‘If you had tried to understand, maybe we would still be talking’: the letter you always wanted to write

I don’t think you tried, did you? To understand, I mean. A few years ago, I started dressing in a way that made me feel seen; feel comfortable; feel myself. But you saw it as an affront, a subversion of what is good and right for me. “Why the short hair? Why the masculine clothing? Don’t you know you look like a boy?” That was kind of the point.

Your intrusive questions came to a head when, in a heated conversation, you brought up how I was obviously trying to look like a boy. You just had to ask me: “Do you want to be a boy?”

If you had refrained from commenting on how you saw being “transgender” as impossible, or fake, or unreal, or a joke right in front of me all those years ago, maybe I wouldn’t have been so afraid to say “Yes … sort of.”

If you had tried to understand, instead of calling me impressionable and discounting the validity of my gender expression, maybe we would still be talking. Maybe I wouldn’t have hidden my transness for more than two years to satisfy the implicit expectations of me not to be a boy.

As it is, you decided to ask other people questions, to discuss my gender with my siblings without me being present, debating whether I was transgender or maybe just gay. As if masculine straight women don’t exist. As if gender is not a beautiful spectrum, which sexuality sometimes intersects with, but is not dictated by.

A letter to... my potential affair Read more

I am not straight, or a woman but that’s not the point. You saw what I was doing as a transgression and you pushed that until I had no choice but to come out or risk being pushed further back into the closet by refuting the truth. That was not your right.

I understand if you’ve stopped reading by this point.

It’s hard to hear that you are responsible for hurting someone. But, if you got this far, I’m going to give you a tip: instead of asking questions, take action to make people feel comfortable enough to be honest. Projecting your ideas of normality and coating them in a thick layer of “concern” achieves nothing.

At the end of the day, you took away my right to define myself and to decide when I would share that with other people.

This is how you pushed me away. Reflect and do better.

• We will pay £25 for every letter we publish. Email family@theguardian.com, including your address and phone number. We are able to reply only to those whose contributions we are going to use.