My last letter to you

For five years now I have been trying to fulfil my New Years’ resolution. Every New Year I try to strengthen my resolve to complete my resolution but somehow I lacked the courage to do so. However, this year will be different. I have only one objective-This world has to hear me. It has ignored, ridiculed and molested me for many years and I spit on it for its cruelty towards me. The final countdown has begun. One hour until midnight. One hour until I fulfil my long standing New Years’ resolution. One hour until death.

A hallowed existence lives within me. An existence that violates the basic principles of this hypocritical society. I have lived the twenty years of my life asking the same question, over and over again, "What am I?" and today I have finally given up. I am tired of being called a 'freak', a 'trans', a 'c***boy'. The continuous denial of the so-called 'modernized' society to acknowledge that someone like me can exist has made me wary. Believe me when I say that I have tried. Not once, not twice but a thousand times and then I tried some more but somehow my efforts to find acceptance in my family, among my friends and in the society has always failed. Sometimes I wonder if all of this was my fault? What if I am actually a mistake? A genetic flaw in the cycle of evolution? A disease at childbirth? These questions have taken a toll on me. I am a broken individual now. At this final hour of my life I sit down to pen down my thoughts, my emotions are running haywire. My only objective today is to succeed to fail my own life.

By the time you find this, I have already died. I have chosen to jump from the top floor of an under construction building. I know it is not an elegant death, but why have an elegant death when I had such an un-elegant life? A fall from fourteen storeys should be the end of my misery. The end of my story. This is not a suicide note, well, it is not meant to be one, but as this is the last thing I pen down it will probably be treated like one. I feel like I have died many times before tonight, but, I actually do not know what to write during my final moments. Let me call this as 'My last letter to you'. 'You' is you-the one reading the letter and I am addressing you directly through my letter. I am asking 'you' to answer for my misfortune. I am asking 'you' to justify the anger that you have shown me. I am asking 'you' to tell my story. The story of a transgender.

My name is irrelevant, you can take a pick from 'knob jockey', 'ring raider' or my personal favourite 'shit stabber'. Isn’t it strange that all the names that I have called over the years all relate to some sort of male genitalia stuffed into my body parts? Fifteen thousand years of evolution and the world has summarised my whole identity to one single statement- "He likes men". That is how I am perceived by the world. Let me tell you, that is not me. I am a man with a feminine soul. I have the biology of a man but the psychology of a woman. I guess it is easier for people to relate to someone when they know their sexual inclination. It does not mean that people accept you if you are biologically male and sexually crave for a male, or, vice-versa, but it definitely helps in inventing the abuses that define me. It has been so long that someone has actually called me by my birth name that sometimes I feel like I do not even have one. You might also wonder about my country of origin, but is that necessary? My survival might have been a little different if I was born in some particular country, but would it have brought social acceptance for me? The sad reality is that borders on land do not erase the borders in your heart. I am a nameless, country less transgender. An entity with an unacceptable identity.

...and this is WHY I decided to end my life.

I had the most amazing childhood anybody could possibly ask for. A caring father, a loving mother and a wonderful elder sister. A perfect family, or so I thought. I was lanky boy who was not very athletic and did not fit well with the other people of my group. My parents took me to a psychologist and he deducted that I have some social anxiety, completely normal at that age. Little that he know that I felt trapped in my own body. It all started when I reached the age of sixteen. I could sense that my body was not behaving the way a boy's body should work. The boys would show off their bits of facial hair and talk about the 'small brother standing up'. I had no physical changes like that. I started questioning myself while slowly retracting in my own shell. I would go home and lock myself up in my room. I would take off my clothes and stare at my body for hours. I wanted to hate my body, but I was not able to do it. I felt that I loved my body, just not the way the other boys liked theirs. I loved my tiny bony frame and the edges of my body. It confused me. I was a young teenager trying to make sense of things. I decided to talk to my parents about this. I thought their affection will help me deal with my anxiety. That was my first mistake.

“What do you mean you THINK you are women from inside?” my father’s voice echoed through our home “Tell your son to get his head straight, or I will beat it straight” he shouted at my mother and stomped off. I did not expect my father to react so harshly. I started crying and looked at my mom. She had a stern look and as my father left she slapped me. “You will never speak of this non-sense again, I would rather have to die then listen to this kind of blasphemous talk in this house”, she said angrily. I tried to reason with her. I tried to tell her my physiological scenario but she dismissed all of it with a wave of her hand. They ignored my pleas as if it was a figment of my imagination. This incident shook me to the core. I did not care about the world but I expected my parents to understand me and accept me the way I am. I was unaware that it is impossible to reason with ignorance. I died a little that day.

That year my parents invited our cousin to spend the New Year with us. Let us call him 'Ape', because that is what he was- An Ape. Ape was the 'boy-wonder' of the family. He was a twenty-one year male with extreme chauvinistic attitude. The perfect teacher to teach me the ways of manhood, according to my parents. I was told to share my room with him and 'bond like boys'. Initially I had no issues with that, I even thought it would be fun. Little did I know that this monster would ruin my life. The first night we spent a lot of time talking about his escapades with girls. Ape would shamelessly describe how he managed to sleep with six girls in the past year and how he discarded them once he was done with them. It was not a very pleasant conversation for me. I was appalled as a person but I kept quiet and let him finish his rant. "Do you like titties?” Ape asked me smiling. "Not really", was my prompt response. "What about balls?” he smirked grabbing his own balls over his trousers. I was aghast. I murmured, "I don't know". He burst out laughing. He kept on talking after that, but I was not listening to him. I just kept staring at him in disgust. He did not mind my look though, in fact, he seemed to be amused by my disgust. “There are some major issues with you, but don’t worry I will fix it, even if it has to be done in the hard way”, he smirked and went to sleep that night. I was hardly able to sleep that night.

“Let’s go the new building site and have some fun, shall we?” the Ape proposed on the night of the 31^st. I agreed. Once we reached there I found that he had invited a couple of his ‘friends’ to join us.  They brought alcohol and cigarettes. “Want some?” one of the friends tried to give me a bottle of rum. I said no. “When he said drink, you DRINK!” Ape grabbed my mouth open and poured the alcohol. The sharp taste of cheap liquor felt like molten iron running through my throat. I jumped free and vomited out the alcohol. Ape and his friends found it quite amusing. “Such a sissy” they smirked. “I want to go home!” I shouted out. “You will go home when I say you can go home, now SIT DOWN!” Ape’s voice was loud and menacing. I got scared and tears rolled down my eyes. “You are a homo aren’t you? You piece of shit!” Ape takes a large sip of the rum. The silence of the new years’ night was deafening. At the distant I could see the fireworks go off. People were celebrating the New Year and here I was scared for my life. “It is quite late and dark can I go home please?” I pleaded to them. Ape looked at me, his eyes glistening in the darkness. He reached into his bag and signalled to one of his friends as he took out a rope from his bag. His friend nodded in agreement and sneaked up behind me. He grabbed me and pinned me down on the ground. “STOP! You are hurting me!” my voice echoed through the empty building. “Do not make any noise or I will break your jaw”, Ape said menacingly and tied down my hands behind my back. “Please! Please!” I shrieked in desperation, “What are you doing?” I have never been so frightened before. “Well we are going to teach you a lesson you homo so that you get cured of this disease” Ape smirked and started unfastening his belt.

One of Ape’s friend gulps down the bottle of rum and asked, “What now?” “Well take off his pants and let’s get this party started. Let’s f*** up this homo”, Ape replied. I had been beaten up before but what Ape said send shivers down my spine. I tried to wriggle free as his friend took off my pants. “This one even fights like a bit**” he sneered and shoved a rock in my mouth, “Listen homo, if you try to do something funny I will punch your face so hard that the rock inside will crack, so stay calm while we have fun.” My muffled cries for help drowned as they discussed who would rape me first. Ape went first as his other two friends held me down. The pain and humiliation was unbearable. The rock cut through my tongue as I desperately tried to shout for help. Tears ran down my cheeks and he violated me is the worst way imaginable. “I am done”, pride dripping from his voice as he fastened his pants. “Alright then, now it is my turn”, one of his friends announced. He came close to my face, his breath reeked of alcohol. He slapped me as blood gushed out of my closed lips, “You can cry as much as you want pretty boy, but I will take my sweet little time.” Every passing second felt like an eternity as that scum raped me. It felt like not only my body but my soul was being devoured by these animals. “God damn homo, you are a pig!” they laughed as they raped me one after the other. At one time I could not feel anything. I just prayed that it got over soon. I just wanted to get back to my mother. The pain was so intense that I hoped to die, but death is a luxury few can afford.

“Here, wash yourself up homo”, Ape threw a bottle of water at me, “Now you are cured” he laughed as they high-fived each other. I groggily got up and tried to clean up the dirt and blood from my thighs and legs. “STOP CRYING” Ape looked at me with a death stare, “If anyone finds about this, they will kill you so you better keep quiet” I nodded in agreement, trying to control my sobs. “When you left home today you were a homo but now you know how it is to be that, so I hope you have learnt your lesson or…” he grabs my throat and forces me to look at him, “…or we can do this again.” “NO! NO! I have learnt my lesson, please don’t hurt me.” Ape laughed, “Remember this lesson!”

We reached home at the early hours. My parents were still asleep. I quietly went into the restroom and took a cold shower. The pain was unbearable but the humiliation was far more painful. I wept in the shower trying to understand why this has happened to me. Is it so wrong to be NOT normal in this world? Is it a crime NOT to behave in the way the society expects me too? Is it so wrong to have a body of a man but a soul of a women? Is it so wrong to be weak that the strong will come and violate you? That cold shower washed away the blood and my will to live. Suicide is the only way out of this humiliation.

It has been five years since the incident. I did not tell anyone about it, because, let us be honest, would anyone care? No one cares about people like us. There will be no Candle-lit marches and protest speeches to support our struggle. Instead, people like us get ridiculed, or worse, get completely ignored. I have hidden my identity well so far. People like me learn how to supress their nature and put on a socially acceptable camouflage. Every New Year I try hard to gather the courage to end my life. To end this misery that I go through every waking moment. The humiliation of not being accepted by my family. The humiliation of being sexually violated by ‘animals’. The humiliation of not being able to have a dignified life. The humiliation of living a lie.

This New Year will be different. As I stand on the top floor of the same building where I was once raped, my resolve is strong. As the clock gets closer to midnight, one step forward and my miserable life will end. The world does not deserve me. Maybe I will be reborn one day where the society will accept me as I am- A Transgender. Until that day comes, let this letter remind you of the hypocrisy of our world, where being different is acceptable on paper but looked upon as an abomination in real life. Let this letter serve a testament to those parents who try to ‘force’ their children to be ‘normal’. Let this letter bear witness to the brutality that I had to endure in my life.

Let this letter tell my story….goodbye!