Hi, mama.

When I asked you one day, unprompted, if you would love and support me no matter what, only to respond to your follow up questions with 'I'm not ready to talk about it', I know you must have been startled. Concerned. Worried. I know I am very good at making you worry. I feel, on some level, that all I have ever done is make you worry.

Since that day, I have been trying - and miserably failing - to find my voice, but each time the words met my lips, they died. Fizzled out like flat soda. So I have decided to write you a letter. I may give this to you and watch you read it, or timidly hand it to you on my way into my apartment one day. As of writing this, I have yet to decide.

Do you remember, mama, how in my early teen years, when I was at my most fragile, I once came to you, with my voice as small as a mouse's, and told you that I wasn't sure if I was really a girl? You were very confused. I can't blame you; so was I. How could I not be a girl? I was so girly. I hated wearing pants. I only wanted to wear dresses. My favourite colour was pink. When you think of transgender people, you think of little boys who play with dolls and refuse to be put in pants, and little girls who like to get dirty, and don't like to use the girls' bathroom at school.

You don't think of people like me. Little girls who enjoy being little girls, despite a tomboy phase or two. Little girls who grow into women who enjoy makeup and heels. Women who, at the age of 24, come to you and say, 'mom, I'm a lesbian'. Not me.

I had a psychiatrist at age fifteen who said the same thing you did. The same thing you still say, whenever the topic of my 'gender confusion' comes up. The problem was that he laughed at me. He took my problems, problems that brought me so much shame, that I trusted with him, and spat them back at me like acid. 'You're confused,' he said. 'You're not transgender. You didn't show any signs.'

When you said it, I brushed it off. I was, after all, a teenager, and you my mother; you couldn't possibly know what you were talking about. But a psychiatrist, a doctor, a man who was qualified, telling me the same thing? Perhaps there was some merit to it. Perhaps I was just confused. After all, I didn't really like being very masculine. I still liked soft, cute things. I liked having longer hair, and sometimes I liked wearing makeup.

So, slowly, like everyone else in my life, I began to believe it was just a phase.

Do you remember, mama, when I first started bleeding, and I hid it from you for four straight days before I ran out of underwear? I remember. I remember very well. I remember that evening, when you sat me down and explained what was happening to my body, and cried with me. I remember you reassuring me that this was normal, but that it could be a terribly unpleasant thing. I remember you telling me that this was what a girl's body did as she got older – that she was becoming a woman.

'A woman'. It meant that I was becoming a grown-up. I didn't want to be a grown-up. I wanted to be a child forever. Being a woman sounded scary. So I cried for days. I became depressed. I became irritable and withdrawn. My self-esteem crumbled. Children noticed my newly born insecurity and preyed upon it, like a pack of lions circling a wounded calf.

I have not been comfortable in my body since the day you told me that I had just gotten my first period. I have not felt at home, at one with myself since I developed breasts. I can't remember the last time I lasted a day without succumbing to a profound sense of wrongness, of hatred for what my body had become.

'Every woman hates their body,' you said. 'We have to deal with what we have.'

It all started as a game, you know, mama. I just thought it would be fun to 'pretend' to be a boy on the internet. Abby and Kevyn 'pretended' with me. However, it soon became clear to me that I, at least, was no longer just pretending. It made sense, when I first realized that I might not really be a girl. 'So that's why I feel this way,' I thought. 'This is why, whenever my body bleeds, I want to crawl out of my skin. This is why my breasts cause me such anguish - why, since they first developed, I have wanted to lop them off with a chainsaw. This is why I cannot even enter a room filled with other people without crumbling under the acknowledgement that all of them see me as a young woman. This is why I am wrong.'

It made sense for the first time in my life. But it was very scary. Terrifying. My friends did not take me seriously, and it eventually became clear that no one else – not even my doctor – did, either. It was, at the time, easier just to pretend that it never happened, to claim that it was just a phase when asked. 'I just hated the pressure of being a woman,' I said. 'I thought I couldn't be strong. I just wanted my dad to love me like he loves my brother. I was just tired of being objectified. I was raised to believe women weren't as good as men.'

The list of excuses went on.

I even came out as a lesbian. I had always felt a connection to the LGBT community, and I did not want to lose it. I couldn't imagine being with a man in this female body of mine, so clearly, I was a lesbian. I told everyone that I finally felt at peace with my identity, that I finally found it after all this time. This was who I was.

But it was a lie. Though my ability to lie smoothly to others has diminished to almost nothing as I have gotten older, my ability to lie to myself has only strengthened.

The thing about lies this grandiose, however, is that you cannot sustain them forever. There are only so many excuses you can make, so many nights you can spend sobbing yourself to sleep because you hate your body so much it hurts, but no, oh no, it's not because I might be a man, no. I just hate my body, like every other woman. Every woman hates their body.

'If I lose enough weight, it will be enough.

If I get stronger, it will be enough.

If I put on enough makeup, it will be enough.

If my hair is big, if my skin is smooth, if my wardrobe is good, it will be enough. I will finally love my body.'

Do you know, mama, that I don't think I will ever be able to love my body the way it is now, no matter how much weight I lose, or how cool my clothes are? I know now, after so many years of introspection, so many years of depression and anxiety and lies, that I will never be happy if I remain the way I am now. I may have been a very girly child, and I may be a pretty feminine adult, but I am not a woman. I don't believe I ever was.

My goal in this life is to achieve happiness. I feel, after all I have endured, I deserve that much. I have come very far in just these past few years, but this is a road block that cannot be overcome with merely antidepressants and therapy. I have spent so many years pretending to be someone I was not, so many years putting the needs of everyone else before my own, and it has taken its toll on me. I have reached a point in my life and in my recovery that I have realized I need to, for the first time in my life, be selfish, and focus on my own needs. What I need is to stop hiding and take the steps to finally become the person I always wanted to be.

It is a frightening prospect, and not something I have taken lightly. I am so very afraid of how my life will change. I am terrified of dad growing distant from me. I am terrified of uncle Reg and auntie Laura rejecting me. They accepted me as gay, when I worried they would not, but this is different. So very different. God does not make mistakes, after all. I am afraid of Alex and Chanelle deciding that they do not want me to be in their children's lives. I am afraid of needing to quit my job for fear of prejudice. I am afraid that somewhere, wherever he is, Opa is looking at me with disdain. The thought shatters me.

If this was just a phase, I would not be writing this letter. I would not have made the choice to risk losing all of what I hold most dear in my life just for a flight of fancy. I truly believe – I know – that this is what I need to do, no matter what it takes.

I don't expect you to understand; certainly not at the advent of this change. I only hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you might attempt to understand some point down the line. I can only hope that you will continue to love and support me regardless of whether or not I am your daughter or your son. I can only hope that this will not drive a wedge between us. I am so very afraid of losing you.

I love you, mama. I hope you still love me, too.

- K.