Popular folklore would have one believe that a mother is pure love. It gets summed up in sayings like -- A face only a mother could love. That is why, even to this day, I cannot believe the ways that you have hurt me.

Mom, you have never accepted the fact that I am transgendered. Due to some unseen force, even though I was born in a male body, I have always felt like a girl and been a girl in my heart, soul, and spirit. You have done everything possible to tear me down and destroy the girl within instead of accepting me as your daughter.

Now, as I sit here in my 42nd year of life, I realise the ways that you have hurt me.

I was 13 years old when I started to realise that something was different about me. I knew that I was a girl, and I wanted to be like every other teenage girl. I fought against the anatomical incongruity of my boy's body. I started to wear girl's clothes when you weren't around. I bought my own bras, panties and dresses. When I wore them I felt right, I felt whole. You invaded my privacy while I was away at day-camp and discovered my dreams and turned them into a nightmare.

You called me a queer. You called me a fairy. You told me that I was sick. You used words on me that at the time I didn't even understand. I didn't even know about sex and what it was all about back then. You began the slow but steady destruction of the girl within. You humiliated me. You made me burn all my girl's clothes.

I was smarter than you, and as you know, I was back at it again after a week. Even though my hiding places got better, you found my clothes, and continued to destroy me.

By the time I was a senior in high school, you had killed every almost shred of positive self-image that I had in me. I was scared little mouse; afraid of people, afraid to make friends. Didn't you ever wonder why my grades bottomed out then...why I went from being a straight A student to getting B's and C's? Didn't you ever wonder why I was an absolute failure at college ... a college that you insisted that I go to, so I could be like my father.

On the subject of my father, we never could tell him about me. Your emotional abuse was our little secret.

Funny how I never got the courage to move out from under your wing until age 27. That's how total your dictatorial control was over my life. When I finally did move out, I made sure it was far away. For the first time in my life, I tried to live my life. I started living as a girl whenever I was not at work.

But even in Texas you had a tight grip on my life through my cousins. Acting as your agents, they told you that I was gay when I got my ears pierced. And you believed them. You are a fool and a first class ass! I am not now and never have been gay.

You tightened a long distance noose around my neck. When I finally made the first, big steps toward sex re-assignment surgery (SRS), you swung into action. I made a big mistake, and that was that I confided in a cousin who turned out to be just another one of your informants. You pulled every dirty trick from your little bag of emotional blackmail. We finally had to tell my father about your abuse. You lied and denied how you abused me. You ruined my life that night in 1987 when we fought on the phone for 5 hours. You left me as an alcoholic and a non-purging bulimic in the wreckage.

Damn you, bitch! I had the fucking prescription for female hormones in my hand. I was ready to go. My life was going to be finally right. Spirit and body were finally going to be as one! You tried to kill the girl within again.

Now I sit here filled with so much anger at you. I long for the teenage years I missed because of you -- years as a happy teenage girl! Not as a sad scared boy. I long for the chance that you stole from me in 1987. You left me paralyzed with fear. I want so desperately to get back on the path to SRS, now with 11 years of sobriety, my weight under control, and a successful career for a major bank under my belt, but I am so afraid.

You have left me unable to love and trust. I can never let anyone into my life. I can't let anyone get close. I don't want to be hurt.

Thank God that I live in my own place in the city. You thought that you killed the girl within, but she lives on, in defiance to your abuse!

Why do you think I wear my hair long and in a poni-tail? Did you ever notice how some of my shirts button on the other side ... they are girl's shirts. Did you notice those khakis I wore on Thanksgiving Day ... yep, girls, Chic brand. In fact everything I had on that day was an article of girl's clothes from the sweater down to my undies, sox and tennies.

Don't think for a moment that I don't dress as a girl now full time when I'm not at work. Don't think for a moment that if I can find a way to go on hormones and undergo electrolysis, I won't do it.

The only thing that helped me go on is my faith in God, and my belief in the girl within. I pray that God has mercy on you.

I am your daughter,

Toni Lynn