a letter on my gender

Mom,

when I came out to you as gay when I was fourteen years old, you said you worried that my life would be harder because I was out as queer. Now you're saying it when I try to come out to you as trans. You don't believe that I am really trans. You don't believe that starting hormones and living my life the way I need to is truly necessary. I understand your fears and concerns. I know that you think that asserting myself as male will make my life unnecessarily complicated, and that it won't do anything to improve my quality of life.

You are wrong. Being true to myself is only going to increase my happiness, my well being, my ability to succeed in life more than you can ever imagine. There are many things about me, which I cannot change, that make my life harder than the average bear's. I am short, and bipolar, and queer. But I don't let these things stop me. The one that has stopped me for the longest, being bipolar, I finally have under control. And I have it under control because I'm not ignoring it anymore; it's the same with my gender identity. I'm not ignoring it anymore, and I have to act on it. Being true to myself, asserting myself, telling people to use male pronouns, taking hormones, dressing in men's clothing, changing my name - it's all necessary. And it's all good. These changes, yes, they might make some people uncomfortable. But I can't live my life based on the fear that people will reject me for being who I am.

I hope you can understand that this is the right thing for me to do, that it is not a phase, that it is not based on some vague dissatisfaction with my life. This is who I am, and just because you never saw it doesn't mean that it wasn't there.

This is my decision, and I know that it's the right one.

Love, Rowan