I Don’t Want to Be Understood – Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

A transsexual woman pieces together fragmented details of a repressive religious childhood and an unsupportive family, drawing from autobiographical experiences of the poet’s life. I Don’t Want To Be Understood is a work of resistance against the conventional trans narrative, and a resistance against the idea that trans people should have to make themselves clear and understandable to others in other to deserve human rights. This is a compelling, urgent collection about the body and survival that asks how we learn to love in a culture where normal is defined by exclusion and discrimination. These poems stretch from childhood to the present day–resisting typical narratives of self-discovery, resilience, and personal growth–and instead asks what it means to be granted or denied personhood by the world around you. It is a personal archive of a trans life laid out in all its messiness and unknowability, and is a book for anyone who has questioned why we place so many limitations on who gets to be considered a human being. These poems do not celebrate survival, but rather ask why transsexuals and other gender non-conforming people must fight so hard to survive in the first place.