Personal Narrative: My Eighth Grade

993 Words2 Pages

In eighth grade, my English teacher was Mr. L. He was a pretty ordinary English teacher, a little quirky at best. But what a lot of people don’t know is the lunches spent with him. A lot of people don’t know about the time after the bell rang for the school day. A lot of people don’t realize how much my life changed during those times.
He was a few years into his teaching career, coming to my K-12 charter school after being in the public school system for some time. My eighth grade year was his first and only year at my school. My eighth grade year was one of the most difficult school years I’ve ever experienced.
Eighth grade was the year I came out as female to male transgender. I came out to Mr. L three months before coming out to any other …show more content…

L, I had considered transferring schools for high school. I would just wait out eighth grade, and go to a new school for ninth grade, going by Liam. It would give me a chance for a new beginning, where no one knew me before I had transitioned, and no one would know I was transgender. Mr. L made me realize I made the right decision not to wait out the school year, and leave my school behind. More importantly, he made me realize I have to have faith in people.
I had expected the worst from everyone I came out to. I had expected people to stop talking to me, to lose friends, to experience bad reactions from teachers. I had expected to be bullied, to barely make it through school days because kids were mean. Those were the only stories I had read. You never hear about the good stories. You never hear about the kids who are accepted and loved unconditionally, surrounded by people who care about them. Every single one of my teachers showed unconditional support for me, asking all of the right questions and making sure they called me by the right name and right pronouns. It was mindblowing to me, that I could have such a positive experience. I was expecting the worst from people, and I wasn’t able to recognize the best in them. Mr. L helped me realize that there are good stories. There are stories filled with acceptance and love and the want to understand. Not only that, but Mr. L helped me realize my story of my transition is a good story, and he’s one of the reasons it

Open Document