Respond to 2025: my qualifications will never be enough to outweigh internalised transphobia

Content note for transphobia and the t-slur.

my qualifications will never be enough to outweigh internalised transphobia

my voice textured with HRT vibrato

raises the interviewer’s eyebrow.

she ticks a box next to lyrics

I can’t quite read.

oh yes, this old chorus.

my existence is always quantified –

a token, a hole, a wound – once filled

I have no other use.

fuck. it’s happening    again   again   again   again   again

my brain is in crescendo-mode

rapidly calculating my vanishing bank balance.

this workplace has a more palatable

pianissimo version of me already.

each workplace can only have one of us –

one discordant tranny is enough

to showcase equality.

the interviewer’s emotion-quavered

coda tells me               sorry    sorry    sorry    sorry    sorry

I might not be quite the right fit

but she’ll be in touch.

the melody dissolves as I watch

the echo of my potential future

leave the office building.

Rae White is a queer non-binary transgender writer, and author of Milk Teeth (UQP 2018), Exactly As I Am (UQP 2022), and All the Colours of the Rainbow (Lothian Children’s Books 2025), with illustrations by Sha’an d’Anthes. They won the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, and have been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Queensland Literary Awards, and Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Rae is the Creative Director and Founder of Uplift Poetry, a community poetry initiative; the Founding Editor of #EnbyLife, a journal for non-binary and gender diverse creatives; and a co-host on the 4ZZZ radio show Tranzmission.