McMookerson

As kids, we were best friends. Our dad's were both fundamentalist preachers, and we bonded - partially because, even back then, we knew that we were different.

When your family moved away, we kept in touch. We wrote letters. I still remember getting a letter that you wrote on paper that you made, yourself, with flower seeds in it. I was supposed to plant it, but I never did - I couldn't bear to let it go.

When your family moved again, closer this time, I was so happy to have my friend back! Things were a little different, you were a little more distant - but we were all trying to figure our lives and ourselves out at that age.

Then, I went into the military. You went to college. I came home and tried to get back in touch, but after several years of trying with no success, I gave up.

Last year, about this time, you were on my mind again. I reached out to your sister on social media. Asked about you. Asked whether you were even alive anymore, as you'd practically dropped off the face of the earth.

That's when I learned that you have a new name. That you're a woman now - and I think that's wonderful! But then your sister made it clear that, despite how hard you tried to still be in their lives, that your family refused to accept you for who you are. For who you always have been. Wouldn't even tell me your new name. I probably should have told your sister off, then and there, but I put on my polite "customer service" voice and asked her to let you know that I was trying again to reconnect. That I missed my old friend. I wept for you.

It's been a year, now, and I still think about that conversation. I wish that I'd made a different choice, made it clear that turning their back on a woman who is trying to be true to herself makes them monstrous in my eyes.

I know that you'll probably never read this: but I hope that, someday, that I get the chance to meet the real you. The one that felt that she had to hide, all those years when we were growing up together. I want to tell you how brave you are, how proud of you that I am.

But more than anything else, I hope that you're well. I hope that you have many friends around you, who love you and make you feel welcomed and wanted. I hope that you've made your own family, a better one than the one that you were born into.