This is my current draft of the coming out letter I plan to use for family. Any comments/opinions/suggestions are welcome.
QuoteDear Mom/Dad/Family Member,
I am transgender. In short, that means that I don't identify with being male.
This is something that I have given a lot of thought to. Several years of thought to be truthful. It has been very confusing for me and I have been working through this myself as well as with a few friends for quite a while now. I am fairly recently starting to come to peace with it, so I completely understand if there is some doubt or confusion from your side. Just know that I am not confused, this is not just something out of the blue for me, it's been coming for years and I just can't suppress it any longer. I need to live my life true to myself and stop hiding who I really am.
I will try to answer as many of the questions I think you may have as I can. I'm sure there will be things I have left unanswered. I'd really like you to fully understand, so I am completely open to answering anything you may still be wondering after reading through this letter.
I was assigned, as you know, male at birth. All throughout my life, I have felt that this was wrong or didn't quite fit. This is something that has really bothered me, often to the point of depression and hating myself for being born this way. I'm not sure how good I've been at hiding it but I've been seriously depressed for almost 15 years. I've had some up periods in that time and some periods with some strong suicidal ideation. I always felt that something was wrong with me. I never knew that all these things that I've been feeling for these many years could be explained and that there wasn't anything wrong with me except that I've been in denial for many years.
I first considered that I might be transgender when I was about 16. I did some research on what it means to be transgender and really felt that it explained everything that I had been feeling for such a long time. I tried wearing girls clothes and it felt so liberating. Like I was finally being true to myself. I told a close friend about these feelings and he was very accepting and even encouraging. I could finally be myself around someone and it felt great. It was also very scary. I wasn't sure if I would be accepted by the rest of the world or even my family so I mostly kept my feelings hidden. We ended up growing apart for other reasons and since then have not really told anyone about it. I started to go back into denial and tried to live as a man again but the feelings never went away.
Does this mean I think I'm a woman in a man's body? While that is the cliche transgender narrative, to be honest, I have no clue. I don't know what it truly means to feel like a woman. How can I? I only know what it feels like to be me. What I do know is that I don't feel that I fit society's definition of a man but I do fit quite a bit better with society's definition of a woman (save for the physical parts).
One misconception that a lot of people make is that this has something to do with sexual orientation. It doesn't. There are transgender people who are gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, asexual, anything that a non-transgender person can be.
So why can't I just be a feminine man and not worry about what people think about it? It definitely does reduce some of the depression, but, feminine men don't want to be seen as female. Feminine men are still men and that's not what I feel I am deep down inside. It makes me happy to think about living life as a woman.
What causes this? Nobody really knows, but I do know that it is NOT anyone's fault. It's not because of something that happened to me or the way I was raised or anything like that. There are some theories that the brain makeup is actually different in transgender people and is more similar to the brains of the gender they feel that they are than the gender they were assigned. It's not really important to me to know why and I hope you don't dwell on this either. What is important is how am I going to deal with it now that it is here.
What does this mean for the future, what's going to change? In the short term, I know that I want to grow my hair out. I know I want to get laser hair removal for my facial hair. I know I want to dress differently, including makeup. I would like to give hormone replacement therapy (HRT) a try (taking estrogen and a testosterone suppressant). I have an appointment for this summer at a clinic in Vancouver to be assessed whether hormones will be right for me and that I am healthy enough for it not to have a largely negative effect on my health. Some of the effects of HRT are breast growth, reduction of body hair, changes in fat placement on the body and face to be more "female", softening of skin, and emotional changes as well.
As far as surgeries go, there are several that many transgender people go through. Some transgender people only go for one or a few of them. Some transgender people don't go for any. At the moment, surgery is the least of my concerns. I want to see what HRT does for me and if I can be happy with the results I get from that.
Am I changing my name? Do I want to be referred to by female pronouns? Eventually. I don't want to rush you into anything as I can understand it could be very difficult to get used to and accept. I've come to like the name Caysee Danielle.
Why haven't I said anything about this until now? As you can imagine, this has been difficult to accept for me. I've thought that maybe I could just make it go away or ignore it and I've just decided that I would never be happy doing that. I can't go on pretending to be something I'm not anymore. It's just not worth it and I don't want to end up regretting not being myself.
I hope that I have answered the majority of your concerns in this letter, and as I said, I welcome any other questions you may have beyond that. I would ask that any communication about this be through email, text, or Facebook as I am very anxious about talking about this in person or even on the phone and not sure it would be beneficial to your understanding if I am in that state. I also hope that you find it in your heart to still accept me and understand that I am becoming who I really am and that is the only way I can truly be happy. I feel that with some understanding and keeping an open mind, this will only make our relationship stronger in the end as I will hopefully finally be able to be myself and not dread leaving the house as somebody that isn't me.
Lots of love,
<Male name>(Caysee)
That is the best I have seen so far! Outstandingly worded and shows respect and dignity. Great job Caysee. :)
That's really good.
There's a lot of information in there, so make sure that you aren't overwhelming your audience.
When in doubt, chunk.
Thanks Jessica and Qwynne
Looks pretty good. I struggled with a clean letter for months before mailing it out to everyone.
I would clarify paragraph one: You had been confused, and are not anymore.
Good point, fixed it, thanks.
I am working on mine. My first reaction is that I would not lead with "the bomb". I'm trying to talk about recent events or things that may have noticed. It's just my preference though.
Nothing wrong with that at all Tiffany. We all have to tailor it because only we know our own families and what and how they can take news like this. Good call. :)
Wow. Good job!
Quote from: TiffanyT on February 16, 2014, 02:41:03 AM
I am working on mine. My first reaction is that I would not lead with "the bomb". I'm trying to talk about recent events or things that may have noticed. It's just my preference though.
I edited it again to make the first sentence not, "I'm transgender." I think that was a good call.
Quote from: Caysee Danielle on February 24, 2014, 11:53:59 AM
I edited it again to make the first sentence not, "I'm transgender." I think that was a good call.
For what it's worth I liked that opening. No beating around the bush...
I only added a couple sentences before it, kind of like "I have something I need to tell you." Not a huge amount of beating around the bush lol
Quote from: Caysee Danielle on February 24, 2014, 04:24:40 PM
I only added a couple sentences before it, kind of like "I have something I need to tell you." Not a huge amount of beating around the bush lol
That works, because when you beat around the bush the reader tends to skip to the meat of the letter :).
This is a fantastic letter! I may word mine similarly if I decide to come out. Thanks for the encouragement. Good luck to you!