"[My brother],
I'm sure you've got a packed life before you run off to college or whatever else, but it would mean a lot to me if you could read all of this. This is [old name's] email, by the way - if you don't have it in your contacts or whatever.
So. I know we never had the greatest sibling relationship when we were growing up. I think things are better now that both of us have our own friends and lives. I hope you don't think that I hate you or anything. It was hard for me to grow up and see Mom and Dad treat you differently (for whatever reason) – the things you were/are able to get away with, all the attention you got, all the stuff you were allowed to have, lose, and get replaced. For a long time, I felt like I was getting the short end of the stick. And while I don't think you were rubbing it in my face or anything, it was hard to grow up in that situation and form some great sibling bond with your little brother. So I apologize for taking any negative feelings out on you - I was stupid and young.
I hope as you get older, you have great friendships and relationships. Living in a house with Dad and [our stepmother] is probably insane, and I'm sure you'll figure out what you want to do with your life once you get a little space from them. If I can give you any advice for college or getting a little older, it would be to try new things, and avoid fucking up too badly. Try to be a good person, and try to help others do the same. Listen to people, try not to be selfish (especially if you're sleeping with/dating that person). Even if this is a weird or awkward thing to hear from your sibling – it's still a huge deal. If you're sleeping with someone, and they say they're not ready for something, or they don't want to do something – seriously, listen to them. Don't push them to do it, don't beg or otherwise act shitty to them if they don't want to. Try to minimize stuff you do when you and/or the other person is shitfaced. I think you're a good person, and I'm not saying you do this stuff. I just think it's a huge deal and important to say to your brother who might be going off to college. There are a lot of little things human beings do to each other that suck – and I think it's great to be conscious of them, and try to be a better person than that. Anyway, that's my stupid little rant about getting older.
I've really enjoyed living in the city for the past few years. My life has had ups and downs, and I'm still struggling with all the crap that Mom has brought to the table. But I have a lot of really good friends, a great girlfriend, an interesting and fun job. I think I'm living my life totally differently from what I was told is normal at [the high school we both went to]. And it's awesome.
I think when we were growing up, we were stuck with half a family a lot of the time. Mom and Dad were fighting and angry a lot, and we never really got to see Dad's side of the family for years and years. Now there's a lot of the same crap, but in different ways. Hopefully you think of me at least as someone you can talk to if things are totally crazy – at school, with Mom or Dad, with friends, whatever. Life is really too short to spend a huge chunk of it being miserable. And there's always something you can do to change things for the better, even if it means you have to make some pretty big changes. So I hope you always feel like you have somewhere to go, and someone to talk to.
So yeah. I figured I'd start this off with stuff about you or the family, since the stuff about me is harder to talk about. I don't want to add to any of the craziness in your life, and this is just me telling you about myself directly, so you don't hear about it through the family grapevine.
Maybe this isn't on your radar, maybe it's going to sound totally weird. Maybe it'll make sense to you in some way, since you've known me for 18 years now. But ever since I was a really little kid, I've never thought of myself as a girl. I don't feel like anyone brought me up "wrong" or anything – since I've felt this way since I was 4 or 5. I've always hated wearing girly anything (and I bet you can count the few times you've seen me in a dress). For a long time, I thought I was just a little less girly than my friends, and then I thought I was that way because I dated girls. Nothing really made sense in the way it was supposed to, and after a while, I just tried not to think about it too much.
I slowly made friends who were completely different from what society told them they had to be. After a few years, I realized that maybe I was really similar to a couple of them. The body I was born with was totally different from who I felt I really was inside. It's a really hard thing to explain, but if you were told to act and dress like a girl all your life, and everyone called you [feminine name loosely based on his] - I imagine it would be strange, to say the least. If that's the exact opposite of how you saw yourself, then it would probably really suck.
The technical term for people like me is transgendered. As in "that person is transgendered". Some people shorten it to "trans", as in "that person is trans". I think a lot of people have heard of cross-dressers and transvestites, which isn't the same thing. Transgender is defined as: "...the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, or neither) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex. "Transgender" does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation." So basically, someone who's born one way, and their feelings about their body and self are different from that. And then there's people who are "Transsexual" - trans people who want to change their bodies to reflect how they feel inside – either through surgery, or taking certain medications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
I don't just "not see myself as a girl", I see myself as a guy. And it makes a hell of a lot more sense than pretending I'm a girl because I was born with a certain set of parts. Everyone knows this about me, except for our family and my boss/coworkers. For a long time, I was really afraid to tell Dad specifically, because he was awkward enough about me dating girls and thinking I was just a big homo [totally down with the queers - this was just a joke]. I thought if I told him about all this, he would freak out and disown me. Now, I don't care. I'd rather live a real life than hide really important things about myself from my family. If people think I'm a freak or hate me or whatever, at least they know the real me. I hope you don't hate me or think I'm a freak, though.
Some trans guys take male hormones and have surgery to align their bodies and minds more. I'd be happy to talk to you about this if you want to know a little more about it – through email or in person, whatever's comfortable. I plan on doing this stuff sometime in the near future, through reputable doctors who know what they're doing. I have the money for it, even if Dad won't help me or ever talk to me again. I understand if it seems like a lot to deal with all at once, but this has been on my mind for a lifetime. I've thought about all the sides of it, and I'm totally serious. This isn't some random fad that I heard about a month ago or something. So I hope you'll try to understand it and respect me.
A lot of trans people start using different names once they are "out" to their friends/family/whoever. People change their names, birth certificates and other legal documents totally legally to reflect their name and gender changes. R. and all of my friends call me [nickname], which is a nickname based off of [new name]. I was thinking about names for a long time, and even though this one is pretty dude-tastic, it clicked really well. And keeping in line with what I was saying before, I would appreciate it if you could use masculine pronouns for me, like he/him/his. I would be really happy if you would call me [nickname] (or [other nickname] or [new name], whatever's most comfortable). It's okay if you accidentally forget, or slip up and call me by my old name/pronouns a couple of times. Obviously this is a big change, and it's hard to retrain your mind to completely new things. But I'm just asking you to try, because this means a lot to me. And intentionally calling me by my old name and girl pronouns will just make me feel disrespected and sad.
Like I said before, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about this. It's not exactly something they teach you about in school, so I don't expect you to have some magical knowledge already. There's information about trans people on the internet too, if you want to look up anything on your own. If you want some links to stuff, I'm happy to find some good ones for you. I don't want things to be super weird between us because of this. This is just who I feel I am, and what I'm doing with that knowledge. Hopefully the rest of the family won't freak out too bad.
-[me]"
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