Powerful poem from a transman

I hear regret, and sad acceptance that there’s no going back.

Very traumatic to watch. How can ‘doctors’ who add physical pain to a psychological one sleep at night?! We are talking about vulnerable children too. Very predatory. Your day will come!

Just read an interview with the poet. These statements jumped out.

• Why did you give the poem that title?
• Ethan Smith: I worded it that way because it felt the most comfortable. I know that I don't personally believe I was a girl – obviously I've always felt like I was a boy, but having been raised as a girl and socialised as a girl for so long it still makes more sense for me to address it in that way.
• You say sorry to your younger self in the piece. Can you describe what was going on for you there?
• ES: The apology isn't about what I did; it's about what the person I was had to go through to get to where I am now. So it's an apology for not recognising it sooner and not being able to verbalise any of that. I'm pretty happy now, I'm glad I got here eventually, but it is just acknowledging that it was hard.*

This Trans Guy Wrote A Letter To The Little Girl He Once Was To Say Sorry (buzzfeednews.com)

Powerful. I see the woman who could have been a champion on the women’s baseball team, shrunken inside their baggy man-suit. Articulating a pain and grief that hasn’t quite resolved itself into regret. Good luck Ethan for the healing of your physical and psychological scars.

Yet.

Watching that I see 100% regret. And terrible sadness. However much she is trying to convince herself that she's ok and shes living her best life now, in her eyes, her words and her whole being I see a person thats miserable, confused and very much full of regret and unhappiness.

We don’t believe suicide is a rational choice

Side note. I do believe suicide can be a rational choice. Including in the situation you give, of prefering it to unavoidable pain.

But that’s a different thread!

All you become is your same self but with a broken body

That poem doesn’t talk about gains.

I think the poem, and the line ‘I am sorry this process is taking so long’ and ‘ maybe I don’t understand death’ are reflecting on the fact that the transition has not birthed Ethan in the way the poet expected. Emily, according to GI never really existed, or at least should have died as the ‘authentic’ identity of Ethan was released through medical transition. But that hasn’t happened. Emily abides. The person the poet was, is the person the poet still is. And now the poet is trying to find a way to understand and navigate that.

That is what I have taken from it. It’s a fascinating and insightful poem, but I do find it deeply sad. I find it hard from that poem to believe that medically transitioning to appear as male was the best way for that young person to manage the difficulties they were clearly facing. The line ‘this body is obsolete’ does not sound like someone who feels like surgery and hormones have given them their ‘true’ body.

I would say unequivocal regret rears it's head in the middle of the night, in the darkest hours. To be on stage you have to have harnessed some amount of stoicism

Oh dear lord that poor child. There's something in my eye.

I agree.

This isn’t a choice that can be changed - it’s not like the regret that you might feel if you’ve married the wrong person, or moved to the wrong neighbourhood, or booked an expensive holiday that didn’t meet your expectations and you’re £££££s out of pocket, or you took the wrong job. This is a life choice that Emily made at a very vulnerable time in her life, no doubt fuelled by a very vocal and persuasive ideology, and now has to face the lifelong consequences. There’s no sense of joy, relief or peace whatsoever there.

@Atethehalloweenchocs
But do I believe some people are really trans? Yes.

Can you explain what you mean by really trans? On another thread recently, someone who believes that people can be 'really trans' was asked the same question. They said that these people had a mental illness called gender dysphoria. Is that what you mean by really trans or do you mean something else?

It's possible to be sad at things lost and things that won't be and still feel you made the right decision.

It's not clear what Ethan thinks.

Some people here, like the audience want Ethan to be saying what they want.

Pretty close to it, though.

It doesn’t read like someone who’s content with the irrevocable decision made.

Not read the comments but the reaction of the audience is fascinating. They obviously want this to be a simple cheerleading pro-transition message, and it’s not, but they still try to react like it is. They aren’t really listening.

That is a painful, deeply personal, deeply intimate exploration of loss of identity, of loss of self, of loss of future, , of loss of potential, of trying to reconnect with self and find some incorporation of self again, of honesty in trying to articulate what transition really means for all of this, of trying to work through all that and make sense of it.

It’s not at all the simple, ‘ I am now living my authentic self and all my problems have gone away!’ Message that trans activists want it to be. That the audience seem to need it to be.

That was a really brave poem to write and to read publicly. Because it was honest. The thing the Gender ideology movement hates most.

It's very powerful.

To me it reflects the dangerous and unhealthy belief that you can seperate from the person you were in the past. The idea that there are 2 yous is not psychologically healthy. This separation of self and death of your past is not how to deal with pain. We know that.

We know that it needs to be integrated into who you are, recognised as a whole complete you, with history, mistakes and difficulties.
That is what everyone has to do to differing degrees.

This is so painful because Emily is talked about as dead, disappeared and no longer existing. Ethan obviously feels pain with this idea. The physical process hasn't dealt with the acceptance of Emily, and who she is, instead it's erased her. That's why it feels so tragic.

But it seems as if Ethan/Emily has profound regrets, and so isn’t ’really trans’.

How can you watch that video and come to the conclusion it was a young man living his ‘best life’…. ?

Ethan/Emily is simply collateral damage in the ideology of the TRAs, nothing more. What’s one more teenager forced to live a life of ill health and confusion once reality hits? Their lives mean nothing, because for their story to be meaningful it calls into question the whole premise that you can be born into the wrong body. It was a powerful and painful account to watch, and I hope Ethan finds peace.