A “soft target” is “a person or thing that is relatively unprotected or vulnerable, especially to military or terrorist attack.” Alternatively, a highly defended target is referred to as “hard target“. – Wikipedia

Back in 2010 in sexual health, we all used the word holistic

The idea was that if a person felt unvalued in their community, it was unrealistic

To expect them to place value on their own sexual wellbeing

And that theory was borne out in the things that we were hearing in the youth group.

“What do I want with condoms? I’m bound to die of HIV one day

It’s just what I’ve been told will always happen if you’re gay

And being too demanding might just drive this man away…

He’s the only proper boyfriend I’m ever going to get: I’ll do anything he wants to make him stay…”

So we thought, helping people to feel they were worth something

Instead of a lot of judgemental chuntering about

“Lifestyles”

Might actually mean that they started to see their own lives

As worth saving,

Find the confidence and agency to take control of their destiny.

Instead of being told by a finger wagging clinic nurse

With a face like an angry headmistress (if not worse)

“You’re back again? D’you WANT to catch an STD?”

As if going to the clinic was somehow a mark of shame

As if patients respond wonderfully to bigotry and blame.

Our approach was unorthodox

And as such

Had to be stopped

Because the NHS became all about targets.

Hard targets, my new boss explained

Were Chlamydia screens that came back positive.

Enough of those and we could positively prove

That we were making a difference.

But education? Empowerment? Good conversations? Preventing “service users” from transitioning to “patients”?

Keeping the most vulnerable in our community off the mental health ward bedsheets?

No, it isn’t really work if you can’t put it on a spreadsheet.

You can’t prove that somebody is HIV negative because of what you’ve done

So you can’t get any funding. The NHS can’t pay for your bit of fun

A handful of queer kids chatting over biscuits and tea?

You’d rather we spent money on that than on medicine for HIV?

They’re soft targets.

Easier to take out.

A quick win for admin

To prove we’re economising.”

They closed the youth group down.

Cut the lifeline.

Within 3 months I’d heard about an unplanned pregnancy on the grapevine.

I didn’t keep in touch with all the kids

But I wonder

How many of them, and how many who came after them will take risks,

Fall pregnant,

Fall sick,

Fall victim to depression and stress

To HIV

Knowing how little value they possessed

In the NHS’s false economy.

Still, at least they’ll boost the hard target figures

When their tests come back positive.

This is the first part of what I suspect will be a triptych. I have too many feelings about this youth group to get it into one poem, or, indeed, a tight verse form.

When I started working in sexual health promotion
I was asked

If I could work Wednesday nights

Run a youth group for LGB kids.

I said yeah, alright

The first thing I did

Was to add a last minute T to the poster.

My boss wasn’t sure about this.

Did trans young people really need

The same support as normal LGB young people did?

Back then, neither one of us knew the word cis.

But I stuck to my plans

And as it transpired

A lot of the kids needing help were actually trans.

Because if you’re told that you’re wrong

At school and at home, that you don’t belong.

If your actual mother tells you

That if this trans thing is true

You will never really be loved

Well,

When somebody promises love

Or at least affection

At least sex…

You don’t ask too many questions.

And with sex, questions, and the right to ask them is vital.

And if you’re raised to not feel entitled

To safety, you just do without it.

And that’s what the group was really about, it

Might have seemed like all we were doing

Was watching queer films, discussing this week’s Doctor Who,

Sometimes if I’d managed to scrounge the materials,

doing queer themed craft projects too.

We had no budget

So when it came to keeping teenagers

Entertained

I often had to fudge it.

But

We talked about difficult conversations

Sexual histories

Regular STI tests

Condom negotiation

Consent, and their right to refuse.

That queer sex was great, but no sex should ever make you feel used.

(Unless feeling used is your kink.

I think we talked about that too.)

And all this on the NHS!

A holistic, if shoestring, approach to sexual well being!

We did our best.

And on some days we felt like we might even win.

Then the Tories got in.

(CW TERFS)

Some call it a branch of feminism

But if you ask me, it really isn’t.

And calling them such gets right on my nerves,

But the label that seems to have stuck is TERFs

That’s

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!

Far right, conservative, liberal or Leninist,

If you’ve met them, you know what venom is!

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!

They claim cis women are a social class

At risk of harm by the XY caste

That’s not quite true. They would never say this.

They’d just say “women”, they never say “cis”.

In fact they state that cis is a slur

And that TERF is too. But it doesn’t occur

To them that the names that they call trans women

Are slurs as well. Can’t be them that’s sinning!

The basic premise they want understood

Is that males are evil and females are good

It’s fine for them to call trans women names

For in punching up there is no shame.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!

Far right, conservative, liberal or Leninist,

If you’ve met them, you know what venom is!

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!

They call trans women “Trans Identified Males”

As a label, I feel, this massively fails

I think they like it because it spells TIM

And snidely implies that a she is a him.

I’ve tried to take their fears into account

But it really seems there’s a large amount

Of “that might happen”. “There’s a danger of this”

All these crimes that trans MIGHT commit against cis.

They’ll attack us in toilets and changing rooms!

Real women are facing certain doom!

(It’s actually trans people getting attacked

In these spaces, but why spoil a story with facts?)

And they’ll never be told what to do by a man

Unless his name’s Graham Linehan

Attacking women’s a crime you see

But it’s fine when it’s those with whom they disagree.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!

Far right, conservative, liberal or Leninist,

If you’ve met them, you know what venom is!

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!

I can remember the first day at playgroup.
Afraid. Walking into a big village hall.
Remember the panic at all of those faces
Remember not wanting to be there at all.

The fact that I ran and hid under a table
I do not remember, though I have been told
I sat and ate handfuls of soft, home-made playdough
I really liked salt. I was 3 years old.

I was the weird kid who smelled of wee
And nobody wanted to play with me.

I thought that school sounded like something exciting
My sisters both went, and they knew loads of stuff!
I was keen to learn numbers and reading and writing
On my first day I realised that it would be tough.

It was loud. It was loud. There were too many voices.
Sometimes they were angry, but how could you tell?
In this anarchy you were supposed to make choices
Make progress, make friends. I thought I was in hell.

I was the weird kid who smelled of wee
And nobody wanted to play with me.

I try to be generous to those kids around me,
I must have been baffling: solemn and silent
I can’t be too angry that some of them found me
Stuck up. But I do wish they hadn’t got violent.

I was prodded and pinched, I was tripped up when walking.
A thousand small cruelties were my education
In the end I just played alone. Furtively talking
To no one. That can’t have helped my reputation!

I was the weird kid who smelled of wee
And nobody wanted to play with me.

It wasn’t all bad. I got on with most teachers
I wanted to learn, and I often excelled
But I’d never pick up on signal that reaches
Your brain when your wee can no longer be held.

The toilets were frightening, echoey places
With older girls lurking. I never went in.
But the damp and the looks upon everyone’s faces
Would tell me, too late, I’d committed *that* sin.

I was the weird kid who smelled of wee
And nobody wanted to play with me.

It was loud. It was loud. And my stomach was churning
But I could escape if I simply tuned out
Of the classroom and into the things we were learning.
I lived in a dreamworld, away from the shouts.

I got older, learned better control of my bladder
Could manage to hold out all day. Problem solved!
I was lonely and sad, still, but that didn’t matter
My troubling behaviour was marked as resolved.

If you know a weird kid who smells of wee
Be gentle. Be kind. Try to see what they see.

I’ve got this idea in my head about a kinky Dom/me equality and diversity officer chastising rubbish NHS services. Because when I was an E&D bod they’d always say they wanted me to be brutal and raise difficult issues and correct their mistakes but they’d resist any effort to change them. Maybe I should have been harsher.

You may find my manner haughty
But you’ve all been very naughty
And I think that it is time you were chastised.

I have been kind for far too long
And now I realise I was wrong
Because you’ve never done the things that I so quietly advised.

When we met you were quite certain
That you didn’t mind me hurtin’
You, if that is what I felt I had to do.

But you’ve avoided being stung
By a lashing from my tongue
By pretending you’d done everything that I required from you.

Though I shouted til I’m hoarse
“Be inclusive!” “Oh of course!”
You would promise, and yet nothing ever changed.

Still your services are racist
Homophobic, ableist spaces
As you pride yourselves on all the window dressing you’ve arranged.

And I’m tired of explaining
That “nobody is complaining”
Means nobody thinks that you will give a damn.

And I’m starting to feel sorry
That I’ve been your pet minority
Who never gets offended, well, surprise, assholes, I am!

If I’m speaking truth to power
You’re a total bloody shower
And I really should have said something before

I was just too tired to fight
– You couldn’t get MY pronouns right
And you wondered why trans patients were not coming through the door!

And some patients are just grateful
That you’re not openly hateful
Cause they’ve had to lower all their expectations.

It may be a shock to you
That no patient likes to do
Unpaid labour trying to fill the gaps in doctors’ educations.

I tried emails, little chats,
Training sessions that fell flat
I made posters you would not display with friendly little tips.

My equality/diversity
Approach met with perversity
So it’s no more Mx Nice Person, see? It’s time to crack the whip.

I love oystercatchers

Love the way I that they look atcha

They’re the best of birds that I have ever seen.

They are smart, black and white

I really think they look alright

With their long legs which are bright red they are not green

(That’s greenshanks)

These are a bird

Which seem quite honestly absurd

To be seeing, frankly quite this far inland

But they are black and they are white

And it does seem quite alrightIf this is the way that things they say be planned.

• Possibly to be continued

This is for Niamh.

This is my attempt at making trans issues accessible to young children.

Some people have a feeling
And it often sends them reeling,
That their body isn’t suited to their brain
And they might feel shame or terror
When they look into a mirror
And the person looking back is not the same
As the way they feel inside.
They may think they have to hide
And that maybe it is easy to pretend
And to really try to be
What the other people see
But eventually the hiding has to end.
Because pretending all the time
Isn’t naughty, or a crime
But it hurts these people every single day
So they very often choose
As they’ve got nothing to lose
To be brave and tell the truth, and then they say
“Yes, my body’s like a boy’s
But inside me there’s a noise
And it’s telling me I’m not; I’m in a whirl.
Or “I know my body’s girly
And I should have said this earlier:
I don’t think I’m supposed to be a girl.”
It’s a worse idea by far
To try to alter who we are
Than to ask for help from doctors and our friends,
But if our body doesn’t fit
There are ways of changing it
And that can make the scary feeling end.
If you find that you enjoy
“Girly” things, and you’re a boy
That’s wonderful. It’s fine to just be you!
But if your head is in a whirl
Because you feel like a girl
There are other people feeling that way too.
There are some people who seem
To be sort of in-between
They aren’t girls and they aren’t boys. Maybe a mix.
Maybe both and maybe neither
They aren’t wrong or silly either
They’re non binary. Nobody’s playing tricks.
Whoever you might be
You will be ok with me
There is just one rule, and there has always been.
Make sure you always treat
All the people that you meet
As kindly as you can. Just don’t be mean!

This is about gratuitous descriptions of violence against women.

Content warning for gratuitous descriptions of violence against women.

She walks home alone on an unlit street

Our heroine, troubled, and making bad choices

She’s listening, can she hear following feet?

In the shadows behind her, is she hearing voices?

A violin scream and she’s grabbed from behind

Fade to black, then fade up on her tear-stained face.

We needed a rape scene to win hearts and minds

Cause the ratings this season have been a disgrace.

“It’s important that these women’s stories are told!”

But is it their stories you’re telling

Or have they become one more thing to be sold,

Is pain and defeat so compelling?

Her body was found in the river at dawn

She was beautiful, glamorous, slutty and dead.

And Detective Karpatski remembers he’s sworn

To serve and protect. Oh, the pain in his head!

He groans and he looks at the corpse, such a shame

She can’t tell us which underworld lowlife did this…

But she don’t need no voice and she don’t need no name

To get him to the top of the best seller list.

“It’s important that these women’s stories are told!”

But is it their stories you’re telling?

Or have they become one more thing to be sold,

Is pain and defeat so compelling?

Her hubby: a MONSTER! She BEGGED for her LIFE!

SICK stepfather FORCED me to take off my dress…

At NINE little Krystal’s already a WIFE!

For just 99p, read about her distress!

They answered the ad cause they thought, what the heck:

Money’s tight, so why not share these harrowing scenes?

A nice lady came round with a middle sized cheque

Now their faces stare out from the cheap magazines

“It’s important that these women’s stories are told!”

But is it their stories you’re telling?

Or have they become one more thing to be sold,

Is pain and defeat so compelling?

She lives on the streets, and she longs for a fix

She once had a husband. She’ll never go back.

She begs, and when that doesn’t work, she turns tricks

And hopes against hope that she won’t be attacked.

You saw her one evening and chucked her some change

It isn’t your truth but you don’t give a damn

You can use the idea to broaden your range

She’s a safe 9.5 in a poetry slam.

“It’s important that these women’s stories are told!”

But is it their stories you’re telling?

Or have they become one more thing to be sold,

Is pain and defeat so compelling?

Well, this came out dark.

I’m going to survive

Cause I can read the signs

When everything gets bad

I will be ready.

I am going to be fine.

When Brexit hits, supply lines will be hit, we know that’s true

But I will be OK, I’ve got home remedies to brew!

I’m learning herbal medicine, who needs the NHS?

I’ll brew lavender tinctures to take care of all the stress.

And sure, my friends who need strong medication to survive

Well they might be in anguish and they might not be alive

But we’ll be taking back control, there’s no reason to whine

And everything is going to be fine.

I’m going to survive

Cause I can read the signs

When everything gets bad

I will be ready.

I am going to be fine.

And when the infrastructure and the government are gone

Utopia! That’s really what we wanted all along

Those meddling politicians just made things worse, we were such fools.

To think we needed public transport, hospitals and schools.

The kids will learn the skills they need to make their way in life.

How to stay warm with a campfire, gut a rabbit with a knife.

They’ll never have to think of university deadlines!

And everything is going to be fine.

I’m going to survive

Cause I can read the signs

When everything gets bad

I will be ready.

I am going to be fine.

I’ve got a massive stockpile of canned European food

like anchovies and sauerkraut, the things that taste so good.

I’ve got them in the cellar with my barrels of fresh water

I’ve got a permit and a gun, just like I think you oughta.

Cause there’s gonna be some looting when society collapses

And we are gonna have to fight to look after our patches

You must be crazy if you think I won’t protect what’s mine

And everything is going to be fine.

I’m going to survive

Cause I can read the signs

When everything gets bad

I will be ready.

I am going to be fine.

If my predictions are correct, there’ll be some kind of plague

With vaccines running short and sanitation getting vague

But with projected food shortages perhaps it’s not so bad

If there’s fewer of us here to share the food that can be had.

We’ll be a stronger nation, to deny it is absurd

We can only get more powerful by thinning out the herd

The fewer of us left, well hey, the more of us can dine

And everything is going to be fine.

I’m going to survive

Cause I can read the signs

When everything gets bad

I will be ready.

I am going to be fine.

And sitting in my bunker I will drink my final beer

And myself I never will succumb to Project Fear

We are a stronger nation now. These changes are benign.

And everything is going to be fine.

And everything is going to be fine.

And everything is going to be fine.

And everything