maybe then

As an intersex person, I put a lot of myself and my own life into this song.

You Cannot Erase US is a direct response to the erasure, medical abuse, and political attacks on intersex people in today’s world. This song rips through the silence, refusing to let lawmakers, doctors, religions, or society dictate what it means to exist.

The lyrics call out the forced surgeries, forcing intersex people to identify as male or female, the gaslighting, and the constant fight for social and legal recognition. Each verse strikes at the heart of policies, practices and beliefs that attempt to erase intersex bodies and identities.

We seek only bodily autonomy, legal recognition and protection, access to medical care, and the right to simply be. It is a song of survival, of resistance, and of refusing to be rewritten into silence.

We are here. We have always been here. And no one can erase us.

While being intersex and transgender are two different things, many intersex people are also transgender. The fight for intersex rights and trans rights are not exclusive. 

The right wing government has made it clear that in its attempt to erase transgender people, it also seeks to erase intersex people as well: people who, let's be clear, are just born physically or genetically different.

Denying one group their basic human rights will rob us all of our rights in the end.

Lyrics:
(Verse 1)
I was born between the lines you drew,
A body you feared, veiled from view.
Not one, not two, but something more—
A child of nature you all ignore.
You carve the world in black and white,
But flesh was never made so tight.
Your hands shape laws, your tongues decree,
Yet still, my blood betrays your creed.

(Pre-Chorus)
You gathered round and crowned a thief,
To guard the walls of your belief.
But we are written in the stars,
No ruler’s hand can pull us apart.

(Chorus)
You cannot erase us, we are the proof,
The mark in your pages, the crack in your truth.
No blade, no law, no prayer, no shame,
Can strike us out, can steal our names.
We live, we breathe, we claim our space—
We will not be erased.

(Verse 2)
Your tyrant signs, his hand is cold,
To rewrite flesh, to cast the mold.
Yet I am both, yet I am none,
Not yours to name, not yours to shun.
I was not meant to split in two,
To be a girl or a boy for you.
But nature wove me in-between,
A living truth you wish unseen.

(Pre-Chorus)
You can’t erase the light or the sky,
Erase the child who dares defy.
Erase the wound, erase our pain,
And you cannot unmake this flame.

(Chorus)
You cannot erase us, we are the proof,
The mark in your pages, the crack in your truth.
No blade, no law, no prayer, no shame,
Can strike us out, can steal our names.
We live, we breathe, we claim our space—
We will not be erased.

(Bridge)
You see two doors, but I walk through three.
Your world is small, too small for me.
I am whole, I am real, I am free.
You cannot erase us.
You cannot erase me.

(Outro)
You cannot erase us.
We remain.

You Cannot Erase US

An inspirational song about life's final destination.  The journey starts from our birth to our final breath.  Time on earth is short compared with eternity.  I hope you enjoy.

You Cannot Erase US

Raven Dracali

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