About the Author
Jessie Keary
Jessie Keary is a queer, trans, Midwestern writer with too many hobbies. For the last few years, he’s been writing a collection of erasure poetry using archived, US newspaper articles about transgender people from the 1860s-1960s. The language of gender identity has evolved, which is often weaponized, as if the experience of being trans is as new as some of the language. Through poetry, Jessie strives to honor the gender-expansive people who have always existed and always will. Their poetry can also be found in Transmasculine Poetics (Sundress Publications), Sweeter Voices Still (Belt Publishing), and various corners of the internet.
Explaining A Dress: Transfeminine Erasure and Vindication
Explaining a Dress by Jessie Keary is both a recollection and an homage to the forgotten history of trans women. Rooted in the precise craft of erasure poetry, these pieces resonate with quiet protest, sophisticated confidence, and untold violences of the past. In Keary’s work, the clothing of trans women—a white scarf, a gingham gown, silk shirts—becomes an emblem of resistance, tenderness, and the radical beauty of being seen.