Dear 15 year old me

I remember you.

I remember small-town Mississippi in the fall of 1978 and that feeling of being an alien among a race of beings who seemed to be nothing like you. I remember the almost ten years you've spent coming to understand how you were different from what everyone else seemed to be, and the relief at finding out you were not the only such alien in the world, and the frustration that came from knowing you dare not so much as speak of your feelings, let alone embrace them.

I remember the times, years before, when you learned how to define yourself by what you knew to be true, and not what the world and the mirror told you. I remember the horror when you watched nature endow you with the exact opposite of all the things you felt sure you were supposed to have. I remember the lectures about how boys didn't shave their legs, I remember the time you tried to run away and be Tammy and the terror that forced you to lie when the girl clothes in your suitcase were discovered. I remember the shame you've felt all those years because you have been taught that you are a shameful thing, and the fear that anyone would ever find out your secret.

I remember the nights you spend staring at the ceiling, imagining what your life would have been like had you not been cursed (so you think) with this body - would you have been short ,or tall? slender or chubby? outgoing or shy? Would you have had your first date yet? Would you have been a cheerleader or on the basketball team? Who would you have had a crush on? I remember how you long to have just one friend you trust enough to tell them who you really are.

And I remember things you have not yet lived.  I remember magical moments of friendship with other girls (all too infrequent) and I remember frustrating days of trying to be a "real man." I remember years of wondering what good there was in life even continuing and those times when it almost didn't.

Most of all, I remember the Lie. Maybe that word is too harsh - is an untruth spoken by one who sincerely believes it is true actually a lie? Perhaps not, but it feels like a lie. The lie that convinced me that the only moral choice for someone like me was to submit my life for the approval of others, to wear the mask which was demanded of me and hope that somehow enough good things would come along in life to compensate me for what I had sacrificed. All cloaked in the claim that God said so.

Tammy, don't believe the lie. Don't even entertain it. Think for yourself, learn for yourself, feel for yourself. Never submit yourself to the veto of rule-makers and self-appointed judges. You were born 30 years too soon. If only you had been able to learn in 1978 what a 15 year old in 2008 could learn. I cannot give you all the details of that knowledge now, but I can tell you this much: you were born the way you are, you are not a freak, or a pervert, and being a girl is not, for you, a sin or a sinful desire. I know that you have faith in God, and I will not speak to you of religion for that is not why I write - but I want you to know that there's a difference between faith in God and faith in all the stuff humans attribute to him. Be very sure you strive to discern one from the other. If He is who you believe him to be, He does not hate you, he has not cursed you, he loves you and wants you to be happy. He has not called you to a life of rules but a life of freedom. Do not forgo that blessing in order to please men..

The road ahead is difficult, and you have much to overcome. But that's okay. Life doesn't have to be easy, but it ought to be honest and free. If you are reading this, that is the one thing I would give to you across the intervening years - freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from self-loathing, freedom from the soft bigotry of tradition. if your heart and soul are made free, there is nothing you can't do. How much better the world would be now, if you and your brothers and sisters had been made free then.