Dear Mummy

Dear Mummy,

I know you say, I'll always be your little girl but mum, I feel like your little boy. My penis is small and undeveloped, I lack a sack and I guess, when the doctors saw me, they assumed I was meant to be a girl. I'm not meant to be a girl, my mind screams male, while my body is trapped between being a woman and a man, and it would've been nice if my mind and body could agree on something as my gender. If I could and I've tried, I would be the "girl" the doctors' told you, you had but like life, I didn't turned out as you'd have expected, I put you through hell as a teen and even now, I'm still causing problems, even thought I don't mean to. Living life as a woman has been difficult, I felt like I was trapped in my own drag queen clothing and couldn't get out of it, even thought I was finished with pretending to be something that I wasn't. I'm trying to be myself now, I might come home crying because I felt humiliated, and I hate how people make a big deal about "correcting" someone when they've mistaken my gender. You've done this before, I'm not embarrassed by being called your son, I'm proud to be considered your son by some stranger, I'm embarrassed that someone felt the need to correct a simple error where there was none.

I want to be your son, I want you to state proudly, that this fine gentleman is your pride and joy but I try to understand, that not every parent is proud to have their child turn into another gender before their eyes. I'm trying to be understanding as I'm told, that it's not easy for the parent, I'm trying my hardest but you have to understand, it's not easy for me as well. I feel insecure about what I am doing, I know I'll lose friends, people who are close and not so close to me, I understand that and no matter how prepare I try to be, I will never be prepared for such a thing. I had hoped, you'd be there for me, to tell me that not everyone is worthy of my love and loyalty to them, to be there when I tell Gram, to back me up and let her know, that it wasn't simply a faze or something disgusting, I wanted you to be there when I sold cookies and other baked goods to afford my surgery and be there when I woke up. To smile at me proudly and tell me all went well, that I'm your little boy and always will be, that no amount of legal paperwork will ever change what you know in your heart. But instead, I feel like an outsider, begging for some affection and understanding, turning towards my friends for support and understanding, sometimes I find it, other times I find disgust and confusion, I know when I come out of this endless maze, I'll be a stronger person, I'll have found my family and I hope at the end of this, you'll be a part of my family. Who'll be the monster-in-law to my wife? Who will spoil the children? Tell them embarrassing stories of when their father was younger and tried to get away with idiotic lies?

Mum, I might not be your little girl but I'll always be your little boy, I'm still the same person that you had raised, I lived through the same things, that your "little girl" lived through. But you have to understand, that while the girl was living, I lived in the shadows, I was beneath the mask, waiting for the day, that I could come through and show everyone, that I had been merely playing hide and seek and been forgotten until now. I've tried to tell you this, so many times, that while I might've seem like a woman, I was merely pretending for your sake, to try and make you proud of something that I wasn't. I hope at the end of this, your tears will be ones of happiness, to finally understand where I'm coming from, I'm a boy trapped in a young woman's body and some day, I'll be a young man, that you'll be able to proudly say, that this is your son.