“My nonsense”

The expression “My nonsense” gives Donna Fairchild a way to name—and dismiss—Margo Fairchild’s gender expression without discussing it directly. First attached to a childhood moment in Donna’s clothes, the label recurs through Margo’s life, including after her transition; Margo’s final response transforms the family’s word for what must be suppressed into a declaration that she is Donna’s daughter.

Origin in the bathing suit incident

Margo recalls falling asleep in the sun and music while wearing her mother’s bathing suit. Donna came home during her lunch break, found Margo asleep, and stared at her in silence, shaking her head. Margo remembers Donna looking pale, as though she had received terrible news. Donna asked whether wearing her clothes was a joke. Margo, frightened and ashamed, told the truth: “I love this bathing suit. It’s my favorite.” Donna ordered her to take it off and never touch that or any other article of her clothing again.

The two never discussed the incident directly. As Margo explains, they were not the kind of family to talk about it; Donna had seen what she had seen, and it frightened her. The later code word condensed that unspoken response into a recurring rebuke: it named Margo’s expression as something improper rather than something the family could openly acknowledge.

A code word repeated across a lifetime

Margo says Donna used the word “nonsense” in several circumstances. When her parents left her alone, Donna warned, “You better not get up to any of your nonsense!” If Margo looked sad, her mother asked, “Is this about that nonsense?” When Margo became engaged, Donna hoped this meant she was “done with all that nonsense.” The word thus followed Margo from childhood into adulthood, making the same disapproval recur in moments of privacy, visible unhappiness, and anticipated married life.

The repetition continued after Margo had transitioned and was living as a woman. On her deathbed, Donna still asked, “Are you ever gonna stop with this nonsense?” The persistence of the label across those different stages makes clear that transition did not end the conflict or prompt Donna to abandon her term for Margo’s identity.

Margo’s answer

In the talk where she recounts these memories, Margo addresses a photograph of her mother: “I’m sorry, Mom. I can’t stop my nonsense. I’m your daughter and I love you very much.” Her answer does not pretend the history of hurt has disappeared: the apology acknowledges their conflict, while the refusal to stop rejects the demand that she give up her identity. By naming herself Donna’s daughter and affirming her love, Margo gives the old word a new place in their relationship. What had served as a warning against expression becomes, in Margo’s own voice, part of a statement of selfhood and attachment.