Dear S-

It’s 1982. You are 12 years old. Tonight you are crying yourself to sleep. You just came in from standing under a tree with a rope. You were ready to hang yourself. You thought you couldn’t live any more if you couldn’t be a girl. But you got afraid. You thought it would hurt. You wondered if it would even work at all. You worried about waking up in a hospital not knowing what happened after you pulled the rope. You thought about your parents waking up in the morning and finding you and not knowing what they did wrong. You just couldn’t go through with it. So you went inside and went to bed with tears of shame and despair.

I want to hold you and hug you tight to me and comfort you because I know the pain you are feeling. It was my pain too, you know. I want to stroke your hair and tell you that you really are a girl and nothing anyone says can ever change that and there’s nothing wrong with you wanting to live your life in the way that makes sense to you.

Everyone thinks you are a boy. They expect you to be a boy. They give you things boys like: an autographed baseball; a pocket knife; a skateboard. They think you are just being a nerd about your love of the Lord of the Rings. They don’t know that you really want to be Arwen, the daughter of Elrond. Or really anyone at all from Middle-earth. It’s just a better place than the real world.

No one knows (yet) about the stash of clothes you have hidden under the carpet in the bathroom closet, with all the unused sheets and blankets piled on top to conceal the bulge. Clothes you stole from the store room where a bunch of Mother’s old stuff still is. A few things taken from the back of her overly stuffed closet. Clothes you took because it was the only way to get anything resembling the styles you really want to be wearing all the time. At home, at school, and anywhere else you go. After all, no one is going to go out and buy you nice clothes of your own. Nope, you get stupid Izod shirts, t-shirts, and Levi’s blue jeans. Because you only ever wear what Mother buys for you. Because you don’t care to put any effort into your appearance if you can’t actually dress like you want to. Because it makes you invisible.

I want to tell you about all of the misery and suffering that lies ahead, but also the joy and euphoria that comes after it. I want to warn you about the future suicide attempts. I want to tell you about the euphoria that fills you up when you finally admit to yourself that you are trans. I want to tell you about the incredible relief and overwhelming sense of joy that comes from the first time someone simply calls you by your real name. I want to tell you about the sense of normalcy that you experience for the first time in your life when you finally see yourself naked in a mirror after getting surgery.

I want to tell you not to be afraid of letting others know how you feel in high school. They won’t do anything bad to you. The beatings you already get at the hands of boys in junior high is so much worse than anything that would happen in high school, and you are strong enough to handle coming out to your friends.

Do you remember when L- caught you dressed as a cheerleader and getting ready to kiss K-? You should have kissed him! You should have laughed at L- and told her to go away because y’all were just playing and there was nothing wrong with what you were doing.

Do you remember when T- told you that you weren’t allowed to be a girl when playing house? You should have played a girl anyway and just laughed at her.

The future holds both pain and joy for you but the joy wins out in the end and you really do become the girl – the woman – you were always meant to be. But this night you are in pain. This night you cry because you feel completely helpless and useless, not even strong enough to end your own suffering. So sleep now. You will wake up feeling exhausted and beaten down. You will go through life numbly, always trying to avoid feeling anything at all. But in the end, you will find peace and joy and all the suffering will fade away.

Sleep, and dream of the future.