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Liam, trans man

Angela and Graham [my mother and step-father],

I must come clean and tell you something I have kept from you.

My name is Liam.

I am Liam Hay.

Your youngest son.

I just hope this doesn’t change your view of me. If this makes things awkward, I apologise.

Please do what you wish after reading this.

I was very scared to tell you and am sorry.

My mates call me Liam, also.

Lots of love

Liam

x x x x

Amy, trans woman

To my friends, family and colleagues,

I have taken great care in writing this letter because what I want from the outset is to pre-emptively explain the things you may wish to know, and to answer the questions 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. All I can say is that I will try as hard as I can to explain everything fully.

The reason I’m taking so much care, putting so much effort into making sure that what I say is what I really and truthfully want to say, is because I am writing to you all to tell you that I am transgender.

If you saw this coming, that’s great! To be honest, in the last few months I haven’t tried so hard to hide it. If you didn’t, please read on so that I can explain to you all what this means. All my life, I have felt that something was wrong. I have always felt wrong in my own body, like I didn’t fit in, as though the world I live in seemed somehow alien to me and did not fit at all with what was happening around me and happening to me. This is called experiencing gender dysphoria.

My gender identity in my brain is that of a woman, but it’s in the body of a man, and it has been this way for the entirety of my existence, regardless of how I’ve been raised or how my life experiences have influenced me.

Imagine for a second what that would be like. Imagine yourself, in the opposite body, and unable to do anything about it. You see the world as a man or woman, but have to live as a woman or man, trying to meet the expectations of society and behave and fit in with the gender that you outwardly portray. Everything about your existence is laced with lies, and there’s nothing that you can do about it.

This is how it is for me, how it’s always been for me. If you’ve always seen me as a ‘blokey’ bloke with the motorbikes, tattoos, martial arts, etc., then I guess it just means I’m a good faker. I’m sorry if this makes you feel betrayed, or wronged. That’s never what I intended to do.

For years I felt that there was nothing I could do about how I felt, and so for years I didn’t intend to do anything about it. Unsurprisingly, this did not work. Transsexuality, as I have found, is not a habit you can break, a mind-set you can force your way out of, or something you can treat with psychotherapy or drugs. It is a genetic condition that will never, ever change.

As it turns out, there is something that can be done about it. I haven’t always known it was possible to transition, which I suppose makes me pretty naïve, but even so, up until now I’ve been too terrified to make it a reality anyway. It took time, lots of time, for me to build up the courage to admit to myself that it would be a mistake to continue living as a male, and to understand that any apprehensions that I had about doing anything to solve my problems were very much outweighed by the problems themselves, and the implications that they would have on my wellbeing for the rest of my life.

So I am doing something about it. I am transitioning from male to female. It’s the only cure for my condition, and despite being scared to death I am strong enough to take it on. Here’s what this means. It means that at some time in the future, I will no longer be living as or identifying as a male. It means that I will be undergoing hormone replacement therapy to cancel out my body’s male hormones with female ones. It means that I will be physically developing as a female. In short, it means that I will be a female.

It means that I will begin to dress as a female. It means that I will no longer be speaking with my deep male voice. It means that I’m going to be spending lots of money on hours and hours of painful electrolysis to remove my facial hair.

It also means that I will be undergoing a long process to change my official documentation in order to reflect my female identity, which will of course include a change of name. Soon enough, my name will be legally changed to Amy. After many hours agonising over what name to pick, Amy just feels right to me. My middle name will be Kate after my late grandmother.

Above all the rest, this is the part I want people to understand the most. This is the part where I’m going to pour my heart out, and where I’m probably going to cry a lot. This is the part where I want to make clear that this is not a choice. I am not deciding to become a girl. This is me allowing myself to be who I am, and it is the only route that I can take, because I am done lying about who I am. In transitioning from male to female, I am going to become a second-class citizen in the eyes of many people. I am going to be opening myself up to discrimination and hate. I am going to jeopardise my job security. I am opening myself up to abandonment and rejection by my partner, our children, my family and friends, which is not something that I would choose to do. I’m going to get into debt due to cosmetic and medical bills, and this is also not something that I would choose to do. Coming to terms with this has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it has constantly sent me into depression and loneliness. Nearly every personal problem that I’ve had over the course of my life, I can trace back, almost certainly, to supressed gender identity issues. Coming to this realisation and finding acceptance within myself has taken years, and even after that the fear and uncertainty of what to do about it made me desperately unhappy.

Coming out and actually telling someone ‘I’m transgender’ was a prospect far too scary to even consider. Instead I sank inside myself, jealous of people more brave than me, and all full of self-pity, and it’s all because I was too scared to just tell anyone that there was something wrong with me. It took being completely low, down, and beaten for me to finally tell my partner Tracey, who has been so supportive. I’ve put her through hell this last year or so and for that I’m truly sorry. Despite how scary it was, and despite how scary it still is, it will get easier, and that’s why now I’m able to close my eyes, hold my breath, and send this to all of you, something that I wasn’t sure I’d ever do.

I’m writing this letter to everyone in my life so that you all can know what I’m going through, because I feel like it would be unfair for you to not know. I know you didn’t ask for me to spill my heart out like this, and I know it may be shocking to even hear it. I don’t expect you to write back with encouragement, give me three cheers or be my support group. I just don’t want to give people the wrong impression of me anymore, and this letter is my first step in showing you who I really am. If this means you don’t want to talk to me or be around me anymore, that’s okay. I really do understand. I can’t ask for acceptance from everyone. I don’t even really expect it. I just want everyone to know who I am and why.

For the near future, know that my transition is under way. Things will be changing about my dress, my mannerisms, my voice, my looks, but keep in mind that beneath it all I’m still the same person. Same likes, same dislikes, same jokes (sorry about that), same tastes. I know it’s going to be strange, I know it’s going to be different, and I know most of you have never had to go through this before. It’s okay, neither have I. I know there will be awkward situations. I know I’ll be accidentally called Ian and referred to as a male, and I know it will feel weird having to correct yourself when it comes to these things. I expect it, and I’m fine with it. I also expect questions, lots and lots of questions, and I want them to be asked without fear. I’m an understanding person, and I understand how weird this might be for some of you, and I want to minimise that as much as I can for everyone’s sake.

I’m writing this to all of my family, friends and colleagues but it is the people that I’ve known the longest that this will probably affect the most. People who I’ve known since my childhood, who have seen me grow as a person and seen me change many times in many different ways, but never this much. I do feel like I should say sorry to you for keeping this a secret for so long, for building up a wall between us that I led you to believe didn’t exist. I’m not sorry for who I am, but I am sorry for who I made you believe I was.

We only get one short life and everyone deserves the right to live it as their authentic true self. Since coming to terms with all of this, I’m already a happier person. I am taking my life into my own hands, and I’m going to live it the way that I deserve to live it. I cannot and will not go on denying who I really am.

This is my life, my story, and this is the next chapter. I hope you will all be part of it.

Love to all of you,

Amy-to-be, Ian-for-now.