A Letter To My Teen Self

A Year 2 trainee shares part of their Gender, Sex and Sexuality coursework

Click here to listen to the audio blog

Dear 13 year old me,

I know better than most that it isn’t easy being you right now. There are things about being you which don’t currently make complete sense to you and which are confusing and scary. I know how much you want to be normal, how hard you have tried to be normal.

But guess what, you are not normal. You are a special kind of being who is very rare in this world. The current guess is that only 0.5% of people are like you.

You’ve known for a long time that part of you is a boy. The world you live in does not yet have the words to help you understand this part of yourself. But you know that you want to dress like a boy and have your hair like a boy. You have always been into “boy” things – your train set, your penknife, building dens in the woods. You do not like being a girl. You particularly do not like pink, dresses, dolls, ballet, ponies or make up. You have never liked your name because it is so girly and it doesn’t fit with how you see yourself. When you were 7 or 8 you made up a boy’s name for yourself – but you did this in secret because you already knew that this wasn’t normal.

I am here to tell you that you are indeed a boy. You are a beautiful, sensitive, poetic and fragile boy. You are basically John Keats.

As you grow up you are going to meet a lot of people who don’t understand you, and some who find you threatening and confusing, and a few who are disgusted by the fact that you exist at all. People are going to make assumptions about you and put words in your mouth. Some people are going to respond to you with violence and aggression and many others will discriminate against you and treat you with prejudice. When you finally have the courage to shed your girly name, some people are going to keep calling you by it because they haven’t understood what this change means to you and how much it has taken for you to ask to be called something different and that is going to suck. But stick to your guns.

You have every right to take up space in this world. You may not know it now, but you have always been a beacon for others who are just like you. They see you shining and they get strength from your light.

You do not have anything to be ashamed of. When you finally return to that boy’s haircut (the one that you have right now) and stop worrying that it’s a bit weird to wear men’s pants and stop disguising yourself as a woman for work by wearing clothes and jewellery that deep down you hate and manage to walk away from a profession which is fundamentally transphobic, you are going to be so much happier.

I’m not saying it isn’t going to be hard. It is going to be fucking hard. But each time you correct a person who uses your old name, each time you cut your hair and dress the way that makes you feel most comfortable, each time you introduce yourself to someone new using the name that you have chosen for yourself you will become stronger and more sure.

You don’t ever have to apologise for being you. And unless at some later date you decide you want to, you don’t have to change your body. You don’t need surgery or hormones to become a boy because you already are a boy. The biggest blocks to your freedom are inside your head and they are caused by fear. Allowing yourself to be your true authentic self and showing the world who you really are is going to be the most liberating thing that you ever do for yourself.

So stand up tall and remember that you are already perfect and whole.

I love you.

From your biggest fan xx

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Read more about the Gender, Sex and Sexuality module at Homa