Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.
— U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, May 9, 2016

 

We see you. Of all the words Loretta Lynch used last spring in her statement announcing the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against North Carolina in response to that state’s “bathroom bill,” these three might have been the most significant. Official Governmental America (i.e. “we”) speaking directly and publicly to a community that has historically been ignored at best and mocked, victimized, and persecuted at worst was already a breakthrough. But what Lynch said in that direct message to the transgender community—that the Administration sees you—was truly remarkable.

Visibility is a word that works in both directions. The ability to see. And also the ability to be seen. I imagine that for many trans individuals, the goal for a long time was invisibility, a seamless blending-in. Passing. Maybe that’s still the goal for many. But I wonder if we see you signaled not only a newfound willingness and ability of institutional America to see the transgender community but also an increasing desire by the trans community to be seen. A desire for more than benign neglect, a desire for honest appreciation.

Lynch could have said we hear you, which would have been meaningful but might also have reinforced the outdated notion that the transgender community is shouting from the shadows as opposed to marching proudly down Main Street. But she didn’t say hear. She said see. Surely this was no accident. As well-crafted and -considered as Lynch’s statement was, her choice to say we see you was no doubt intentional.

But what fueled the intention? Was it the audience? Is the transgender community especially attuned to the performative aspects of gender, and therefore to the aesthetics, to the visualization? Or is we see you a function of the ever-increasing video-ization of our social interactions? The linguistic manifestation of the GIF, the Vine, the You Tube post? The fact that today visual image carries more currency than text?

Perhaps one of the most fulfilling things that can happen to any us is to have our visibility acknowledged publicly—whether it be by our Instagram followers or by Official Governmental America. If that’s true, then is the inverse also true? Is the most demoralizing thing not to be seen? Not to be acknowledged?

Because now, a year later, there’s a new Attorney General, a new President. And so far there hasn’t been any effort on the part of this new administration to “see” or “stand with” any historically marginalized community. The new “we” looks inward rather than outward. So what does visibility mean now? In an effort to find out, Waccamaw asked for poems, stories, and essays loosely based on that theme. The result is what you see here: urgent writing that establishes that “we” and our collective ability to see and be seen can survive four solipsistic years.

Issue 18

Bad Bets

Jay counts out her regrets in the grooves of one-dollar casino chips, spends half of them at the blackjack table with the lowest entry and…

You Might Forget the Sky Was Ever Blue

The gymnasium sweats. It’s autumn by the calendar, by the start of the new school year, by the way the store displays are all lined…

Orlando

1. Clover mites march out of the library’s foundation, and Alex crushes them with his thumb. They mark him like freckles, like scabbed over zits,…

Ubuntu

there is a phrasing in Oshiwambo that states: Owuhenda nandjila iha tandilwa amu lalo— a traveller can’t be denied a home I am five hundred…

To Extricate the Feeling from the Thing, Think of 50 Ways to Spell the Word “Hurt”

from the kitchen table you hear a familiar last name comma first name and see white light see a face you’ll only ever know from…

Sonnet for Jean Grey

It was the night when she first peered at stars. No, it was the curse of being chosen by men, goddesses and heroes frozen at…

A Trick of the Light

This aberration, sun refracted through illogical beads of falling rain, up north they give a pretty name—sunshower— as if a freak could thus become a…

Subject Making

with a metaphysic touch I question I                                       like a brush in motion to stroke a backdrop                    for a cup lip to a lipped face…

Tragic

From Gk. tragos, “goat” + oide, “song” Like melodious goats: or Leporello listing off a cavalcade of conquests, or masquerading as Don Giovanni. Donning goatskins—like…

Decoration Lights

THIS AREA IS shades, mangroves hovering out of themselves. Tilt-a-world undersides of palms with that voodoo skullshine. A default transparency. Stock shot: green on green.…

Dear Suki: Number Forty-One

Dear Suki: Great Smoky Mountains, then the temperature started to drop, dropping still as the earth felled away from its repose and I, tipped the…

In the Peaceable Kingdom

Refill the black oil sunflower seeds for cardinals, titmice, wrens. Replace the suet cake for downy woodpeckers, flickers, grackles that will eat it down to…

Tree

               Old English treo, treow, from Proto-Germanic *treuwaz-, from PIE *deru- Being ‘firm’ and ‘solid’. And ‘steadfast’. Being also bigger than life. And ageless, like a…

Wild Blue Parakeet

Running in Central Park again. That morning six miles. The day before, five. Running from my husband’s EKGs, running from those words – unknown risks.…

House of Mirrors

Turn the lights off. Gaze into a mirror and repeat “Bloody Mary” three times. In its origin, the game was played as a bonding ritual…

On Visibility

If you had asked me, when I first came out as transgender, if I wanted to be seen, I would have said yes. I wanted…

Play With Fire

“Play with Fire” Many people find interest in the complication of the self. This woodcut print details the nature of movement while keeping active shapes…

Always Explore

Life is Always a Blurry Line

All American Photo

Editor: Jessica Lee Richardson
Guest Editor: Joe Oestreich
Founding Editor: Dan Albergotti
Fiction Editor: Jeremy Griffin
Nonfiction Editor: Colin Burch
Poetry Editor: Hastings Hensel
Readers: Lydia Denoyer and Lauren Higgins
Managing Editor: Kimberly Holcombe
Co-Managing Editor: Maggie Fernandes
Associate Fiction Editor: Ronda Taylor
Associate Nonfiction Editor: Anne Gammon
Associate Poetry Editor: Lanessa Salvatore
Special Project Editors: Amanda Taylor and Chelsea Thomas
Art and Design Editor: Joujou Safa
Digital Content Coordinator: Alli Crandell
Home Page Photograph: Amy Jarvis