Hurt

TW: transphobia, and some of the typical “Christian” arguments against our existence

We took a fucking chance in reaching out to an old friend. He’s either part of the army or national guard or some sort thing, and our old dead name email got an update email from his wife about him being overseas again.

We used to write him letters on previous deployments, especially in our teens when we were still a part of thechurch youth group he and his wife ran.

These two were two people who we genuinely had hope of remaining friends with our entire life…as the things that came up when we were in closer contact, we were all in agreement on.

But we were a bit concerned. We couldn’t remember any sorts of LGBTQ+ topics coming up…we had lost contact with both of them several phones ago, and so we pretty much wrote off every reconnecting.

So it was a whole Thing within our system on whether we should even write in the first place…our email was likely just on some old “deployment update” list. So we shouldn’t feel obligated to write, correct?

We finally convinced ourselves to write back. We told him that we were trans (easier than explaining the whole journey to our current label of genderfluid in a single letter). We told him our new (at least to him) name. I can’t remember if we said that we had it legally changed when we got married (I know we gave very little, if ANY, details about being married, just because of being concerned about the whole LGBT+ subject we were already bringing up), but the benefit of the doubt that maybe we didn’t mention the LEGAL NAME CHANGE was the reason why today, we received a letter addressed to [Deadname]. (obviously not, based on the TWs…but that was our thought when we went to the mailbox)

It is a bit funny that we weren’t given a last name on the envelope. I really wish we could remember if we told him we were married, but it’s also a bit funny to imagine that he either got confused or assumed we simply changed our last name as well as our first (we technically did…but our wife/partner-system also got a yea/nay on it, since we knew they wanted to change their family name to match ours, and we just changed our name via the marriage…looking back, I’m kinda sad we didn’t create a unique surname together. That could’ve been fun ^^)

We KNOW we said that we were terrified of what sort of reaction we would get. We even (half jokingly…but also half serious) suggested burning the letter we wrote him and pretending it never existed to begin with

The reply we received today was…not good.

It opened with:

[Deadname],

I always loved that name. Its unique just as you were in youth group.

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yay (sarcasm)

It went into updates on their family, which we actually did ask for. For several years, we babysat for them as needed. (for at least part of one of his deployments, it was basically every weekday, so his wife could go to work). Our system saw their first born grow from a newborn infant into a very energetic toddler, and saw how that one grew into an older sibling to the second born. So we were of course curious as to how they were growing up, and how his wife was doing.

And then it went into how G*d doesn’t make mistakes. That we, as humans, do. He continues on that he’s seen friends try to “fill the hole” inside them with drugs, sex, money, kids, and food. And how they always found some happiness but never joy. And then how only G*d can fill that void and bring us joy and hope.

…why is he assuming that we don’t have joy? Because holy hell…Alexei really wants to reply back with some really hard-hitting facts about how, since being accepted as we ARE NOW we have only first been experiencing joy. About how miserable we were when we were living under the name given to us by people who r*ped us from when were were a BABY, and continued to do such until LESS THAN A YEAR AGO.

Also, he starts closing his letter with:

Well [Deadname], I am praying for truth in your life. It’s not easy to see but it’s unchanging just like G*d.

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I really, really hoped that we would either get no reply, or something…better than this.

Once again, we ask ourselves…why do we have to deal with SO MANY DIFFERENT STRESSFUL THINGS AT ONCE???

Why can’t these things come one at a time???

Anyway…we’re going to go eat a bunch of junk food probably. Maybe order something in if our partner-system thinks it’d be okay with our finances. Maybe play some more TOTK so we can help Alexei and the other more angry-hurt people let out some of their anger by beating up a bunch of bokoblins and octoroks and the like. Or maybe play something calm like Stardew…I guess we’ll see. Maybe try to find some positive LGBT+ stuff to get our mind refocused.

-Written by a lot of us