This is my coming out letter to my dad. I will soon have to tell him because changes will happen that will become hard to hide in the near future. My plan is NLT 1 january 2016. What are your thoughts. Mandy is my sister to mitigate confusion.
Dear, Dad
What you are about to read in this letter may be both confusing and very disturbing at the same time coming from your son. As you know from childhood, I have gained interests, hobbies and life skills deriving from them and not to mention they have fluctuated throughout the years. I followed much in your foot steps on some of those things. I played with electricity, light sockets, wall plugs, switches, and wired multiple amount of electrical devises together. I master the art and sciences of taking objects apart no matter their complexity and was able to simultaneously diagnose the problem, fix, and re assemble them to the same product even at an early age. I have grasped the understanding of computers and math also at an early age. I have built engines, 4x4s and learned all the mechanics that back them. I even took up hunting, fishing, shooting, and 4 wheeling all throughout the years. I conquered the ultimate life one guy could only dream about living or having. I was even able to maintain 4.0 average in whatever academic study I was taking between grade school, college, and even a rigorous agent course. I am still currently raising a loving caring family successfully. I have done all that on my own in return I know I have made you proud. I have made myself proud doing so also.
While doing all of the above mentioned, I have been living and coping daily with a deep and depressing issue dating back to the early years of living in Greensboro. I have been dealing with having a gender identity disorder and have always thought of myself as a female and not male but was too afraid to voice my feelings. Ever since Mandy dressed me up when I was little was what triggered the female feeling. I felt more myself and that's how I should have been born as but always buried my feelings behind my masculinity. Thorough out the years, I have been afforded several opportunities to explore my female side, dressing in Mandy's clothing was easy especially when she would pile bags of clothes into my room like my room was a storage facility for her junk but I never complained. I was expressing myself in the privacy of my room. I was also to establish a pattern of life on everybody in the house which included sleep schedules, work schedules, how often you or Mandy were gone and worked that around my life so I can get an hour or two alone to dress and be myself. I was employing tradecraft before I even came into my current job. Dressing was the main way I would escape the depression I was going through. When I met Nicky in 5th grade, I was also given opportunities to dress in some of her clothes which she adored. Early on she did think it was a joke which she now realizes is not. She has always accepted it. I cannot think the last time I have worn male underwear other than for a urinalysis in the army. That shows how long I have been dressing. I dress even when I am away from Nicky and again employ extensive tradecraft to do so while avoiding detection. I started doing this in Fort Jackson with Nicky's underwear.
It wasn't until Arizona, that I was able to out into public dressing in girl clothing. The first year I went out, I was able to run into a lesbian female who went to a gay pride festival with me where I was able to openly cross-dress without being judged. I must say this feeling was good that I can actually be myself, who I really was. The second year, I found the main coordinator for pride and was able to volunteer and work for him and support the lesbian gay bi transgender queer (LGBTQ) community. Within this community I met some of the nicest people who always say be who you are and don't hide anything. I took the way they live and what they said to me and pondered the thoughts for a year until I got one more chance to go out to AZ on the government's dime. I told myself that I need to go out as a women and embrace who I really was. I got onto a LGBTQ forum and ran into another male to female transgender individual. Getting the pronouns correct, she spoke with me and explained the lifestyle of transgendered individuals and agreed to take me out to show me that being transgendered is accepted despite the few narrow minded people you may run into. I had a pleasant experience wearing a wig and the female clothing while having a conversation about life in general over a few drinks. This felt like me and I was ready to embrace it along with the challenges that come with it. I was going live as a female when I could.
It was shortly after I went out as a women is when I came out to Nicky about my crossdressing was deeper and that I always felt like a female. I told her how I went out as a female with a fellow transgender individual. Without hesitation, she accepted the new me. As soon as I got back I started working on makeup, nails, and dressing better. Then I developed the courage to come out to all my friends Matt, Russell, Austin, Cory, and Big Jeff in which all were accepting me as a women just like they did as a man. I invited them all over to see me. I began developing a plan to get her out to AZ so she could see for herself that it was accepted in public around certain places and that it was everywhere. When I took her out to AZ during our journey, I lived 3 out of 4 days in my female form, completely in public aside from visiting John. I went to restaurants, bars, and pride with her. I came out to a lot of my friends as a female while out there also because these are the people I will also be working with in the future. They were all accepting 100% and told me they didn't care what gender I was or what I was wearing. Even when Nicky and I went out to a restaurant they called us ladies plural, which felt amazing.
There was nothing nobody could have done to prevent this. I do wish I had come clean a long time ago. I need to stop living a big lie and start being true. I am not moving out to AZ to run away from family and so called responsibility back home. I am moving there because I can simply be accepted for who I am. I have an entire established support network out in AZ for me. I am not doing this as a Catelyn Jenner trend band wagon. I am doing it because I can no longer take the emotional pain of hiding myself anymore. I was told you get 2 lives to start with. The one your born with ie. Your parents and where you go home to as a child, and the second one where you grow up and function in adulthood based off your up bring. I created a 3rd life based off not living a lie anymore. I doubt that I will ever want the sex reassignment surgery but I have been on hormones to more turn my body feminine. I do not regret the experiences I have gained during my upbringing because they helped shaped my brain into what it is today. I regret not telling you this earlier while I go off and live a closeted sheltered life. After all, I know this is a hard pill to swallow and I hope you can accept me for who I really am.
Sincerely,
James (Jamie)
