“The year you turned 11 was the first time you said out loud that you didn’t want to live anymore,” wrote Ethan to Emily. He talked to BuzzFeed News.
This is Ethan Smith. He's a 22-year-old graduate and performance poet from Boston who works in LGBT advocacy.
Jonathan Weiskopf
After he started transitioning he spent six months deciding exactly what he wanted to say to his younger self, and then turned it into a poem. He called it "A letter to the girl I used to be".
YouTube
When he performed it for the first time, many of his friends had never even heard the name he was given at birth. But Ethan felt he needed to say things to Emily. He needed to grieve for the children he would no longer be able to have. He wanted to tell her that although she didn't make it to 21, as she had predicted, someone else did.
Above all, Ethan wanted to apologise to her. Not for replacing her with Ethan, but for the fact that it took so long.
This is Ethan performing the poem.
YouTube / Button Poetry