no one will know the difference.

cuz the intersection of sex is a sickness
we call intersex, one we fix with stitches,
slicked with a daily dose
of the best pronouns this sexist
language has to boast.
so before all the doctors drink a toast,
let's upturn this cocktail
to see what the patient feels
six months, sixteen years from now:
and of course i'm cross
you uncrossed my chromosomes.
leave my hormones the hell alone!
who are you to tell me
my phallus is a fallacy?,
to slit my colon
and make a vagina out of it,
just so you can stick your dick in it;
don’t give a shit that i ain't got no clit
so i can't feel a bit. it ain't a coincidence
that ninety percent of the docs
who perform these ops are men,
and ninety percent of their victims
are told they're women, passive recipients,
don't matter that i don't got the only organ
that matters for me to orgasm,
cuz the doc had the nerve
to take those nerves away
so i could be "normal."
well, i'd rather be a freak who could feel
any day, and who's the monster here
anyway?

the only thing "ambiguous" to me
in this situation is how you can
reconstruct what you never let me build.
this ain't an assignment, it's a confinement.
gender is not an anatomy, it's an identity.
cuz the consensus of many may not be
the consensus of me, tenths of percents
don't account for my consent,
and my gonads are not a want ad
crying out for your medical opinion
of who i am. so quit acting like
i wouldn't know how to walk or stand
if i didn't know what was between your legs
or mine. and the next time
you don't know what to call me,
why don't you change your language, not my body,
cut your tongue and not my dick.
one in a thousand and five times a day,
a baby's flesh is being tailored to fit
before it's even old enough to tell the doctor
that genitals are not dinner jackets or
sports-car paint jobs;
before it can cry out, fight back;
before it can even piss in the doctor's face.

this is the intersection of sex,
and i am putting up a red light.