my coming out letter
I'll post their reactions / responses in another journal entry. (after dinner or tomorrow morning one)
Mom and Dad,
I love you both, and you mean a lot to me, more than I can possibly tell you. I hope that at the end of this letter you each feel that your love for me will overcome any difficulties you may have in accepting the news regarding me that I must share at this point in time. I’ve never written something that was so difficult to put into words. I don’t wish to cause you any pain, yet I know my words will to some extent. What I am going to tell you, will shock you, and it may confuse you. You may even doubt the truth of my words, yet let me assure you now, these words have been waiting for well over a decade to be brought forth from my heart.
I have always been different, since I was a kid, and I know to some extent you both know this as well. I remember Mom talking about my bringing in frogs and turtles and bugs and other things that crawled around in my pockets. I enjoyed hunting, fishing with Dad more than doing girl things.
I remember being afraid to say anything when I started developing breasts, about how I didn’t really want them. I remember hating it when I started getting my period, feeling that this body was betraying me. I remember not fitting in, not being comfortable around anyone growing up, and in part this was because I wasn’t comfortable with my body.
You see, I’m not really a girl, I never have been, not inside. I’m a guy, in my heart and in my soul. My mind is a guy’s mind, not a girl’s.
The way I am has nothing to do with any mistakes either of you may think you might have made.
I am happy now that I have accepted my true self, happier than I’ve been in a very long time.
Please don’t think that this is something I need to be saved from, or something that therapy can fix. I spent years seeing therapists and counselors to try to fix my head. It’s not my head that’s the problem; it’s certain parts of the body. I thought very hard, and researched the risks before beginning the process I am now in the middle of.
I am taking my personal power over my own life at this point in time to fix the parts of my body that need fixing. This active change in my body began with extensive blood work and tests last year, followed by the total hysterectomy in December, and injections weekly beginning back in January. My muscle structure has begun to change. My voice has started to deepen. My hair growth is changing over my entire body. Within less than a year, only those who knew me well before starting transition will recognize that I was ever anything other than a naturally born male, which is what I need to live my life.
I don’t think that God made a mistake with putting me into this body. I think He did it, perhaps, to make me stronger, inside. Perhaps He did it to teach me how to see things in a different way. I don’t know His reasoning, but I don’t believe it was a mistake, nor do I believe that I am confused or under the influence of some outside source where it comes to knowing myself to be the way I am. My gender identity is in fact deeply rooted in my soul, as integral a part of my soul as my brain is to my body.
I hope that you can accept me as a person, even if the idea of accepting me as your son is something you never can do.
You may not think this is the case, but my love for my children, and for you two, is in part why I am moving forward, why I am active in this transition. I know that I could never truly be happy with how I was living before. I was in a very negative spiral in my life. My children deserve that their mother be happy so that their mother can be with them in a positive nature. You deserve for me to be able to interact with you in a positive nature.
I will always be your child, but I am an adult now, and have to do what is right for me, and what is the best I can manage for my kids.
In January, I began using the first name Lucas, following literally months of whittling down name choices from an original list of 900 most common first names for males in the United States according to Social Security registration records. In addition to changing my name useage; I began wearing strictly male clothes, with only the exception of when I interacted with the two of you. I waited, to tell you, to be open with the two of you, because I didn’t know how to go about breaking such earth shattering news to you. I wanted to be able to tell you in some way to decrease the painful impact of this news, but am still not certain that the path I’ve chosen for such information will do so. Should you two be able in time to accept me as your son as I hope you will, or even simply as a person, then I would like to take the name {{parents' last name}} as my middle name when I legally change my name in the near future.
I know this is a huge shock for you both, one I don’t expect or ask for you to jump to completely understanding. I hope the pain of what you may see as losing Bobbi is somehow diminished by knowing that Bobbi does live on, in Lucas. Who I am inside will not change, and neither will my love for the two of you, no matter what your choice may be with regards to accepting me.
I am willing to answer any and all questions you may have for me.
I don’t ask for you to understand what I am doing, what I am going through, only that you accept me for me, if it is within your hearts to be able to.
With all my love,
{{signed as Lucas here}}
Formerly known as Bobbi
Mom and Dad,
I love you both, and you mean a lot to me, more than I can possibly tell you. I hope that at the end of this letter you each feel that your love for me will overcome any difficulties you may have in accepting the news regarding me that I must share at this point in time. I’ve never written something that was so difficult to put into words. I don’t wish to cause you any pain, yet I know my words will to some extent. What I am going to tell you, will shock you, and it may confuse you. You may even doubt the truth of my words, yet let me assure you now, these words have been waiting for well over a decade to be brought forth from my heart.
I have always been different, since I was a kid, and I know to some extent you both know this as well. I remember Mom talking about my bringing in frogs and turtles and bugs and other things that crawled around in my pockets. I enjoyed hunting, fishing with Dad more than doing girl things.
I remember being afraid to say anything when I started developing breasts, about how I didn’t really want them. I remember hating it when I started getting my period, feeling that this body was betraying me. I remember not fitting in, not being comfortable around anyone growing up, and in part this was because I wasn’t comfortable with my body.
You see, I’m not really a girl, I never have been, not inside. I’m a guy, in my heart and in my soul. My mind is a guy’s mind, not a girl’s.
The way I am has nothing to do with any mistakes either of you may think you might have made.
I am happy now that I have accepted my true self, happier than I’ve been in a very long time.
Please don’t think that this is something I need to be saved from, or something that therapy can fix. I spent years seeing therapists and counselors to try to fix my head. It’s not my head that’s the problem; it’s certain parts of the body. I thought very hard, and researched the risks before beginning the process I am now in the middle of.
I am taking my personal power over my own life at this point in time to fix the parts of my body that need fixing. This active change in my body began with extensive blood work and tests last year, followed by the total hysterectomy in December, and injections weekly beginning back in January. My muscle structure has begun to change. My voice has started to deepen. My hair growth is changing over my entire body. Within less than a year, only those who knew me well before starting transition will recognize that I was ever anything other than a naturally born male, which is what I need to live my life.
I don’t think that God made a mistake with putting me into this body. I think He did it, perhaps, to make me stronger, inside. Perhaps He did it to teach me how to see things in a different way. I don’t know His reasoning, but I don’t believe it was a mistake, nor do I believe that I am confused or under the influence of some outside source where it comes to knowing myself to be the way I am. My gender identity is in fact deeply rooted in my soul, as integral a part of my soul as my brain is to my body.
I hope that you can accept me as a person, even if the idea of accepting me as your son is something you never can do.
You may not think this is the case, but my love for my children, and for you two, is in part why I am moving forward, why I am active in this transition. I know that I could never truly be happy with how I was living before. I was in a very negative spiral in my life. My children deserve that their mother be happy so that their mother can be with them in a positive nature. You deserve for me to be able to interact with you in a positive nature.
I will always be your child, but I am an adult now, and have to do what is right for me, and what is the best I can manage for my kids.
In January, I began using the first name Lucas, following literally months of whittling down name choices from an original list of 900 most common first names for males in the United States according to Social Security registration records. In addition to changing my name useage; I began wearing strictly male clothes, with only the exception of when I interacted with the two of you. I waited, to tell you, to be open with the two of you, because I didn’t know how to go about breaking such earth shattering news to you. I wanted to be able to tell you in some way to decrease the painful impact of this news, but am still not certain that the path I’ve chosen for such information will do so. Should you two be able in time to accept me as your son as I hope you will, or even simply as a person, then I would like to take the name {{parents' last name}} as my middle name when I legally change my name in the near future.
I know this is a huge shock for you both, one I don’t expect or ask for you to jump to completely understanding. I hope the pain of what you may see as losing Bobbi is somehow diminished by knowing that Bobbi does live on, in Lucas. Who I am inside will not change, and neither will my love for the two of you, no matter what your choice may be with regards to accepting me.
I am willing to answer any and all questions you may have for me.
I don’t ask for you to understand what I am doing, what I am going through, only that you accept me for me, if it is within your hearts to be able to.
With all my love,
{{signed as Lucas here}}
Formerly known as Bobbi