I would like some advice, please.

I have known that I don't feel comfortable in my body since I was young. Although I am twenty and have known what transgender means for quite a while, I didn't realize that the term accurately describes how I have felt my whole life until several weeks ago. I have already begun my transition as best I can without seeking therapy or letting anyone know what I am doing. I have bought a binder and some male clothes, and in them I feel the happiest I have been in my entire life. No one thinks of me as male, but I hardly expect them to just yet.

I need to tell someone about what I've kept bottled up inside me for so long. I want to tell my parents, but I'm afraid of how they'd react. My mom still refuses to believe that my attraction to girls is anything but a phase, and my dad believes that any mental illness can be overcome by sheer willpower alone. I love them, and I know they love me, but I'm afraid they won't support me in this.

I was wondering if anyone would like to take a look at the letter I wrote for them (I have too much anxiety to just say it aloud) and give me some advice or tips.

If so, here is the letter:

~

Dear Mom and Dad,

Before I start, I’d like to thank you for everything that you’ve done for me. I know that I would not be here today if it weren’t for your support and love. I know that what I’m about to tell you will be hard for you to hear, but I’d like you to save any questions you have until I am done. Otherwise, I will probably break down crying, which I might even do anyway, because this is difficult for me to write. By the time you read this (or I somehow muster the courage to say it aloud), this letter will likely have dozens, if not hundreds of revisions, because I want to find the right way to express how I have felt all my life.

For years, I’ve tried to figure out who I am, with no success. Everyone always asks me, “Where do you see yourself ___ years from now?” Honestly, I have no idea how to answer them. How can I tell them that I see no future for myself the way I am now? My whole life, I have struggled with my identity. Everyone seems to expect me to be a female, because that is the body I was born into. I am expected to fit into the role of a woman: marry, have children, be a good girl, etc. But that is not who I am. That is not who I have been my whole life, and that is not who I will be.

I am transgender, a male living in a female body. I didn’t just wake up one morning and say “Oh, hey, I feel like a man today.” This is a struggle I have been going through for as long as I can remember. When I was young, I hated wearing girly clothes. As I have grown older, I can see the appeal to someone who identifies as female, but I still do hate wearing those clothes. They don’t suit me as a person. I also remember playing “house” with the girls in the neighborhood and wanting to be the “dad”. I was so confused when I was expected to do things that girls did; I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be like the boys.

Further confusion came along when I hit puberty. I had been having issues with depression since Bill died, but beginning to get breasts and a more feminine figure really hit me hard. I didn’t identify as female, but my body decided otherwise. I began to loathe myself for not being seen as who I really was. My depression worsened; my grades slipped for years; I began to take my frustration out on my body. Shortly after leaving my first high school, I began to self-harm. It was small at first, only happening when I felt upset or extremely uncomfortable with my body, but as my frustration and depression grew, it happened more and more frequently, until I was doing it every day after I got home from school. For a time I considered suicide; I actually wrote my note out once, before I thought about Julian and Shelly and how they wouldn’t understand if I suddenly disappeared. I couldn’t do that to them.

I have spent most of my life trying to conform to the role expected of me as a biological female. I have dated men, but I had (and have) no sexual attraction to them. I have been attracted to women ever since I started having attraction towards anyone at all. When I imagine being in a relationship, it is always with a woman who will understand and love me for who I am, not for who I pretend to be.

I understand what I am opening myself up to - a lifetime of discrimination, hate crimes, and rejection. But I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t live in a body that I hate for the rest of my life, because if I do my self-hatred will get stronger and stronger until I can’t bear it anymore. I plan on finding a gender therapist who will, hopefully, help me with my transition. I wish to start hormone therapy so that I look and sound more like the man I was meant to be. Once that is underway, I want to have top surgery (a double mastectomy), and perhaps even sex reassignment surgery.

All of that will take a while, I understand. But it will be worth it in the end. I will feel comfortable in my body for the first time in my life. I have already begun to transition as well as I am able. I have purchased a binder (a device used to compress female breasts to create a more masculine form) and have begun to purchase male clothing. It is a process, I know, but it gets better every day. For now, the best thing that you can do is to try to call me by male pronouns and use my preferred name, Ari. I realize that this will be uncomfortable and awkward at first, but all I ask is that you try. If you don’t wish to support me in this, I understand completely. But if you do, it will be the greatest thing in the world for me.

I am sorry if I have caused you any distress, or if you feel like I have lied to you. That was not my intent. I have lived in denial of my true self for most of my life, and I cannot do that any longer. I need to be myself, not a pretender.

Thank you for being there for me throughout my life. I truly hope that you will continue to do so for the rest of it.

Your son,

Ari Logan B-----

 

Thank you Stewie and Bouldghirl for your support!

This whole thing just makes me extremely nervous for some reason. What if I go to a therapist and they tell me that I'm not trans, even though I believe I am? I still live with my parents due to financial inability to live anywhere else - what if they kick me out and I have nowhere to go?

My mind keeps focusing on the negative possibilities rather than the positive ones. Each time I think I'm ready to say something or give them the letter, I begin to have a panic attack. My chest is actually hurting from the anxiety and suppressed emotions.

 

Thank you for your response, Logan.

Unfortunately, I do not know my parents' stance on transgender people. We talk about same-sex marriage on occasion, but I know nothing about their view on transgender people.

I don't know if there is anyone I could stay with if they reject me after I come out. The few friends I have stayed in touch with after graduating high school still live with their families as well and I don't want to be a burden on them. My great-aunt lives down the road from us, but I doubt I'd be allowed to stay with her, either.

I just need to find the right time to tell them. I want it to be soon. I feel more and more anxious and uncomfortable in my body with each passing day. But each time I come close to telling them, I have a panic attack and chicken out.

 

Thank you, Stewie. Tomorrow might be a good day to do it; it's my day off and my parents will both be working. My heart is already pounding at the thought of them reading it, haha. I was planning on trying to find a secondhand clothing store where I can get some cheap men's clothes tomorrow, so it will be good practice, going home and looking at it afterwards. I want to begin switching my wardrobe over from female to male clothing.

 

Aaaagh! My dad came in my room just now and I had the letter on my bedside table and he was kinda glancing at it but I panicked and flipped it over so he couldn't see anything. ;-; I'm a chicken.