*~ To my Friends and Family ~* I am transgender

To my friends and family,

With Secondary School and GCSEs out of the way, my holiday is finally here. It's my last holiday before beginning at college, the holiday I become able to express who I am. I haven't had the courage to tell people who I am before, so chances are, most of you don't know the true me.

I am about to share with you something very personal with you. It's something that affects the entirety of my life, but not how we are as friends, and I want you to understand how important it is to me.

I am transgender. I am a female stuck in the body of a male. For some of you this will be a shock, but there are a few of you who will have known I have been questioning my gender for some while now, and some of you may have even guessed yourself. This is not new or a phase, I originally mentioned it to my parents halfway through Primary school and although they were supportive as they are now, I didn’t discuss or mention it apart from the first time. I know I have been seen as “Special” “Different” within social groups, this was my just trying to be myself in small ways. I'm not trying to create drama, instead, the opposite, truthful.

I am who I have always been, I am still the child of my mum and dad, I am still the sibling of my little brother and sister. If you are afraid, confused or angry, you're not the only one, I am too. I know it's not going to be easy.

I need to be truthful with everyone
I need your support, I know that some of you will be curious and have questions, please ask and have an answer rather than assume. I also recognise that there will be people who won't understand, who will bully me, threaten me and harass me and my family. If you feel you are in the second group, please keep it to yourself, and quietly remove me from Facebook. It's really hard to be me, even after recognising who I am. I'm trying really hard and so are my family, but at the end of the day, I'm 16 nearly 17 and about to start college, this is a hard time for any teenager, even more so when your not content with your body.

With the support of my family, I have decided to start being me.
I am going to be discussing my name with my family however my preference at the moment is Aoibheann as it's Irish and sounds nice, however I recognise not everyone will be able to pronounce/spell it so I also plan on having Aimee as a Nickname. I will be keeping my Surname and one of my middle names so that if all goes well my chosen name would be; Aoibheann Ashton Challenor. As you can see I have used my current given name as a middle name, this is because my parent chose that name and I respect them, that and I still like the name Ashton.

I am excited to be able to be myself and I'm glad that you can be with me.

Peace,

Aoibheann

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