To my elementary school teachers: I’m sorry for crying all the time. I cried so much that, in second year, my school report read that I “burst into tears at the first sign of trouble”. It’s because I was going through childhood totally confused, of course, but it can’t have been fun for you to deal with as educators.
I’m also sorry that when our school portraits were delivered, I scrawled all over my face with a marker pen and got you in trouble for not stopping me. I still defend my decision to obscure my image, but regret that I didn’t speak up and explain that you couldn’t have known I’d taken the Sharpie from your desk.
To my middle school teachers: Um, yeah, I’m sorry for crying with you guys, too. I really didn’t get on top of the crying thing for a good long while. My bad.
To my classmates at the all-boys high school I attended for two years: I don’t owe you any apologies. In fact, you probably owe me a “sorry” or two for making my life a daily struggle against taunts, pranks, and beatings.
I understand why you did it, though. A single-sex school is a difficult place to be during the early stages of puberty, and you guys needed an outlet for your aggression. It was easy to tell that I was different from the rest of you, that there was something “off” about me, and I don’t bear a grudge. Okay, I bear a small grudge. But if I met any of you in person now, I would probably not bring up the time you trapped me in a locker over lunch break.
To my little sister: I’m sorry for trying on your clothes when I was alone in the house as a teenager. I did it a whole bunch of times, and I probably stretched out your jeans and a few of your shirts. And maybe even a bra or two, when I stuffed far too many bunched-up socks in there to try and compensate for my lack of curves in other areas. I was very lucky to have a sibling only a year younger than I was, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to experiment with cross-dressing in clothes close enough to my size to work.
In hindsight, we had a relationship that was friendly and understanding, and maybe I could have been upfront with you about the whole deal, and about everything I was going through. But to be honest, I wasn’t even being upfront with myself.
To my teachers at my second high school: I’m sorry I didn’t respect you. By the time I got to you (after transferring from the all-boys place because the only other alternative I felt I had was suicide), I’d lost all respect for teaching staff. They couldn’t stop the bullying, they couldn’t keep me interested during lessons, and they couldn’t explain to me why I felt so, so sad all the time. So I acted out, and probably made lessons much harder than they had to be.
Also, I stole a projector from one of your classrooms. I’m sure someone got in trouble for that. I still use it, though, if that makes it better? The tech department probably would have junked it by now, so maybe I’m kind of a hero for prolonging its life?
To my friends from that same high school: I’m sorry I acted like such an weirdo. I was in a mixed-up place, and treated people badly because I didn’t know how to deal. I’m sorry I wouldn’t shut up about my unicycle, and I’m sorry that I tried to do a trick off of one of the common-room tables and ended up hitting Jacob in the face with the wheel.
I’m also sorry I didn’t take the time to seek you out and explain the whole “transgender” thing when I started transitioning a year after we all went to our respective universities. My lack of communication meant you faced the situation with ignorance, and cut me out of your lives. I like to think we’d still be friends if I hadn’t abandoned you to the small-town thinking you were working with. Except Jacob, probably.
To the girl I lost my virginity to: I’m sorry I never let you go down on me. I know that you wanted to, and that it worried you that I was seemingly the one guy in the entire world who didn’t want a blowjob.
To my classmates in college: I’m sorry for subjecting you to my experimentation when I was convinced I was “just” a transvestite. Thank you for being kind enough to not straight-up ditch me when I would turn up to hang-outs in a pink mohair sweater and lip gloss. I’m sorry we got so many side-eyes from Subway sandwich artists who definitely did not sign up for making a turkey sub for the weird dude with painted fingernails and a visible bra under his men’s Family Guy t-shirt.
To my writing teacher at that same college: I’m sorry everyone laughed at you when you called me by my old name a day after I’d sent the email to my classmates letting them know about the changeover. You had no idea what was going on, and you didn’t deserve to be made the fool. I think it was just that everybody was feeling weird about the whole situation, and they needed some kind of release, and you provided an opportunity. I’m sorry I didn’t keep you as informed as I did everyone else. Also, I’m sorry I made fun of the way you would pronounce “genre”. In fairness, though, there’s no letter D in that word, and it’s kind-of weird that you’d put one in there.
To my bosses at the supermarket I worked at for four years: I’m sorry that when I came out as transgender I became so difficult about wearing a regular women’s uniform. I was incredibly boy-shaped because I was still a year away from receiving hormones, and the oversized, padded bras I wore were the only things indicating any femininity about me at all. The baggy shirts that were the standard ladies tops covered up my “breasts” and made me feel like I might as well be wearing my old men’s outfit, and I freaked out.
You guys could have been way worse about my transition (it’s not like the law protected me all that well), but instead you were supportive and let me wear my own clothes for a while. But as soon as you, very reasonably, put your foot down and said, “you need to wear a uniform like everyone else,” I stopped coming into work. I didn’t even call to officially quit. I still feel bad that I threw away four years of work (and friendships with my colleagues) over a little body anxiety.
To my older sister: I’m sorry for acting like a real jerk about your wedding. It wasn’t as big a deal as I made it out to be that you didn’t want me to be a bridesmaid. In fact, that decision was probably for the best, as I didn’t even want to be in the family picture that was taken at the end of the ceremony, demuring as the photographer tried to coax me out of my seat. I’m sorry I wore that awful wig to your special day, and that you had to deal with anxiety about how your new husband’s family would react to me. But, I mean, you’re the one who married into a family from a Catholic country, so maybe we can split the blame on that one?
To my mother: I’m sorry for taking another son away from you. I owe you more apologies than that, but you owe me some, too, so let’s just let those cancel each other out and leave this one by itself.
To myself: I’m sorry for for the anger I feel towards you. I’m sorry for all the times I could’ve spoken up about how I felt and ended up starting transition earlier. I’m sorry I let them give you testosterone to start puberty when the doctors realized you weren’t growing. I’m sorry for every bad decision I’ve made for you. I’m sorry I didn’t write this earlier. I’m just sorry.
Tags: apologies, avery edison, lgbt, the trans* series, trans* issues
I laughed, I cried, I want to give you the biggest hug in the world. Thanks for writing this.
Also, A++ gif usage.
The transition to womanhood is 100% complete once you start apologizing all over the place like we women are raised to do.
Seriously though, amazing.
She’s English; they’re born apologizing (though they don’t quite mean it like Canadians do).
Oh, Avery.
This was very good. Funny, too.
I love this piece. I love this series. Well done, Avery.
Thank-you Nicole and Mallory for running it and this series.
It’s definitely raining on my face.
Avery, I’m sorry you feel you have to apologize for anything.
Thank you for writing this. It’s going to stay with me for a long time.
Also thank you for linking to your twitter because it’s DELIGHTFUL.
My icy heart has once again melted.
This makes me miss my best friend from high school. They left for college, and we lost touch a bit. Saw them again a couple of times, then they cut off all contact with everyone from their hometown. Turns out he was transitioning, and wanted to make a clean start. Still hurts, and I still miss him (20+ years later), but if that’s what he needed, so be it.
I wish we could go back in time to each of these moments and you could have the ghosts of future Toasties silently holding your hand. Thank you for being you, here.
Avery, you’re so amazing and brave and I thank you so much for your openness, for pushing yourself beyond your comfort and for sharing your brilliance with all of us. We’re so lucky to have your words.
If it helps, you don’t have to apologize for the visible-and-ill-fitting-bra-under-light-shirt combo. That’s a mistake all women have to make for themselves.
Beautiful piece.
This right here makes me feel so humbled about the role I’ve played in building and understanding my own life. You’re so mature and so willing to take responsibility; I could be better about that. I did not have the same kind of experience as you but I went through a lot of trauma and I was also just a weird kid. This makes me want to be better about owning an active place in my own story.
Aw, Avery.
How in hell can one fit a “d” into “genre”, though?
My assumption here is that they said it “gendre,” pronounced “JOHN-dur,” but slightly French?
Or it’s wordplay on “gender?”
“genred”? “dgenre”? Also trying to figure it out.
This was wonderfully written. Glad you are here.
I love this. I think it perfectly captures that mixture of nostalgia and anxiety that we get when we look back at our old selves. I love how you’ve balanced your criticism with empathy. This is just so great.
Thank you for sharing this. Thank you for still being here. Just thank you.
Oof, that last paragraph. I don’t know about you, but the apologies I owe myself are the hardest to acknowledge.
So good.
This was really good.
This was really good.
Oh god this was a laughcrysnort piece. This bit is particularly spectacular, ‘Also, I stole a projector from one of your classrooms. I’m sure someone got in trouble for that. I still use it, though, if that makes it better? The tech department probably would have junked it by now, so maybe I’m kind of a hero for prolonging its life?’ I can’t believe you stole a fucking projector. That’s amazing, so are you, and your writing.
And we cis-folk think OUR childhoods are tricky,,, thanks for sharing this with so many strangers.
“I’m also sorry I didn’t take the time to seek you out and explain the whole ‘transgender’ thing when I started transitioning a year after we all went to our respective universities. My lack of communication meant you faced the situation with ignorance, and cut me out of your lives. I like to think we’d still be friends if I hadn’t abandoned you to the small-town thinking you were working with.”
This is really, really generous. I don’t know your high school friends, of course, but if they ever see this piece I hope they realise how lucky they are to know/have known someone with such kindness and balance in them as to take this attitude. (Although my personal knee jerk reaction is “fuck ’em, they don’t deserve you, and you are 100% not responsible for their bullshit”.)
I feel like sticking up for the English here, they actually do mean it, they would even go out of there way to apologize, if it was necessary, I should know they're my next door neighbours, and have occupied my country
Funny and touching. Let’s be real though – your sister really should have asked you to be a bridesmaid. It’s not necessarily the kind of thing you should throw away your whole relationship over …but still.
*snif* That was beautiful. Also, if you really mean all the generous stuff (forgiving, apologizing for your part in stories where other people acted in not so cool ways) you are a really good person.
I can relate to this piece so much. I sometimes look back on all the ways dysphoria and repression made me act then on the ways that I acted during the initial euphoria and insecurity of transition and cringe. we have to forgive ourselves though because we were under psychological and hormonal pressures your average cis person can’t even imagine. I cracked up reading “Thank you for being kind enough to not straight-up ditch me when I would turn up to hang-outs in a pink mohair sweater and lip gloss” because when we are early or not-yet transitioners, we make some truly hideous fashion choices. Great article.