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.