In the fairly recent past one of my two younger sisters came out to the family as non-binary. She also changed her legal name. For some reason she was expecting to be disowned but we all told her we still love her.

I was doing pretty good to remember my sibling’s newly adopted name and to address that sibling in their preferred manner. Unfortunately I am still their big brother and have been for almost forty years. As much as I tried to respect that sibling’s wishes I screwed up and accidentally addressed them by their prior name. I treated it like a speed bump, apologized, and moved on as best I could.

The guilt is kinda big, actually. The burden may lessen a bit if I actually say something. The big goal is to ensure I do better at handling this sort of situation in the future.

Okay, enough self-flagellation for the time being perhaps…