It has been close to two months now since the last day of school when I walked my beautiful grade sixes down the stairs to the schoolyard for the last time. I didn’t need to walk them anymore from a safety standpoint. I could send them off a few at a time or even all together in a line, amusedly reciting a pledge that they secretly loved because it meant they were big; “I promise not to take out any small people on the way down…” And I knew that they wouldn’t. I often did walk with them though because in terms of “need” – the love and trust and easy comfort that they gave to me everyday filled up to brimming a big empty place in me that I had no idea was so deep before they were there. At the end of the school day, they wanted to keep chatting and so did I. At the end of the year, I was in no way ready for that conversation to end.
There are lots of individual activities, decisions, experiences, conflicts and resolutions I can point to which ensured that this group of kids would work themselves so essentially into my own sense of identity. With the last 2 months of space between us and a good many other changes on the go in my personal life outside of those relationships, I am beginning to realize that the deepest truth of it all was that we grew up together.
I met them as “Ms.Hicks” when they were 8/9 year-olds in grade 4. I said goodbye to them almost 3 years later as Lee: out, trans, male and 5 months on testosterone. We were all entering into the awkward stages of early pubescence together, and somehow this shared experience – however unorthodox – made us all perfectly suited to become family…The kind of family that you choose to claim and then cherish all the more for the choosing.
“So, you’ve had girl puberty…. and now you’re having man puberty….. You are like the most qualified person ever to teach us about puberty!”
What better response could a transgendered elementary school teacher just coming out hope for from the 24 people whose opinions and acceptance matter more to hir in the grand scheme of things than anyone else? They were genuinely excited. They were unabashedly proud of me. They talked openly of their happiness for me and their belief in me. They made me so much less afraid. They helped me to be much more courageous than I ever could have been without them. Together we could talk openly about what it takes to grow into the kind of adult you want to be as opposed to the one you sometimes feel like everyone else is telling you that you should be… None of us pretended that we knew how to do this because none of us did – least of all me.
When I talked to my class in February about being trans and particularly, about the physical transition part of that so that they would know more of what to expect over the remainder of our year together, they applauded. Sure, they had a ton of questions, and some worries – mostly about whether or not the inside of me would change along with the outside – but the part that I will remember deep in my bones for always is that when I told them I was happier now, they clapped.
When I arrived in that grade 4 classroom 3 years ago, I was fresh out of a horrendous first year of teaching that was punctuated daily physical and verbal harassment, vandalism and eventually, panic attacks. I had very little faith remaining in myself, let alone the education system or other people in general. The year that followed was hard in a different way; I knew that this vacuum of faith was not how I wanted to exist as an educator or as a person in the world but I had no idea how to get out from under the crushing weight of nothingness that was left when the immediate threat was gone. It took me a good 2 years to begin to figure that out and I would have a very hard time describing succinctly in words how that all came to be, but my own realization of its significant lessening came just recently as I was re-reading some of the notes that the kids wrote me at graduation;
“This was an amazing year and that was because of the way that you taught us… but somehow the word “taught” isn’t really right…. you trusted us, and because of that we are stronger on the inside.” – Noa.
I am really glad that she felt so well taken care of in this way, but I am also quite sure that any strength being gifted flowed first from them into me.
Thank you all... for everything.
love,
Lee
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