Coming out letter - ftm

just wanted any feedback on my letter to a homophobic dad and slightly homophobic mum:

To my beloved Mum and Dad,
By the time that I finish writing this letter, I imagine I would have been working on it on and off for several weeks. I intend to take extreme care with it, because what I want is for this letter to completely explain away the things you may wish to know, and answer the things you will want to ask. Regardless of my wishes and best intentions, there will remain things that you do not know, and there will remain questions that need asking. It’s just the nature of things, I guess, so I suppose all that I want to say is that I’m going to try as hard as I can.
And the reason I’m taking so much care, putting so much effort into making sure what I say is what I really and truly want to say, and how I want it said, is because I’m wiring to you both to tell you I am transgender. Also known as a person whose inner identity does not match their physical presentation. Please stick with me for at least a few pages so that I can try and explain a few things.
I know Dad you are probably freaking out right now, but deep breaths.
In year 6 (about the time I started to get severely bullied) I began to desire to become like all the popular girls in order to escape the constant harassment they were giving me. I've never told you this but they used to step on my food and spit on it when I was looking, make the whole class call me names (so much that I hung out with the year above me the whole of year 5), physically harass me (shove me on the ground) as well as basically made me hate life for those 3 years. I tried my best to look, dress and act like them in order to escape this. I tried to be like them in order to escape everyone’s criticism of who I was. Of course it didn't work but eventually it was high school time and I was put into a separate class. Despite being separated from them, I carried through my teenage life that attention as a female was the best possible thing I could achieve. I was never satisfied. Throughout high school years I created this complex and impenetrable mask of a girl who wasn't serious enough to get close to and who was friendly and outgoing. This was all fake. I like to think that I didn't put on this mask for my family but I did put on a face. I put on a face to make you happy, worry free. Because my family is my whole world and if you'd ask me what my biggest fear has always been it would be 'hurting my family'. Please take my apology, I just want you to see my true self. The person crouching behind the body that lives life the only way it knows - to appease others. Your probably wondering why I'm telling you this now, well it is because now that the stresses of school have been lifted I feel as though I can break that mask and hold a hand out to my hiding and repressed self.

I've taken a while to get to the point I know, but I really really need you to understand my journey. I know you have seen me at my lowest points but during those times I've never told you "why". Well I am now. The person I am inside is not who you see on the outside. It never has been. Ever since I can remember I have never felt at ease with the way I am perceived by others. It has always been like my mind is separate from my body. When I started to hit puberty and develop physically into a female I began to hate my body so much. I used to look at myself in the mirror and cry. I didn’t cry because I wasn’t pretty or didn’t have the perfect body, I cried because I knew this wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to be a woman. Mum - imagine suddenly waking up and your body was a mans – that confusion and deep sense of wrong that you would feel is exactly how I feel when I wake up every day and realise I am still female. Please believe me when I tell you that these feelings are not just insecurities. I have been trying since I was a child to first ignore, reject and then process these feelings. I am not confused. I am not mentally ill. And I am not saying God made a mistake. As we have discussed countless times, God has made everyone’s destiny and I strongly believe that this is my destiny, I was always meant to go through this and this is his challenge to me, to reinforce my belief in his presence.

I will give you examples. I remember at Amina’s engagement party with I think the guy called Ibrahim (he was short). For 3 hours before we had to get ready, I cried in the bathroom in taytas house. I cried and cried because as I had tried on the dress the day earlier, I was confronted by a wave of grief. I looked at myself in the mirror and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Who was this person, why the hell was it female? You see, in my mind I am male and then when I was forced to look at myself in a dress and heels with a body that had curves in all the wrong places – well it was the equivalent to having a second nose. After I had a good cry, I looked at my face in the mirror and smiled. A smile with too many teeth, and I consciously added a little crinkle in the eyes to make it more genuine. Then I glanced at my body with detachment, straightened my hair then walked out of the bathroom and told amani to hurry up and bloody get her hair finished. And that was the end. I tucked that weeping boy in the corner of my mind. And he would stay there, for years to come.

My constant battle with self harm is a result of this extreme disparity between my body and my mind. In my mind I have always been male. I want you to know that I am male not because I am uncomfortable with being a woman, but because I just am male. For years I have constantly questioned why I could not identify with the outside of me. I used to look in the mirror and think ‘this is a female body’ not ‘this is my body’. It has caused me extreme distress to live as a female, called she. My body is my prison. I used to think the only way to escape it was to destroy it. I want you to know that this is not a new thing and it is not a phase. Would you call your natural hair colour a phase? No. I would never wish what I am going through on anybody. It such a heavy burden and has been a constant weight upon my shoulders. You have always encouraged me to open up to you both, and now I am. I want you to come with me on this journey, this journey to helping to make the outside match my inside. I love you both so much, and would have kept this pain inside for my whole life if it wasn’t for my love for you. I want you to know and cherish the real me. It would really make me happy for us to sit down and talk about it with you both. I know you will need alot of time to adjust an process this, after all it took, me almost ten years to do it myself. What I really wish you will take out of this letter is my wish for all of us to help each other through this, as a family.

I’m not going to tell you I knew since I was 4 that I was not a female. Because that’s not true. This has never been about gender or gender roles; it has been about my own ability to be content with who I am. If I was born the ugliest and poorest man in the world, I would still be happier than I am now. I don’t want a mans social privilege, and I am not trying to escape being pregnant, periods or the ‘submission’ that some people believe comes with being a woman. I want for my mind and body to be one and I have tried to the best of my ability to change my mind to match my body but to no avail. So the only other option is to change my body to match my mind.

I have come to the point in my life where the balance between my own happiness and your happiness has been tipped. But I have also discovered that it’s not so black and white. We can both be happy at the same time. And this can happen if we talk and help each other so that we can come to a compromise. Please don’t think that this means I am rejecting religion or anything. I know that no matter how hard i might convince myself, God will always be a part of my life despite what you or others may come to think.

I also have realised that any negative responses our extended family might throw at me can fuck off, because if me being happy with myself makes them feel threatened, then they’re not family at all. After all they say water runs thicker than blood (Lord of the rings reference).

I want you both to think of this situation as me changing my diet to live a healthier and more rewarding lifestyle. Eating different food won’t affect your relationship with God, it won’t make you a different person – it will only allow you to evolve and become the best version of yourself, the one that was always there but just didn’t have the opportunity to express itself. Just like my body has limited my ability to express the full extent of myself, I feel as though at this moment I need to make those changes that will ultimately allow me to live to my fullest extent.
Mum, you are probably wondering why I was pissed off at you during the preparation for the formal. The same thing had happened as with Aminas engagement. Only, as I looked at myself in the mirror I saw a glimmer of hope in my brown eyes. I saw the boy, now a man, attempting to stand after years of self abuse. And then when I had to walk out and have my makeup done by one of my most cherished people on earth, I felt so sad. I felt so guilty, for not having the courage to open up to you. Instead I snapped and ignored you, treating you like I have done to myself for so many years. I want you to know that I love you so so so much and would never intentionally hurt you, but as you have probably experienced before, sometimes it’s really hard to put on a mask when the pain becomes overwhelming.

Dad, I love you so very much, more than I show because that’s how our relationship is. I find love within our intellectual conversations and brief but full hugs. I want you both to know that the person you know as Ikram is the same person you see today, but just slightly incomplete. All our conversations, laughter and promises have been real and genuine – it’s just that I have prevented you from knowing the full me. One that will hopefully accept, support and cherish as you do me now.
This is the end of my letter, and no matter how hard it was for me to write I know it will be a million times more difficult for you to process. Please take as much time as you want to discuss it between both of you and know that I will be here aswell. I really hope none of you had a heart attack before coming to this point, because I only have $300 bucks saved and I’m not sure if that’s enough for an ambulance haha.