Needle
by Sappho Stanley
for Tennessee
The bubbles in the syringe of estrogen
are as fun as a lava lamp & scary
just like lava & I’ve been doing
this shit for five years & once a week
I still get needle anxiety
& it’s not that I can feel it,
the 25 gauge is too
small, it’s more psychological:
It’s why humans don’t like
blood or talking big feelings.
Too many believe most
things should stay inside
like the pain that comes around
with rain in my big toe,
& under my nail is the doctor who plunged
a needle deep, into my skin,
rolled the tip around
expertly, prepped my toe for something sharper
& after nothing physical
could be felt beneath my ingrown nail,
he pulled scissors on me & only when he was in
did he misgender me & he kept it constant
like a man with a set pace
& his nurse, who tried holding my tears,
asked if I was in pain,
which prompted him
to make sure I wasn’t in pain,
because there are certain things
you can sue for in Tennessee.
While writing the collection this poem is contained in, Bathtub Estrogen, I've been thinking a lot about who has access to bodies, especially medical professionals and the men who paid me for sex. For many trans women, we've been conditioned to be the perfect subject, to express a perfect desire for womanhood.
What may have made this moment worse was that he was the first medical professional I had gone to for transition-related care, previously DIYing with estradiol I bought online. When I approached the low-income clinic, it was at the behest of my therapist to be under a more "legitimate" management of hormones—something that felt especially untrue at the intake appointment, where I had to calculate the dosing conversions for the doctor myself.
At a later appointment to remove an ingrown nail, while I felt especially vulnerable and while his medical equipment probed into my toe, I imagine he felt most powerful. He didn't misgender me in previous meetings, only when he was inside of my body. It felt eerily similar to the men who paid me for sex.
I've found this to be one of the more tame ways doctors have inserted themselves into the bodies of trans people.
Sappho Stanley (They/She) is a trans Appalachian poet. They are a poetry candidate in The Ohio State University’s Creative Writing MFA and serve as poetry editor and production editor at The Journal. You can find their work in or forthcoming from AGNI, Waxwing, and Mississippi Review, among others. You can find them on any social media: @sapphostanley.