Andrea von Kaenel's Bio page

This is the generic letter I sent to my Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, telling them about what I'm doing.

Dear Family,

Writing this letter and disclosing what I have to tell you is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life. I should have done it months, if not years, ago but I kept putting it off. I can't put it off any longer. Please excuse me for giving you this letter, but once you finish reading it, I think you'll understand why I chose to do it this way.

Where to begin? Well, during my entire life I've had certain feelings - feelings that didn't seem to match how I was supposed to feel. I've tried everything I can think of to change my feelings, but nothing has ever worked. In early 1999 I began to search in earnest for a way to understand how I felt. With the help of some personal research and some psychological help, I have finally found some answers.

I suffer from a recognized condition known as Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID). About 1 in 10,000 men have GID. What it really means is that I'm a transsexual. And before you get the wrong idea, no I'm not gay or into some type of wild sexual fantasy thing. GID, transsexualism, is about gender and not sexuality. I am a biological male, who is heterosexual, but who has a female gender. Yes, I said that correctly. Gender is about how you feel inside - and inside, I feel female.

This conflict between my inner feelings and outward biology has plagued me ever since I can remember. (And I can remember at least as far back as age 5.) I have spent most of my life trying to resolve this conflict, with no success. I have carefully built a fake persona to hide my gender dysphoria from everyone.

In the Fall of 1999, (my wife) confronted me - sensing something was going on and wanting to know what. I had decided by that point to be honest about myself, so I told her I had GID. It came as quite a shock to her, as I'm sure you can imagine. We spent the better part of late 1999 and early 2000 trying to come up with a workable marriage arrangement, but that was seemingly impossible. In November 2000, she told me that she couldn't deal with thesituation, asked me to move out and proceed quickly with the divorce process.

So now you know what happened to my marriage. I don't blame her for feeling the way she does. I am the one who violated her trust, who hid my feelings. I hid my way through 11 years of being together. Our marriage had problems, as most do, but my disclosure was the deathblow. The kids know about the situation and so far seem to accept it. Sure, they don't understand a whole lot about it, but we will deal with the issues as they arise

You might be wondering, was the whole marriage a sham? I've thought about that one quite a bit and my conclusion is, no. I loved, and still do on some level, (my wife). I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I did hope that my feelings would change after being married, but that didn't happen. My gender conflicted feelings have never changed; they didn't change when I went from elementary to junior high school, from junior high to senior high, to college, to California, to Virginia, to being married, or to being a parent. These gender feelings and the resulting conflict have been the one constant (albeit negative) force in my life.

I'm sure you must be thinking that this is totally crazy. So what does this transsexual stuff really mean? Here is what I've learned. The scientists and doctors don't know exactly what causes it. But they believe it has something to do with an imbalance in hormone levels when the fetus is developing in the womb. It doesn't appear to be genetic, it isn't contagious and it isn't caused by anything my parents did or did not do. And it isn't caused by anything I did or didn't do. I just got lucky in the random process of being created. The brain structures of people like me indicate that physically the brain is wired like a woman's. They don't know why or how. The research on the cause goes on. As for a cure - well, there are no great answers either. Basically it all comes down to three options:

#1. Kill myself. Suicide is a way many people with GID choose to deal with living in constant conflict, pain and unhappiness. I certainly did spend a lot of time thinking about it during my teenage years, but know that it isn't something I could ever do.

#2. Learn to live with it. I've been working on that for 38 years and I can't seem to live with it. All I've learned to do is become really good at hiding it. My conflict remains. My deep unhappiness remains. I hate myself and don't enjoy anything in my life. If I keep trying to live with it, I'm afraid I'll get to the point where option #1 doesn't seem so unthinkable anymore.

#3. Change my outward biological appearance (sex) to be aligned with my internal gender. I can't seem to change my gender, and Lord knows I've tried (and the psychologist tells me it's not something that can be changed, it is pretty much set by the time a person is 2 or 3 years old), but I can change the way I look.

I have decided to take responsibility for my own happiness and act on option 3. This is not a decision I've made quickly or without a lot of painful soul-searching. I fully understand what I might be losing and gaining. I don't mean to reject the experience of being a man. It's just, I have concluded, that after a 38-year struggle, the only chance I have of ever being happy is to try being female. I've spent my entire life feeling wrong, in conflict and in pain. My "happiness" has been very carefully constructed for outward consumption. I know I will never be a "real" female, and since I've never lived a female life, I don't know what will happen or even that I will be happier. But I do know that in making this decision, I have experienced a sense of hope for the future - a hope that I might be happy, which is something I've never felt.

So, with the help of my psychologist, my regular doctor, an endocrinologist and a whole host of others, I've started to change the way I look. While I have several years of work and change ahead, I hope to ultimately look somewhat female. I would rather live the rest of my life as a woman, even an odd-looking one, than have to spend another second looking like a man and feeling this way. There is a well-defined medical and psychological protocol that must be followed, including therapy, hormone treatments, legally changing names, a period of living fulltime as the opposite sex, finally having sexual reassignment surgery and becoming legally female. I have already started the first few steps of the process.

By now you must be wondering, "What does this mean to me?" Well, it means you are going to see some changes in me. My hair is longer, I've lost over 55 pounds, I'm developing breasts and my appearance will probably seem very strange to you. It might be uncomfortable and embarrassing. It might also mean that you decide this is just too much for you to deal with and you'd rather not have contact with me. I can accept whatever you decide.

I know this is a total shock to you. I know it's unfair of me to drop this bombshell on you - but I have to let you know what I am doing. I was willing to do it in person, but after seeing how painful it was for me to tell them, Mom and Dad felt I'd been through enough and they were willing to do it for me.

It's important to me to know what you think and what your reaction is. I have tons of material available, if you want to review the books and research reports. I can put you in contact with someone who has already done what I'm beginning. You can contact me at my e-mail address: avonk@avonk.com or at my address, xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx, xxx, xxxx xxxxx, xx xxxx, phone (xxx) xxx-xxxx. And I promise you - I will answer your questions as honestly and openly as I possibly can.

The reason I'm telling you all this is because I care deeply about what you have to be thinking. You're my family and I feel very badly that I've kept my feelings hidden all these years. I would very much like you to be a part of my life - not the life I've been living the past 38 years, but the true one that I'm just beginning to create. You are not losing me and I'm not rejecting you. I'll be the same person I always was; I will just be sharing a previously hidden part of my life. I will be more than I was. And hopefully, I will finally experience the happiness that has been lacking in my life for so long.

Love,

Andi

The Letter to My Family