letter to my mother, coming out to EC

Dear Mom,
it has taken me a lifetime of quiet conflict and six months of intense daily introspection to finally understand and accept that I am a transsexual person. I know this is confusing but please respect that for the last year especially I have confronted this same confusion on a daily basis, always doubting, questioning, and trying to find information to help me understand. I am and have always been male. This has nothing to do with anything you've done as a parent and has everything to do with who I am and have always been.

Try to imagine how devastated and disgusted I was when puberty hit and I lost my androgynous body, started bleeding, developed fat and started losing the ability to be 'one of the guys'. Please try to imagine how all my life I have known in my mind "i'm not a girl", but everyone sees me as a girl and treats me as a girl, no matter what I do. Things I thought of as normal or "just the way it is" have become clear to me as signs of gender dysphoria, which is something many people go through. I never thought there was any other option than being a man in a woman's body, trying to make the best of it, and be the best person I could be regardless of gender.

I have found a great deal of respite on the internet and it has served as a place for me to be myself all these years. Being gender-neutral while making friends, or being seen as masculine, made me so happy. And having to reveal, "I'm female" always felt nasty and unpleasant, like something had come to an end. I have never wanted to lie and always came clean about my true sex until last year when I committed to being male online with one group of friends for five months of daily interaction and never told them otherwise. I struggled so much with guilt and wanting to be completely honest with them, but I knew I would be treated as 'a girl trying to be a guy' or judged, maybe even ostracized. I thought I should just give up and leave them so I wouldn't have to confess my secret and spare them any more deception. But it was so important to me to have a place to be male, and almost all of the time it felt right and honest. And I found that many of the reasons I wanted to tell them, such as explaining "why I'm not attracted to her" had nothing to do with gender afterall.

Every single day I can remember, I have judged myself on my behavior or thoughts based on how it stacked up against "how men are" vs "how women are". Until very recently I have been intensely insecure about my own masculinity. "How can I be a man when I was born female and have been raised to feel and think like a girl," "How can I be male when many of my interests and preferences are more feminine," "How can I be male when I'm not aggressive, competitive, into sports, etc" and the answer is that gender isn't separated into clean black and white checkboxes. The kinds of things attributed to men and women are different from culture to culture and person to person. There are pacifist men, and men who are artists, and men who have no interest in violence and competition. There are also women who are enthusiastic about such things and are incredible athletes. Women don't need to be beautiful, mild, shave their legs or wear makeup and jewelry to be women. People don't need to apply to stereotypes and expectations to be who they are. It has taken me a very, very long time and a great deal of heartache to accept and embrace this so that I can stop judging, hurting, and denying myself who I have always known myself to be. I have been through so much in the last six months in particular. I have been an outcast to male and female every day, always striving, self-deceiving to see a flicker of myself in the mirror, and being crushed when others do not recognize my efforts, even go out of their way to confirm "yes, this is a weird butch woman and definitely not a boy". Even conceiving of the thought, "I am trans" took weeks, and longer than that to find acceptable. I am keenly aware of how I may be judged, disrespected, and treated poorly by others for taking this step to accept myself. I am keenly aware that I can never replace a lifetime of being raised as female with being raised as male- and I don't blame you for that. It has taken me this long to understand things, there was no way for you to know. The past is the past. But I do have the choice now to change my future.

I am trying to find the right counseling for me now. It took a month but the school office has contacted me again for an intake session, and I am trying to get a response from a place in town that may help me with insurance. I'm going to talk with them to decide whether continuing to live as female, or transitioning (changing my legal name, hormone therapy, surgery) so I can "pass" or be recognized as male will be the best option for me now. But I'm also seeking help to deal with the chronic depression. Although this issue of gender dysphoria certainly contributes to my social anxiety and stress in going out into the world and engaging with others, it is not the sole cause of my mental illness and dealing with it will not make my depression cleanly disappear. I have agonized over whether 'wanting to be a man' is caused by the depression but all of the research, introspection, and discussion with doctors has brought me to the conclusion that curing my depression will not 'cure' my dysphoria, just as dealing with my dysphoria will not rid me of depression. Both are part of me.

I sincerely hope that you would want to be a part of this as I deal with these things and find my future. I sincerely hope that you will support me, because financially, physically, and mentally, none of this is going to be easy. Please take your time deciding how you want to deal with this and I will continue to do my best to take care of myself and do what is right for me.
love,
rt

---------- Post added 25th Jan 2013 at 02:53 PM ----------

To you guys, I hope you don't mind me posting such a long letter. I don't know when or even if I'll send it. But I wanted to come out to all of you as well, as I have kept my gender private until now out of fear of being judged or treated differently.
I am very grateful to have this space to take these risks and come out even a little bit... Thank you for reading.

 

Thank you so much... I'm not ready to really send it to her and open that can of worms yet. That's still more of a fantasy than a reality. But being able to come out to myself and "publicly" here and have your hugs and support means a lot to me. (*hug*)
It makes me want to start coming out to some of my close friends.

 

I wish you the best of luck too. I feel lucky that I am mostly independent and have good friends who will help me if it turns out her religious conviction cuts her out of my life.