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By Rebecca, January 16, 2012 12:34 pm

After reading about surgery exclusions and Girl Scout Laws and bigotry and narrowmindedness and the like, I realized I feel some amount of obligation to apologize for my body. For being trans. For having a penis and breasts. So I’ll do that now. Get it out of the way and off my chest, so to speak.

On behalf of myself, and on behalf of all non-normatively-gendered individuals, I apologize. I am sorry for being confusing. For being scary. For being strange. For being icky. I am sorry for raising awkward questions about what female and male means. I am sorry for not fitting into one box or the other. I’m sorry for questioning the need for boxes at all. I’m sorry for androgyny and ambiguity and flexibility and spectra and rainbows of infinite possibilities.

I’m sorry for my body. I’m sorry for having breasts that are the result of orally-taken hormones and not of gonadally produced hormones. For having skin that is smooth due to those hormones and thousands of dollars of hair removal. I’m sorry for having a penis between my legs, being able to pee standing up, being an outie instead of an innie. I’m sorry shopping is such a chore, that I can’t wear those yoga pants or that ever-so-cute dress without tucking my cock up between my legs and securing it with medical tape, I’m sorry my boobs are nice and perky because they came in at 23 instead of 13. I’m sorry for my physical strength, something I’ll always doubt it’s from working out and assume it was from the testosterone coursing through my system for twenty-plus years. I’m sorry for my wide shoulders, my big feet, my hairy toes. I’m sorry for my occasionally ambiguous voice, for still occasionally getting “sir”ed on the phone, for causing double-takes.  Continue reading 'I am so very sorry'»

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By Rebecca, April 13, 2010 8:39 pm

This post was prompted by an article in Yoga Journal, given to me by my mom, called “Forgiveness Heals.” There will be a companion post, a writing exercise about forgiving myself, sometime soon.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I stayed silent too long, spoke too softly to be heard, gave in too quickly.

My kindergarten classroom stretched along an endless hallway. There was a finger-painting station, a corner with cardboard building blocks, a book nook, a playhouse with a kitchen. Trim along the ceiling had numbers, one for each day of the school year, and we would hold a little classroom celebration every time we hit a number ending in zero. We sang, and drew, and played tag at recess. Once a week, I would leave the class and go down the hall to talk with the school psychologist. Even then, my parents knew something was wrong.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell her – in her office with reassuring colors and a calm far removed from the kindergarten class – that there had been some mistake, that my bowl-cut should have been reserved for a boy, could I trade in my button-down shirts for pigtails, please?

Continue reading 'Apologizing to myself'»