A Letter to My Ten-Year-Old Self

Dear Chris,

You are ten years old, and I thought I would write you a letter because there are some things I want you to know. First, you are beautiful. Right now, exactly the way you are. In the future you are beautiful too. In fact, you will grow up to become a strong, proud, beautiful Latinx woman. A model and an activist. Yes, you!

Right now I’m guessing you are finding this hard to believe. You want to feel comfortable in your skin, but you are surrounded by beautiful women who see you as their little boy. You hide your femininity even though femininity is everywhere—within you and constantly surrounding you. Literally radiating from these four beautiful Peruvian angels: your great-grandmother (La Mama), grandmother (Grandma Chela), mother (Mommie), and sister (Arissa). It is only a matter of time before they fully see inside your heart and soul.

You are just like them. Strong. They came to this country with just their religious beliefs and the strength to carry God and responsibility on their shoulders at all times. In your grandmother’s culture, being a strong woman means being a good mom and a good wife. This seems complicated to you—to become a woman who fits that mold. But that’s okay. Because, trust me, you will make your own mold. And you will do it without discarding the traditions that made you who you are.

You will never lose your love of your Peruvian culture, the food, and the stories. You will always taste the richness of papa a la huancaína, smell the bright spices, see the bold yellow shades of turmeric in the sauce. You will reach for the same alfajores cookies when you are grown up and savor them your whole life. They remind you of family and love. You will always remember the Sundays at La Tia Delia, the Peruvian restaurant where your community would gather after church. You will never discard this part of yourself. In fact, you will reconnect with it and find some of the most important parts of yourself within it. You will always savor the stories your grandmother told you about the strong Inca warriors, the architects, the farmers, the spiritual builders of magical places you will visit one day in Peru. You will build something one day too, your grandmother told you.

And you will.

But in the meantime, I want you to look at your mother. She has broken the mold, and she is building something too. Right now. Take a look at what she is doing. Raising you and your sister without the help of a man. Working several jobs to make ends meet. Doing the best she can to give you your middle-class life in New Jersey. Did you know she was only a child herself when she came to America? Maybe she was trying to be the woman her religion wanted her to be when she married so young and had your sister, enduring hardship and abuse along the way. But then she divorced and found your father. He was addicted to drugs and disowned by his family since he was only thirteen years old. Living on the streets, alone and afraid. He saw an angel in your mother too. A fair-skinned, lovely Peruvian angel. They were so deeply in love and she tried so hard to save him. But she couldn’t do it. And then they had you before he slipped away, taken by an epidemic that even an angel could not erase.

And when you were born, you entered a world of women. You have been working so hard to please them, to perform well at home as the only boy in the house, and as the child of immigrants at school. You run extra hard in gym class—the place where you are the most insecure. So unsure of your body, afraid of how others see you. You are afraid of the authority figures, the parents, the grandparents, the uncles, the godfathers, the teachers, the nuns. You are nervous of how they see you. So you pour your heart and soul into making straight A’s—you’ll do anything to see your exhausted mother beam. But when you are older you will realize you don’t have to be the best of the best in every single class to make your mother smile. Damaging your grades will not damage her love for you. She smiles when you bring her straight A’s not because of the A’s. She smiles because you are smiling. She has so much on her mind, and she is always working so hard, but seeing you smile will always make her smile.

You keep hearing the same refrain she must have heard when she came to America. If you work hard and follow the rules, it will all work out. But being a transgender first-generation American like you means you are usually going against all the rules. No matter how many A’s you make, you are still breaking the rules. You were born to a family who defies borders, and in a body that resists rules. When you got kicked out of Catholic school for kissing your crush Anthony on the cheek, you were not breaking your rules. You were breaking their rules. You felt shame when the teacher lectured your mother. You felt so guilty that you scrubbed the chalkboard as you listened. As if to clean up your mess. But you have not made a mess. I am not ashamed of you.

So forget their rules. Go to that place where you can love yourself, where you see yourself as you are. Close the door in your mother’s bathroom and feel safe in that mirror, wearing her makeup, wrapping your hair in your T-shirt. Turn on the boom box and blast the R & B, the Selena, the JLo. I wish you could open the door and let your mom and sister in on all the fun. I wish you didn’t have to go to bed hoping and praying every single night that you would wake up the next day a girl. I wish you didn’t have to ask yourself Was I born in the wrong body? Was I born in the wrong country?

Trust yourself, listen to yourself. I love that your beauty icons do not exist in magazines. They are right in your own family. If you were to emulate anyone, it would be Melissa, your oldest cousin, with her edgy beauty, her gorgeous tattoos, and her Peruvian face. Or your mother—her name is Carmen, a name you will borrow one day—with her smart business clothing and her lovely smiling face that seems to be made of pure light.

You have found what makes you feel beautiful. It is not the socks your grandmother gives you for Christmas every year because no one knows how to buy clothing for you. It is not even your obsession, Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. It is your beautiful mother, her name, her face. It is driving to the beach with her in her sports car, turning up the pop music, feeling the wind in your hair. When you grow up, you will look like her. Your uncles will say, Oh my god, you even act like her. All of the pieces of the puzzle will come together, and you will feel authentic one day. And you won’t have to wear makeup to be pretty. You won’t have to dress sexy to be a woman. You don’t have to change to be you.

You can hold on to where you came from. What made you, you. A line of strong Peruvian women. Always come back to the love that brought you here. Come back to it, even when you think they won’t accept you. Even when you fear they are ashamed of what makes you different. If you need love, there is no one better than your family. Invest in your bond with them, and help them understand who you really are.

Sometimes it will be hard for your mother to watch you grow up and become who you are. In her eyes right now, you are your dad’s only son. Your dad is gone, and she is still in love with him. So losing her son will be hard. But it’s okay to hold your mother accountable. It is her job to love you. And when you need her because you miss your father so deeply, or because you feel alone—she will be there for you. Tell her you need her. Her mothering will kick in and she will help her child. Not her gay son. Or her trans daughter. Her child.

And if you are nervous about coming out when you get older, here’s my advice. Be very perceptive and even more brave. Braver than you are every single time you get grouped with the boys at school and have to converse with them in their foreign language of boyness. Braver than when you have to undress near them before gym. Braver than the time they put your locker right next to the boy you are madly in love with, and the gym coach called you out for crushing on that boy. Pointing his finger at you so everyone would laugh. And everyone would know.

Here’s what you must do to bravely come out: When you are older, bring home your most confident and “out” friend, the one who inspires you to be yourself. Invite him to sit next to your grandmother at dinner. Allow him to shine for everyone to see. Watch the faces of your family members as they soak him in. As they see him for who he really is—a proud, funny, loud gay man. How do they respond? Measure the amount of work you will have to do to open their hearts and minds to really see you too.

And then do it.

I know you can do it.

Be proud of who you are. You will be explaining yourself to curious or nervous people for the rest of your life. Be visible. This will change the world. Help other kids see themselves in you. There are so many more like you. You are not alone.

Find a way to walk proud. To be comfortable in your skin. Find the girl in the bathroom mirror. Celebrate her. Build something, just like your grandmother said.

Go to Peru for the very first time, and bring your grandmother to the party celebrating your magazine cover in her country. The cocktails, the lights, the Peruvian celebrities all around. The meet-and-greet with hundreds of your fans in a country you’ve never even been to. But it is your country too. You share it with your grandmother. It is the country where she will see you for the first time as Carmen Carrera, the Peruvian-American model and activist. You will find yourself in every breath you take there. You will feel your power when you speak to the LGBTQ kids there. You will feel the spirit, the soul, the connection to this place and to yourself.

Imagine this. One day you will go to the judge, file the paperwork, jump through all their hoops, undergo all their evaluations, write the check, and wait for the paper to come in the mail. On February 21, 2017, you will open the envelope that contains your new birth certificate, your legal gender, your legal name. You will open the door to a whole new life. You will answer your own question. No, you were not born in the wrong body, you were just born to be born anew.

Welcome to the world, Gabriella Costa-Roman.

Honoring your father with the name Roman and your mother with the name Costa. Because she named you Christopher, meaning bearer of Christ, the one who carried the Christ child across the river. And Gabriella means woman of God. Congratulations, you no longer have to carry him on your back. You are finally allowed to be you.

But you’re already allowed to be you. Right now. I promise. So get comfortable. Get excited. A beautiful world is waiting for you.

Love,

Gabbi xoxo