The letter that got me disowned yesterday.

Mom and Dad,

I wrote you this letter because I’m a writer, and I don’t know how else to tell you what I’m going to tell you now. I think this will be the best way because it will give us time to think before talking later on. From the opening line you might be able to guess what I’m going to say, but stick with me ‘til the end. What I have to say is not easy, and it took more courage than I have ever summoned in my life to write this.

What I have to say might alarm or shock you, but that’s not why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because you raised me to be an honest person and you (Mom) have told me in the past that if I was a lesbian, you would still love me and accept me for who I am, that you would always accept me no matter what. I hope that’s still true.

So here it is, the big kahuna - since early childhood I have always felt that I was emotionally and mentally male. I honestly don’t know whether this will come as a surprise you or not. There were a lot of times when I was younger that I cross-dressed in Dad’s clothing when you guys weren’t around (from elementary school to college). I knew it wasn’t “normal”, so I always kept it a secret, at least to my knowledge. Because I knew from an early age that I was different from the other kids, and I had no way to really articulate the sense of disconnect I felt between mind and body, and because I grew up in a region of the country which is violently homophobic and fundamentally Christian, I just went into mental hiding about it. I think one of the reasons I developed such a love for reading is because it allowed me to escape the reality of my situation. It’s also one of the reasons I walked away from the church so early in life, even though I’m a deeply spiritual person. I hated feeling judged for something I couldn’t control, for the way I
was created.

This is not an issue I acknowledged openly until recently, but it’s something I’ve been suffering with since puberty. I have always been expected by everyone to do things and behave a certain way, and for the most part, I have tried to live up to those expectations as much as I could without going crazy. I know that you guys will remember the arguments we had when I was younger about me wearing a purse, dressing in boy’s clothing, or wanting to try out for the football team. My masculine feelings grew stronger and stronger throughout high school even as I did things to try and prove to myself and others that I was a girl, like wearing makeup and joining a sorority. Digging into the art department was the only thing that saved me in high school, because as an artist I could be “weird” and get away with it. Painting and writing were the only ways I could really express how deeply conflicted I was. I’ve never been good at talking about my issues or asking for help (we all know this) and shutting people out is my usual mode of operation when it comes to dealing with personal problems. Unhealthy, but true. I have spent a lot of years focusing on other people so I would not have to admit the truth about myself to myself and deal with the consequences.

The process of disclosing this to anyone has been so hard for me. Imagine spending your life looking in the mirror or looking at yourself in a photograph and not being able to recognize your own face and body. It sounds dramatic, but that’s the way it’s been all my life. I spent most of high school and college not allowing anyone to even touch me because my sense of gender dysphoria was so strong any time I tried to be intimate with someone it made me feel physically ill. I would barely let me closest friends hug me. Hence the lack of high school dates and the reason I stayed locked up in my room most of the time. (I wasn’t being antisocial for the fun of it, or to look cool, or to act rebellious and sulky). Over the years I have grown further and further apart from my true self to the point that my entire life has started to feel like an act for the benefit of others. Every day that I have worn a dress is – for me – a day in drag (and no, before you ask, it doesn’t really do anything for me except on Halloween). There were times when I felt so much terror, depression, and self-loathing that several times since my freshman year in high school I strongly contemplated taking my own life (I’m not suicidal now, so don’t freak out). When I read the statistic that 50% of transgendered people attempt suicide before the age of 20 and that 31% of them succeed, I could completely empathize.

When I couldn’t take the pressure of internalizing these feelings anymore, I talked to --- and just came out with it randomly during a conversation one night. I was relieved and grateful at how supportive he has been, not that I’m really surprised. He has literally saved my life, not once but over and over again throughout the last six years, and he doesn’t even know the half of it.

My true emotions have been so buried over the last ten years that sometimes I think I’ve lost the ability to really feel anything beneath the mask. I plan to start gender therapy soon at the ---- Gender Center in Huntsville to try and figure it all out though.

I still love both of you with all my heart and I’m not telling you this to hurt or embarrass you. Those are the last things I would want to do. I am just trying to share my whole life with you and I want you to know that I am finally coming to terms with who I am as an adult after a really hard, confusing adolescence. For years I agonized over why I was a “freak” and wondered what was wrong with me. It was like Freaky Friday, only every single day of my life. I thought if I could only meet the right guy, it would all turn out okay and I could be “normal”. But I have subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) sabotaged every romantic relationship I’ve ever been in, simply because I can’t let anyone past the guard I’ve thrown up to hide my true identity. In the past Mom, you have accused me of being “walled off”…this is why.

I’ve had these feelings since I was in early elementary school, but I have resisted coming out this entire time because I was so ashamed and bewildered. I have really struggled with it my whole life, but it’s an issue that hasn’t gone away – instead, it has caused me a lot of other cumulative psychological problems because of how intensely I have tried to suppress it over the years. For the most part I have tried to deal with this all on my own, and I don’t really have the strength to do it anymore. It’s a huge burden to bear alone.
This is not an easy thing for me to bring up at all, since I have spent the last fifteen years trying so hard not to be myself that I’ve almost completely forgotten who I am. I wanted more than anything to make you proud—and still do. I feel like I’ve been living a lie this whole time because I couldn’t man up and talk about what was really bothering me. I feel like the lowest of cowards for not bringing it up earlier. I don’t want you to blame yourselves at all for this. You both have loved me more than any parents could love their kid. This is just who I am.

Like I said before, I love you two so, so much. You both have always been there for me – to love, support, and defend me at my wildest extremes, even though a lot of the time in school I was left to defend myself because I couldn’t talk to anyone at all about my secret. I was recognized as different, so I was never really accepted by most people. I learned how to defend myself and turn into a threatening stoic because I had no choice. It was a matter of survival—literally life and death, a lot of the time. Which is why I have always longed to be somewhere else as I grew older—New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco, Africa, anywhere that I could really be myself. But ---'s non-relationship with a lot of his family has been a lesson to me that distance doesn’t help, only truth.

I hope your love and support is something that never changes, because it’s something I really depend on and always have. That’s another reason I have found it so difficult to bring the issue up—I knew I couldn’t say anything until I had the emotional fortitude to support myself in case I was disowned or rejected (though to be honest, I would be really emotionally shattered if that is your reaction). I have heard such horror stories about people like me losing their families when they come out, and that’s not something I wanted to ever happen to me over something I have absolutely no control over, and never have. One in four American teens who comes out gay or transgendered to their parents ends up dispossessed and living on the streets, usually selling drugs or becoming prostitutes. Most of them don’t survive to voting age. Now that I’m older and independent, it’s not something I have to worry about anymore, but the fear has always been there. I constantly worried about being outed.

So here’s the moment of truth: I’m transgendered/transsexual, which is defined medically as someone who strongly identifies with the opposite sex and seeks to live as their mental/emotional gender. I’m not a drag king, a hermaphrodite, a cross-dresser, or a transvestite. This has nothing to do with my sexual orientation, and everything to do with my identity as a human being. Who I sleep with doesn’t even come into play at this point.

Even if I eventually change my gender presentation to match the way I really feel inside, I’ll still be the same person I’ve been this whole time. I’ll still have the same personality – I’ll still be the nerdy kid who reads too much, writes not enough, paints into the night, protests injustice, and travels at the drop of a hat. I will still love you guys dearly, and I will still piss you off occasionally, as I have been wont to do in the past. I will still love music, animals, interior design, cooking, video games, and motorcycles. I will still work, keep my friends (at least the ones that matter), and occasionally worship when the mood strikes me. Hell, even I might get to bring someone home for a change.

If (more likely when) I pursue a full gender transition, I might also change in some ways – my voice will get deeper, my face will start to look more “boyish”, and I might be a little hormonal as I undergo therapy—it’s like a second puberty. My hair, clothes, walk, and talk will probably change too. And I will have my breasts removed whenever I can afford it, which is something I have wanted desperately since puberty. I will probably schedule a drastic breast reduction before that happens, because I can get a regular breast reduction through insurance done on the basis of medical reasons (back problems).

If I decide to go down this route, I would hope to eventually look as though I were my own twin brother. Other than having a different gender, looking a little different, sounding a little different, and being a lot more happy, friendly, healthy and outgoing (---- 2.0, if you want to think about it that way) I’ll be totally the same.

I will give you all the time in the world you need to get used to the idea of this. After all, it took me at least ten years to really come to terms with it. I guess I really have only one favor to ask. And that’s just that you treat me with the same love and respect you’ve shown me every other day of my life…nothing more. I’m still your child and still the same person I’ve always been. Just a more honest one.

I don’t know how the rest of the family will take it (and frankly I’m much more concerned with how you guys and ---- feel about it). Coming out to ---- recently was a huge relief to me because he was so chill about it, and I feel like it has definitely made us closer as siblings. His acceptance of me was literally one of the happiest moments of my life. One of the smaller reasons I decided to come out is because I think Sean might be gay, and I’m not setting a very good precedence for his future well-being by cowering in the closet just because I’m insecure about being true to myself, but I don’t think I’m ready to come out to the extended family yet. You are welcome to share this news with them if you want, in your own time, but I just don’t think I could emotionally stand any rejection or disappointment that may come from me sharing this part of myself right now. I am still the same person – I don’t plan on running around waving a rainbow flag or anything, just in case you were worried about it. I just want to come out of my shell a little and really live my life—find someone to love, maybe raise a family, etc—instead of isolating myself in some trailer in the woods, and I hope that you and the rest of the family will eventually be able to accept that.

So just a couple more things:

This is not your fault. Don’t feel guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong (and as far as that goes, neither did I). You are the most wonderful parents anyone could ever ask for. The best things you could ever do for me were to love and support me, and if you hadn’t done those things in the past, I wouldn’t be bothering to tell you this now. Now that you know, I need your love and support more than ever.

Nobody “recruited” me, and this is not a phase (if it is, it is a phase which has lasted roughly 20 years of my life, and I don’t expect it to change anytime soon). This is an issue I’ve been dealing with since I was a little kid, and I hung out with the queer kids in college for the love and acceptance they afforded me when I couldn’t bear to love or accept myself (thank God for them, because I might not be here if they weren’t there for me). Nobody could have recruited me if they wanted to– I never would have chosen to be born this way if I had a choice, if only to spare myself the pain of having to deal with it.

This is not “curable”, just in case anyone tells you otherwise. The only legitimate treatments recognized by psychologists for transgenderism are hormone therapy and sex reassignment. The reason I put “curable” in quotes is because I do not feel that I have a disease or a mental disorder, and there is nothing else wrong with me that is not secondary to this. Likewise, this is not some kind of sexual fetish for me either. Being a guy is a fundamental part of who I am, who I’ve always really been, regardless of what I look like on the outside. At worst, being born transgendered is like being born with a genetic birth defect, like a cleft palate or a club foot. Present medical theory seems to most strongly consider it the result of hormonal imbalance during development of the fetal brain. At best (and this made me feel a lot better about myself) native peoples have always revered transgendered people throughout their history and respect them as a third gender. It’s a phenomenon that has been documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America, among every type of native and primitive culture. So I’m not really alone, and never have been.

Please, please, please appreciate how hard it is for me to even broach the subject with you or anyone else, since not only did I have to get up the crazy fatalistic guts it took to admit it to myself, I also now have to take the very real chance that anyone I disclose this information to will reject me, condemn me to hell, or refuse any further contact with me. I couldn’t care less whether other people reject me or not (their loss, I reckon, I’m an awesome person and I have a lot of cool things to offer the world) but I care a hell of a lot whether you do, which is why it took so long for me to talk to you about it.

I am sorry that I could not tell you sooner, and in person. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell myself sooner and assert my identity sooner so that this would be easier for everyone involved, and I’m sorry that I have wasted so many years of my life pretending to be someone I’m not. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t continue to hide such a big secret from my family. My coworkers, classmates, and friends have never really gotten to know who I really am. I never realized what a gigantic psychological burden I’ve been carrying around until I came out to ----. Ever since then it has been like a huge weight has been lifted and I am finally able to be myself, if only around him for the time being. I have wanted to come out to a few more people since then, but I wanted you two to be among the first ones. I wanted to tell you myself, in my own words, and I wanted to get it all out there at one time, in no uncertain terms, without any kind of interruption or
emotional breakdown.

For the longest time I planned on never telling anyone and hoping it would just go away, but now I truly realize that I don’t have a choice in this, and that I will have to be this way my whole life, for hell or high water. Not that it’s a horrible thing, it’s just a lot different than I expected, and a lot more complicated. For me, the worst part was always the secrecy, and I regret the fact that it became so second nature to me I didn’t even realize I was doing it anymore.

Well, I don’t want this to be any more overwhelming than I know it already is. So I’ll end here and let you talk it over between yourselves and whatnot. Don’t feel the need to approach me about it all at once, I realize it’s a lot to take in at one time. (It was for me.) If you try to call me immediately after reading this, I will probably not answer because I am terrified of your response and I really want you to take a little while and think about what I’ve said before responding.

I’ve inserted a couple of pamphlets you might want to read and/or look into to help you understand what I’m going through. You can talk to me about it whenever you’re ready. No rush.

If you want to talk to some people who can relate to the position you’re in (having a kid come out to them) you can email in to the local PFLAG Huntsville chapter here: [email protected] I also know of an online support group (chat) for the parents of transgendered folks on Thursday nights, if you would like to talk to other parents in
your position.

I thought about waiting to send this to you until after I had been in gender therapy for awhile so you would know I was dead serious, but I wanted to catch you before you bought me any clothes for Christmas. (Just kidding. That was jokingly suggested to me by a different therapist though.) Actually, I just wanted you to be the first ones to know because I love and respect you so much. Also, I have been roundly informed by those who have gone before me that there is absolutely no good time to deliver this particular news, so for my own peace of mind, I thought better to get it out as soon as possible.
So it is what it is. I love you. More than the most.

~ Me

 

Thanks Rae...

I'm actually a lot more at peace with it than I thought I would be, but then again, I've been psyching myself up for the worst case scenario for about ten years, so while I was hoping for a more positive experience, I wasn't expecting one. I'm just really surprised at how homophobic and fundamentally religious my father turned out to be, especially considering I haven't seen him step into a church in over ten years. He called me a blasphemy and said that I need to turn back from my "dark and forbidden" lifestyle choice. *eyeroll*

I'm still hoping that this initial reaction is just shock and grief, and that eventually they will come around to the truth of what I said. But last night was pretty awful though, even over the phone.

My brother is accepting of me though, as is my best friend and several other people who love me exactly the way I am, so at least I do have a strong support net in other people, and I'm financially independent, so that's something I don't have to worry about. But if my family does ultimately cast me out, I'll have to find family somewhere else I guess...

 

Okay, so my parents were just overreacting. I'm not disowned after all. We talked it through, and it's all good.

(Yay~)

 

No problem, if they fit ya, do with them what you will.

I will explain more about how this situation unfolded tomorrow, it's kind of a crazy story, though I'm sure some people here will relate.

 

Thanks for all the support y'all.

To make a long story short, my parents did NOT react well to that letter at all. My dad immediately blamed my roommate (who is gay) and pretty much thought that he "turned" me - obviously, to him, I am queer because I spend too much time hanging out with queer kids...not that I hung out with queer kids because I was queer or anything. :dry:

He told me to have my roommate out by the end of the week, and threatened to beat the **** out of him to my brother and drag me back to my hometown.

I won't post my dad's email, because it mainly focuses on my roommate and not on me (and he's changed his position since he wrote it) but here's my rebuttal to him:

Dad,

First off, please do not threaten my friends - straight, lesbian, trans, queer, gay, whatever. Any of them. Ever. And especially ---, for the reasons I've already explicitly told you in the nicest way I knew how. I'll acquiesce to your wishes about bringing him over to your house, because it is *your* house and you have the right to bar anyone you'd like from it. But *my* home is ---'s home, it always has been, and you don't have the right to threaten him there or anywhere else. I've instructed him not to open the door to you until you've become more calm and reasonable about the situation, and to call the police if you show up out at the trailer while I'm not there. Please spare me the pain and humiliation of having to have my own father arrested in my front yard, and don't do it. I've endured enough pain and humiliation over the years without having to go through that too. Don't come to my happy home to drag me away out of some misguided attempt to "save" me, don't threaten to hurt my kind-hearted and well-adjusted friends, don't bring in any kind of bigoted interventionist, religious or otherwise. I don't plan on leaving, and --- is not going anywhere either. So you may as well get that out of your head right now.

I could not possibly be more serious with you. If you show up with the intent to do harm to --- or anyone else in *my* house, I will call the police. I really hate to be that way, but your reaction has been a lot more irrational and unpredictable than I'd anticipated. I won't like doing it at all, but at that point you won't have given me any choice, because I'm honor-bound to protect anyone living under my roof, which has and always will be a safe place for people I consider to be family. That is not a threat, it's a promise. I may be a yellow belly when it comes to standing up for myself, but I'm a lion when it comes to standing up for others. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have gone head-to-head against ten thousand riot police in Pittsburgh.

Two, I may believe in God but I haven't been Christian since I converted to Buddhism at fifteen, and your reaction is the exact reason why. I cannot embrace a religion which actively chooses hate over love and would cast me out for something I have no control over. It's high time everyone else in the family started to get used to the idea. It should stop being considered a "phase" after a decade, wouldn't you agree? Anyway, I can't believe that you're taking such a strong religious bent on this, I haven't seen you in a church in over ten years. If anything, I'm the most devoutly religious person in our whole family. And you're already taking the side of the Masons against me after one meeting? You've known these new drinking buddies for one night and you've known me for my entire life, and you immediately take their side. Then you want to lecture *me* about cults...when this group has swayed you so quickly.

Your "civility" towards me is demeaning and patronizing. I let you in on my deepest secret, I invited you into a huge part of my life that you don't have the slightest personal understanding of, I explained myself in every possible way I knew how to articulate. I put ultimate trust in the two of you to love me unconditionally, just like you always promised that you would, and you failed the test. Big time. I laid my heart at your feet and you stomped on it for fear of losing social approval. You took sides against me, your own blood, instead of standing with me or even taking more than five minutes to process what I told you. God forbid I had actually come out in high school like I wish I'd had the courage to do, I'd probably be living on the street. Or, more likely, I probably would have just thrown myself off the ------ bridge. It crossed my mind often enough when I was younger.

I hang out with queers because I *am* a queer, and I have been for as far back as I can remember. Anything I have told you to the contrary over the years has been a carefully-constructed lie to protect myself from your disapproval. So you can scapegoat my friends all you want, but I was transgendered a long, long time before I knew any of them. If you'll think back on the way I acted growing up, you'll probably start to realize that. (I hope so.) And I did date in college, I have just kept you guys separate from that part of my life because I was delaying the day when I would have to see you act this way. I was hoping it would never come.

This is not "I want to be a boy because no one desires me as a girl". Believe it or not, I have no problem getting people of either sex to sleep with me - I have a problem committing to them emotionally because I'm afraid of being rejected for who I am. This is "I am not a girl, and never have been, and can no longer pretend to be." Period.

This is me growing up and taking control of my own life. Other people are no longer going to dictate how I dress, how I cut my hair, who I hang out with, who I sleep with, or who I am in any regard that is no business of theirs. My closet and my bed are nobody's business but mine. I am tired of cannibalizing my self-identity to please other people, who only love and approve of me when I do things they agree with or line up with their idea of who they think I should be, when they don't even really know me. I have my own set of strong beliefs, I think that should be obvious to anyone who thinks they have an idea of who I am. Spending the rest of my life lying to people or pretending to be someone I'm not to avoid making other people feel uncomfortable is *not* something I believe in, regardless of my skulking, secretive actions up to this point. I may not know exactly who I am because I've been hiding it for so long, but at least now I can knock "big chickenshit closeted coward" off the list.

I value your opinion or I wouldn't have told you, but opinion is all that it is, and to be frank I'm extremely disappointed in yours as it stands right now. I thought you would be more mature and open-minded than this, but I am still hoping that your initial reaction is pure grief and shock, and that eventually you will come to believe what I'm trying so desperately to tell you. This has absolutely nothing to do with ---, but you seem to be a lot more concerned about him than you are about me. I wish you would stop criticizing him for five seconds and look at *me*, your firstborn reaching out to you for once in my life.

What I'm telling you is the truth, and the two of you can do with it what you will. Take me or leave me, I'm done pretending. I will no longer debase myself for the approval of others, I will not cower from anyone ever again. That is not the example I want to set for anyone who is forced to follow in my footsteps. I am done being ashamed, and I am done being afraid, and I am done hating myself for something I cannot change. This is the kind of man you raised me to be, whether you intended to or not. You can lose the daughter you never had, or help restore the loving, funny, tough, talented, sensitive, articulate son who has always been there, hiding in plain sight from you and the world. I will not hide anymore, not even if your love is dependent on me living a lie for your benefit. If you can call that sort of thing a real life.

I didn't have a choice in being born this way, but this choice is yours. Love me or disown me for all the friends and strangers you seem to think love you more than I do. But they don't. I love the three of you more than any of them. I would walk through fire for you. I would take a bullet. But don't ask me to be something I'm not. That is more than I have to give.

Love,
Me


~~~

After he got that email, he sent me one back saying that he wanted to talk to me about the issue in person, and that he and my mother were not unreasonable people, and they have no problem with me being "gay" if that is what I have decided (like it's a choice...) but their main issue was FtM transition, which they think is a mutilation.

I stopped by there after work (my parents had both called in sick because they were so upset) after talking with them, I told them I really don't have the financial or emotional resources right now to transition, and that it is the furthest thing from my mind, and that my only intent was to be completely honest with them about who I really am. I got the usual, "How do you know?" "Are you sure?" etc... sort questions, which I answered to the best of my ability.

At which point my dad is all, "You should just be a lesbian in practice, that way you can be a man with a woman's body and you can sleep with whoever you want." At which point I explained to him that trans people and gay/lesbians are totally different; however, now that I'm fully out, a lot of the gender dysphoria I've been dealing with has actually fallen to the wayside, and living as a "guy in a girl's body" is starting to sound more and more like something I can live with, seeing as medically altering myself would probably make me undesirable to a lot of women and men.

My mom is taking it a lot harder, she was real quiet while me and my dad talked, and she broke down in tears a couple of times, but my dad was totally calm at that point and even seemed a little amused by the whole thing. My mom just said it felt like I was stealing her daughter away from her, and even when she calmed down a little, she asked me, "Why can't you be more like Ellen Degeneres?" :lol:

I wanted to tell her I'm more like Ivan Coyote, but she wouldn't have got the reference. :icon_wink

Anyway, that's the rest of the story. The conversation was ended, there were hugs and kisses all around, and I went away out of the closet to my entire immediate family. Yay! (!)

 

Update: My mom seems to be completely over it too at this point, she has been emailing me back and forth all day talking about Christmas presents. No awkwardness whatsoever, smilie face emoticons and everything.

I think now that she sees that identifying as "transgendered" is not going to magically transform me into someone she doesn't recognize as her child, she's starting to chillax a little bit.