I know many of you do not understand, and some of you may still not understand after reading this, but I feel that the bonds between us, wheter it be by blood or another form of kinship, obligate me to explain what went wrong. To do that, I feel that I need to tell my story. Please, once you pass this point, read it all the way through.
Every story has a beginning, and this one starts with my birth. On October 19, 1997, I was brought into this world through the labor and pain of my mother's childbirth. My physical sex, composing of the physical aspects of genetics, anatomy, hormones, and reproduction had already been determined in the early stages of my development, with one aspect having been determined the moment I was conceived. From this moment, I was assigned the gender role typically befitting a young physical male, that being "boy."
When I was very young, my parents got a divorce. If I'm not mistaken, this happened before I was even capable of walking or talking. I have no memory of this time, but I do remember that at first, my older brother and I stayed with Mom. At some time, we lived in our grandparents' house with Mom, and it is of this time that I have my earliest memories.
Not long after, Dad got custody, and Mike and I went to live with him and his new girlfriend, Amber, along with Amber's daughter, whose name escapes me as I write this letter. This relationship was not to last either, however, and it happened that Mike and I lived alone with our Dad in an apartment in Greenville. This living arrangement changed quickly as well, and while Dad went out to search for a place for us to live where he would have a job, he left us with his adoptive parents in Northeastern Grand Rapids. During this time, I attended kindergarten at Orchard View Elementary School, though, possibly due to some lingering psychological trauma caused be events in my childhood, I had not developed on par with my classmates.
Sometime during the end of my kindergarten school year, Mike and I were told that we would finally be going to live with Dad again as soon as the school year ended. When we did, that was when we met Laura, Jacque, and Ty, all of whom I would consider to be family in time. All six of us lived together in an apartment in Millington, and while the space was cramped, I was with my Dad again, and that's all that mattered to me. As I had not properly developed enough to attend first grade yet, I ended up taking a second year of kindergarten at my new school, Glaza Elementary. During this time, I tried my best to fit into this new place. I had been moving around so much in my life, that I wasn't even sure how long I would be there. Despite that, I did my best to make friends with everyone I met.
It was around this time that I noticed there was something different about me from everyone else. I gravitated toward hanging out with the girls, with a few guy friends, but by the next school year, it had become taboo among the girls my age to hang out with boys. I still tried to hang out with them, but it was in vain. I tried to adjust, and made an attempt to change myself to fit in with the guys, but it seemed that harder I tried to be like them, the more apparent it was that I was different. From this time, the groundworks for future bullying had been set.
I continued trying to fit in up into third and fourth grade, and this was when the bullying began. It started with simple, stupid pranks that I would always walk into, and then moved into verbal ridicule, and eventually eveolved into physical confrontations. By this time, I had become frustrated. I didn't understand why it was so hard for me to fit in with the social group I had been forced into, and this frustration and confusion evolved into anger.
When I moved up into fifth grade, I thought I'd finally be able to fit in with someone, anyone. But, I ended up just being forced into a group of my fellow outcasts. We shared almost nothing in common with one another, and this lack of comaradery just fed the flame of my building anger. I soon started getting into regular screaming matches with my male classmates, and sometimes even fights, and all the whie, I was still trying to fit in, this time by trying to get them to fear me, which I thought to be synonymous with respect. I played football with the members of the football team during recess, despite no one wanting me there, and despite the rules being touch-only, I would always go down in a tackle on the rare occasions that I got the ball, more often than not from the star player, named Koltyn. They would throw the football hard into my face whenever they felt that I had lost them the play, and all the while, the teachers did almost nothing about it.
By sixth grade, I had finally figured out what was different about me. I had always felt that I had belonged with the girls, because that's who I was inside. I didn't take the realization well, and I immediately decided to keep it from everyone I knew. I had no idea why I felt this way, and I didn't even know a word to describe it. After this, I tried even harder to fit in, because it was then that I had something to hide. I felt like I was some kind of freak, and I was afraid to tell anyone what I was feeling. This realization hadn't brought me peace. It only amplified my pain and hopelessness. Somehow, I managed to lie and act like it was just school that was bothering me, when in fact I was slowly dying inside.
It was in eighth grade that I finally had a word to describe how I felt, and I was finally able to do research on what I was feeling. I couldn't risk doing research at home or during class, so instead, I pretended almost every day after school that I had left something in my locker so I could go and do my research. What I found both comforted and disturbed me. The comfort came from the knowledge that I was not alone, that there were millions of people like me out there. I was also comforted by the knowledge that what I had was not in any way related to insanity, and was in fact caused by differences in the very structure of my brain. While the typical person had a structure common to their assigned gender, my brain was structured more like a typical girl's. The disturbing part, and the part I most regret, is the fact that it was through this research and digging into every corner of the internet, I was exposed to pornography.
So, eventually my research was replaced by porn sessions, hooking me more and more with every picture I looked at. The only benefit that came of it was that I knew my sexuality as well. On the inside, I was a girl who liked girls. I was lesbian. This was how I have secretly identified to this very day.
My porn addiction continued into High School, and it was in my freshman or sophomore year that my parents found out. I got caught looking at porn on a school computer, and it was only because the school's staff pitied me that I didn't get serious disciplinary action for it. They left that to my parents. It was decided that I would no longer be able to use any device with an internet connection without close supervision. After the first year, however, they loosened their security. I relapsed a few times, and I did a coupe things that I will regret for as long as I live, but I fought my addiction, and today, I can say that I am finally free of it. The temptation will always be there, just like a former alcoholic will always be tempted to return to the bottle, but it is manageable now.
In Junior year, I came to fully accept myself for who I was. After I got my first cell phone from my Mom, I came out to my aunt Chrystee. I knew she was the most likely out of anyone I knew to accept me, because she herself is lesbian. A day later, I came out to my biological mother, and I immediately began making plans to move in with her. I'd known I wanted to spend at least one year of my school life living with my Mom for a long time before that, and then I had just one more reason to pursue it. I'd finally get to just be who I am, for the very first time in my life.
During that summer, I started working with my Dad in a home improvement company, trying to earn money toward getting a car for when I got my driver's license. I ended up only earning a few hundred dollars before something happened that made my plans change drastically.
I had gotten grounded from using my laptop, as I was not allowed to keep it in my bedroom, and they had found me on it multiple times. I'm pretty sure they thought I had been looking at porn again, and I don't think any of us were prepared for the truth to come out. Instead of finding porn, my step-Mom had found the research I'd been doing, focusing on transgender people. I assumed that this alone would be enough for them to figure it out, and I panicked. I ran to my room, packed a bag with some clothes, my toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, and I ran away for the first, and last time. I climbed out my bedroom window, and ran through the woods behind our house, which we had moved into during my middle school years. As I ran, I sent a text to my Mom and my brother, Mike, who also knew at that point, telling them what had happened, and that plans needed to be moved up.
I waited for hours for my brother to drive clear across the State to pick me up, expecting to just immediately go to Mom's house. Instead, we headed back to the house, where I tried to say all the things I'm saying here, but due to both emotional stress, and the fact that I've never been able to effectively express myself through speech, I ended up failing miserably at explaining. That night, I left people who cared so much about me behind. But, unfortunately, it had been necessary. I knew that they would not be able to accept me, due to their religious beliefs.
I left for their sake as well as mine. Had I stayed, I would not have been able to get a job anywhere, because I had already sworn to myself that I would not hide who I was any longer once the truth came out. The area we lived in was very conservative, and, given the current political situation, I would have been an instant target all over again in my senior year. I'd be unable to find a job, because no one would want to hire a transgender person. I'd have been nothing but an economic drain on my family, who were already in a bad economic situation.
I speak directly to Dad, my step-Mom, Jacque, Ty, Christian, and my little nephew, Mikkel. I know you're in a bad economic situation right now, but at this point, it would have been even worse, and even if I moved back right after I get my diploma, you'd be worse off with me there. Millington, and the area around it, is not an accpeting environment for people like me. I left for your sake as well as mine. Please, please know that I will love you always, and I hope to see you when you come to my graduation ceremony.
With love,
Sierra
